The Song Scott Ian Declares Is the 'Greatest Anthrax Song' in Our History

While it is natural for bands to talk up their new album, Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian boldly claims one of the new songs from their upcoming Cursum Perficio album is "the greatest Anthrax song in the history of Anthrax."

Ian made the proclamation about the song "The Edge of Perfection," which could also be an indicator of how the band feels about the track. He told Full Metal Jackie during her weekend radio show, "There's a song called "Edge of Perfection," which I think is the greatest Anthrax song in the history of Anthrax. We have not written anything this great in our career. And to do that all these years in makes it all the more special."

The guitarist would later reveal that the song is very much about his family and striving to maintain "The Edge of Perfection" as the title suggests. "I think that I've never had any real other goal in my life except to be happy. And I am," he shares.

Ian also gets into the journey of the creation of the Cursum Perficio album, speaks on the "It's for the Kids" single and he praises his favorite riffs from the new record. Ian also reflects on some of his favorite experiences with 2026 tourmates Iron Maiden, shares his favorite reflection on Ozzy Osbourne and has a little fun with Jackie in curating three headliners for his dream music festival.

Check out more of the chat below.

It's Full Metal Jackie, and this week we've got thrash royalty in the house. From the mighty Anthrax, it is a pleasure to welcome Mr. Scott Ian back to the show. We are thrilled to let you know that a new album, Cursum Perficio, if I'm hopefully pronouncing it right, is upon us. Scott, the album title roughly translates to, "My journey ends here."

Right.

Can you speak to the ups and downs of making this record, and was there a turning point where it all started to truly take shape?

The initial plan was we finished touring for For All Kings. That tour ended in the fall, specifically November of 2019 and our idea was we were going to then break for the holidays in December, reconvene after the new year, some point in January, and get in the room and really start writing because we already had ideas.

And then of course, the world had other plans for everybody going into early 2020. So that was just like this giant pause button that got pushed. But a pause with a huge unknown behind it, not just like a normal pause and like, "Hey, guys, I need a break," or whatever.

It was a pause where by the end of 2020 and going into '21, we would literally be on Zoom calls with each other wondering if we were ever gonna play a show again or if we were ever gonna make a record again. Nobody knew. It seems silly now almost to think about that, but if there was ever a real question, that was a real question, certainly for bands. Nobody knew what was happening. Venues were closed all over the planet. nobody knew if we are ever going to be allowed to gather in one place again, you know? So all those questions were being asked for almost two years and it was very hard for us to creatively move forward in that time period.

So I could say it was at some point in '22, I think, when we realized we are going to play shows again and then we were able to get in a room together here in Los Angeles. And with a lot of us getting in a room together again and starting to work on new material earnestly with a lot [energy]. Just the energy was unbelievable because there was a solid almost two years there where we didn't know if we were ever gonna get to do it again.

So that was certainly the turning point at the end of COVID and we knew we still had jobs and we knew we were still gonna get to do this and we were gonna play shows again. And from that point in 2022, certainly, I wouldn't say things were on a fast track because it was never the case of us feeling like we had to rush anything. But certainly, we knew that we get to do this again and now we can go get back to the serious work of making a new album.

We are talking about the journey of the new album, Cursum Perficio. Is that how you say it?

It was interesting when Charlie [Benante] first kinda floated that as an album title idea and I was like, "Cool. Let's put out an album with a title that's super hard for people to pronounce. That'll be fun."

But I love it because I love what it means because it really is fitting. It certainly was a journey from A to B for us to get this album made. To go in with the best intentions ever of we're gonna start writing a record and then have the world tell us no. That's a scenario we had certainly never been in before.

So I think that the title speaks volumes about what it was like for us and it really does capture the emotion of not being able to move forward as a band and literally have your whole world pulled out from underneath you..

Scott, early word of mouth is that this is some of your best work. It's not only been a long wait for fans but a long wait for you. What is that period like as an artist when you've got it done, but you still can't openly talk about it yet? And what was your experience of hearing it back as a finished album for the first time?

