Scott Ian explains why Anthrax was banned from MTV in the 80s

Formed in New York City back in 1981 by the guitarist Scott Ian and bassist Dan Liker, Anthrax became one of the most influential Thrash Metal bands of all time. They are part of the big four and are one of the most successful bands of the sub-genre.

Their debut album was “Fistful of Metal”, released in 1984 but they started to become more famous with the second one, “Spreading the Disease” (1985). In an interview with Metal Hammer, Scott Ian recalled that it was because of that album that they got banned from MTV for a while.

Scott Ian explains why Anthrax was banned from MTV in the 80s

That record had the song “Madhouse”, which is one of their most famous tracks, which is a song about going insane. The music video shows them playing in an insane asylum with several mental patients. After submitting the video to MTV, they received a letter saying they were banned.

“It was submitted to MTV, which was a bit of a long shot anyway for a band named ‘Anthrax‘ and playing the music we played. MTV came back to us and very politely said, ‘We will never air this. You are banned from MTV, because we feel that you are making fun of the mentally impaired. We were like, ‘What?!'”

“We were like, ‘Fuck MTV anyway! Who needs this shit?!’ This was before Headbangers Ball became a thing in the 80s. We were very excited about it. I think the label put out a press release saying we were officially banned from MTV. Of course, that gets people excited,” Scott Ian said.

But they were finally successful on MTV, specially with “Antisocial”, which was a version of the song of the same name released by the French band Trust.