Yeah, it's been really hard to not. Most people obviously haven't heard it. It's really difficult to not just wanna sneak and like, "Hey, the album suddenly showed up," like leak my own record because I just can't wait for people to hear this.

There was a point while we were recording this because we did it in two sessions, the drums anyway. We went in and recorded at some point in '23. Actually [producer] Jay Ruston, I had actually asked him this question today, Jay who produced the record, because I couldn't even remember. We started the first session in April 20, 2023 here in L,A. and we, we tracked five or six songs on drums and then of course guitars, bass, vocals, whatnot.

And then at some point, we went in again probably later that year or early '24, I don't remember specifically and then recorded the rest of it. And it was a really great way to do it because I think for us, if we've learned anything from our past, is to have let's say 12, 13 tracks and have this huge amount of this huge volume of material to then have to go work on and finish. It's a bit like jumping into the deep end of a pool and not knowing how to swim. It's just too much. And there's so much pressure.

Even physically the amount of work to track all of that stuff, get all the guitars done. And I would always feel like if I had more time to do this, it would be a better record because I would have more time to live with it and I would have more time to come up with more ideas. Because the more I listen to this and the more I am living with it, the more ideas I'm going to have. And if you've got a giant mountain of songs in front of you, you're just not gonna spend the time. So splitting it up into two sessions was the best idea ever.

Scott, you were talking earlier about breaking the recording up into two separate sessions this time around. Tell us more about why that approach really worked for the band.

Because it just really did give us so much more time to live with it and to work on it. When  that first batch of songs was done, we had months and months until we were going back in to do the next batch and to come up with more ideas and to change things, like a painter with a painting. We were able to constantly go back and fix things and change things and discover new things.

It's only made everything better in the end. Really, everything had so much more of a time to breathe and so much more time for us to work on it. That's all we've ever wanted was to be able to do that.

No deadlines, just be able to work on it and not rush. And certainly after COVID there was no way we were gonna rush anything out. The album was gonna be done when it's done. And when it was done and being able to sit through and listen to mixes one after the other, man, it, just was unlike anything we'd ever done before.

From front to back, consistency from song to song and specifically even certain songs. There's a song called "Edge of Perfection," which I think is the greatest Anthrax song in the history of Anthrax. We have not written anything this great in our career. And to do that all these years in makes it all the more special.

And "It's for the Kids," the first single, which I think is just a straight-up love letter to our fans. At some point when we were making the record, I said, "You know what's missing right now? A really just straight-up in your face, punch in the face, kick in the teeth four-minute Anthrax song. I'm not hearing that yet."

So we kinda had that focus when we were going into the second session of like, "Okay, let's make sure we have that." And then Charlie sent me these parts and Frankie [Bello] sent me some parts and then I spent some time arranging it and that became "It's for the Kids." I add some parts, too. It was a true collaborative effort. I'm so happy that's the first thing that anyone's gonna hear because think it's the definition of our band and it's a love letter to the fans certainly.

I don't know if I answered all the questions you asked me, but I'm very, very happy with the album.

Anthrax, "It's for the Kids"

Scott, it's been a long run for Anthrax. There are certain songs that are timeless that feel like they could've come from any time period. But the truth is that sometimes you needed that life experience and that stroke of magic just to get there. Are there songs on this record that you feel only could've come from where the band is at as artists today and it was just the right time for this material to have arrived?

Yeah. I mean, I could say that every album we've ever done is a stamp. It's a mark in time of who we were in that moment when we were writing it. Yeah, I don't think something from Among the Living could be written today or even could it have. It couldn't have been written before it was written. Yeah. If that makes any sense. It really is all about who we are through the time that we spent writing the songs.That's absolutely where they come from.

For me specifically lyrically, 'cause I'm writing all the lyrics, everything is generally very timely, very about who I am in my life when I'm writing it. There are moments on all our records where maybe I get nostalgic or I'm looking back specifically at a moment in time that I'm interested to write about. There's a song on this record called "NYC '93" which musically we had the arrangement musically and there was just something about it.

It's very much a thrash song and was just making me feel about a time and a place. It's called "NYC '93," but it is also very indicative of, let's say, '90 through '93 and where I was at in my life. And it was so much fun for me to write the lyrics to that song about being in New York at that time through the Persistence of Time and Sound of White Noise time in our lives and who I was and what was going on. People I was hanging out with I think will catch some of the lyrics and  I may have buried some stuff in metaphor, but at the same time, when I have a line that says, "The green Manalishi with the black tooth crown," it's kind of obvious what I'm talking about. So that song for me is just pure joy. All smiles, laughing and just so much fun to be a part of.

READ MORE: Anthrax's Frank Bello on 'Cursum Perficio' - 'This Is the Album We Need'

There's "Edge of Perfection," which I mentioned earlier, which I think is the greatest thing we've ever done, is very much about me, my family, what it means to me to have a family and living my life in this place of where nothing's ever perfect. That would be a lie. But being on the edge of perfection is a really good place to be if you can be there. And striving to maintain that and working at that,  I think that I've never had any real other goal in my life except to be happy. And I am.

You know what emotion is more powerful than love? Hate, hate comes and goes unless you're a complete piece of a human being. But for me, love lasts forever. It stays. It's so much more powerful and that's the strongest emotion I've ever experienced and that's what that song is, is certainly based in. It's very of its time for sure.

Scott, right out of the gate we've got a high energy rocker and I love the title. You touched on this earlier. "It's for the Kids." Kind of a nostalgic title, but fitting. Where did the song come from and can you speak to why it's the perfect introduction to kick off this album?

Back in the '80s, it was just this expression. It almost became a cliche and then a joke because you'd always say, "Well, do it for the kids. Do it for the kids." And then that almost became like a thing like all right, enough already. Do it for the kids.

We're gonna do it for ourselves first.And not just us. This was like all the bands from our peers back then in the '80s. It just became this joke like, "Oh, we're doing it for the kids," meaning our fans and not literally children. Although maybe some of our fans were children at the time, age-wise. But there's a big part of that in the song about wanting to do things your own way and really doing things for yourself first because if I love it, that's all I care about really. And if I love it,

I feel like people that are gonna get to hear or see whatever it is are, most of them will hopefully feel the same way, but there's some of that in that song and then there's also certainly just the idea of the world and look, this isn't a political record. Although politics are in the record, but this isn't like some anti-government, anti-Trump rant of an album because to me that would be the most boring thing I could do for me 'cause like I said,"If I gotta do it for myself, I, if I'm bored, well, everyone else is gonna feel that."

But there are things, of course, that make me angry and one of them specifically is the lack of empathy and the lack of really any type of forward movement for the kids of this country,. To quote The Onion, which is one of, is my favorite newspapers, we live in the only country in the world where mass shootings happen over and over and over and over and over again and seemingly nothing can be done about it.

That kind of sarcastic way of looking at things is very much up my alley. And that's also what I'm saying in this song. It's like, hey, everybody seemingly pretends to love children, but only some people put their money where their mouth is and that's also a big idea that runs through this song.

Scott I've seen in some other discussions leading up to the album you praising the amount of quality riffs on this record. Do you have a favorite off this record? And where would it rank among your favorites from the Anthrax catalog?

Wow. a favorite. There's the intro riff to the song "Target on My Back" and we just spell it T-O-M-B, tomb. The intro to that song, which it's like this super simple grinding two note thing. I just lose my mind when I hear that. It's just, it's just so heavy. I love it. I just wish it could follow me around like my theme music as I'm the city or like a '70s cop show. It's like my entry music. It's so crushingly heavy.

There's so many moments like that. The breakdown riff in "It's for the Kids." That riff too. It's what I like to call ignorant. The riff is so ignorant. It's so caveman. It's so dumb. And I mean that in the best of ways because it's just there. It's just a hammer beating you over the head. It's so heavy and so hard and for me, I come from that world and I just love those really, really simple [riffs].

I love Tony Iommi. I love Black Sabbath and he's the master of that. Think of the breakdown, the middle section of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and then you understand what I'm talking about. That style of thing and when I hear us doing things like that, but with like my guitar tone and Charlie's drumming and Frankie's bass and so on and so on. That's my favorite is when it's just crushingly heavy. I guess those two would be the two that come to mind.

Scott, I realize touring is just coming together for the new record, but I do see several dates with the upcoming Rock Hall inductees Iron Maiden coming up. I know there's a long history, but first off being a fan of the band and then obviously developing a relationship as peers, do you recall your first introduction to any of the Iron Maiden members?

When I was a kid going to see Iron Maiden for the first time in 1981, they were opening for Judas Priest at the Palladium in New York City. They were on Killers, so this is with Paul Di'Anno. And I was hoping to meet some of them. Me and my buddies were knocking on tour bus doors looking to meet anyone, Priest or Maiden, and trying to get some guitar picks.

We were lucky enough that a man named Bill Barclay opened up the door of one of the buses. Turned out he was Dave Murray's tech and he was kind enough to give us some guitar picks at the time. Bill ended up becoming Iron Maiden's tour manager at some point. He ended up being Anthrax's tour manager at some point.

He's gone on to be one of the biggest tour managers in the business. But I didn't actually meet anyone from Maiden that night. If I'm correct, I don't think I met anyone from Maiden until I think when they did that run of Radio City shows on Powers lave? Was that '85? But  I feel like whenever that run of Radio City shows was when they had like seven nights booked, sold out. They canceled two of them 'cause Bruce was sick. And it was at one of those shows.

But somehow a bunch of us got invited to an after party somewhere. And Charlie and Frankie had met these guys way before this, like pre-Anthrax days, knocking on tour buses and they ended up like meeting Steve Harris and like hanging out with that dude years before this.

But in '85, somehow we got invited to an after party and they were there and at least I got introduced for the first time and got to hang with them and talk to a bunch of them and they couldn't have been nicer and kinder.

I do have a very specific memory. In '86 on the next album, like Somewhere in Time, getting to go up onstage and sing that whoa, whoa, whoa, oh, oh. But I remember getting to run out onstage and stand next to Steve Harris and sing that.

And then in '87, Steve Harris was on the side of the stage at Castle Donington when we played Monsters of Rock for the first time, our first ever festival show. And he was standing there watching our set and we went down really well and it made it even more exciting to look over to see Steve with a big smile on his face and come up to you after the show and say, "That was brilliant, mate. You know, you you guys are on the right path."

Scott, earlier you were talking about, you know, those early days meeting Maiden, then hitting the road with them. We left off in '87 at Monsters of Rock, Steve Harris side stage watching you guys. What happens next?

The next year we opened the world tour for them. We spent six months together in like 1988 touring North America and Europe, '90 and '91 or whenever that was and oh '88 we did Monsters of Rock with them, sorry, in Europe. Then '90, we toured the world with them on Persistence of Time for us. And I mean, those guys couldn't have treated us better. Well, actually they could have, 'cause in 2016 they took us out and we got to fly on their 747 with them.

Oh, wow.

Which, I mean, if there was ever a time to say, "Maybe we should call it quits," it would've been after that 'cause it will never be as good as that ever again. Getting to fly on a 747 with Iron Maiden and Bruce Dickinson as your pilot? I couldn't even have made that up as a kid, let alone have it actually happen. You wanna talk about high points!

When he's flying the plane, is he in super serious pilot mode or does he make jokes over the loudspeaker?

Both. It's both. We'd see him. It would be the night after a show and we'd be back in the hotel bar 'cause we're all traveling together, so we'd stay in the same hotels and all that. And we'd be in the hotel bar, everyone would be hanging out and if you saw Bruce with a beer, that means he wasn't flying the next morning 'cause you have to be X hours without a drink. So if he doesn't have a beer, you knew he was flying.

So then you'd walk up the steps to get on the plane and Bruce would be there in his full uniform, full pilot's uniform with the whole flight crew greeting all of you as you walk on the onto the plane and then when he'd be on the PA telling you, just like a pilot does, all the stuff the pilot announces about the flight pattern and we're gonna be at 38,000 feet cruising altitude and blah blah blah blah. But he would also say things like, "Thank you very much to the Anthrax guys for the beautiful bottle of champagne. We'll open that up later when I'm not working."

That is great!

It's just mind-blowing. Even my son Revel was out on that and Pearl came out and they got to fly on the plane. Revel was not even five at the time. He already loved Maiden, so he'd see Maiden in a stadium show in South America, of course, in front of the sickest crowds.

And then the next morning, Bruce would be standing there in his pilot's uniform. And I remember one day, Revel just looked at me and he said, "Daddy, Bruce is a superhero."

He is. That's so cute.

He is.

Scott, we were just talking about getting a chance to share stages with Iron Maiden this year. As someone who I know is a fan of music, what is your go-to Iron Maiden album of choice and why?

Oh, come on. You're killing me here. That's one of those questions that you only ever have to answer if someone was literally holding a gun to your head. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I know no one's ever gonna come up to you in an alley and put a gun to your head, and you're like, "Please, here, take my wallet." "I've got a family." Like, "No, no, no, no, no. Which Iron Maiden album is your favorite?" "I need an answer." That's never gonna happen, so.

But I get it. I get, I get it. So I mean, Killers and Number of the Beast. I don't know that I could actually choose between the two. They're equal in my mind. They're both just perfect albums. Both of them are perfect. I don't know how I would ever choose. I guess I would have to at some point if someone was literally threatening my life over this question. But yeah, it's those are the two and certainly, they're the two I've listened to the most in my life, so I guess that would be.

This year feels like a great year for an Anthrax celebration. I wanted to mention we recently had John Bush on the show and he's got his band revisiting his era of Anthrax material for select dates.

Right.

And now we get Anthrax back with a new record and more shows coming up.. Have you spoken at all with John about what he's been doing and how it's going? And do you feel that level of excitement coming from the Anthrax fan base as things start building back up?

Yeah. I mean, John and I are close friends. We have been forever. So there was whispers about this ages ago. I think it's something that John had been thinking about for a really long time and I think it was just a case of just figuring out the hows and the whens for him.

But we've been nothing but supportive of it. I remember him asking me about it once. I'm like, "You don't need to, do whatever you want, bro." It's like I celebrate it. I love, I love that you're gonna go out and do this. The only bummer for me was when he did the run of dates where he played L.A. and he played New York, I was in the opposite city. I missed him both times and I was hoping. Like, I even asked him. I said, "Hey," 'cause I thought I was gonna be home for the L.A. show. And I said, "Can I come up and play a couple songs?" And then he said to me, "They're your songs. You don't need to ask me." And then it turned out I couldn't be there. So I would love to get to do that again at some point.

Like I said John and I are good friends and that kinda transcends. That's really all that matters to me. I'm stoked about that he did that and I'm stoked that there's a new Armored Saint record. And I'm stoked that everything seems to be heading in the right direction for us. We've done a bunch of touring in the last few years. We had that really big run we did where we had Black Label Society out with us. It was so good, we got to do it twice  in the States. We got to do a whole second leg in Canada and some of those shows were our biggest headlining shows ever. We were playing arenas in Canada in some places.

Everything's just pointing in the right direction. We just did a run of dates with Megadeth in Canada where we were direct support on that. All arenas again and  the shows really couldn't have been better for us. It's just really exciting.

I think the Anthrax world is really healthy. I think the metal world in general is really healthy. Hardcore too. Both genres. I think they're in a better place in 2026 than they have been really in forever. Not just out of nowhere. It's been building and building for the last two decades. But I think just overall, things are really healthy in metal and I'd like to think it's good timing for an Anthrax record.

Scott, Just for fun, I'm gonna put your music fandom to the test. Someone... Okay, we'll say it's me. We hand over the keys and say, "Scott, I want you to curate a music festival." In your ideal scenario, who are the first three bands you'd be interested in booking?

Anyone, like alive or dead  or is it just ...

Sure. Let's go with alive or dead.

That in a way [makes it harder], I'm just gonna be selfish and pick bands I never got to see with... So AC/DC with Bon Scott would be first 'cause that's my favorite thing ever of anything. Next would be Thin Lizzy, the live album lineup. And well, I guess I gotta go Led Zeppelin.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

That pretty cool lineup.

That's another band that obviously I never got to see that either. John [Bonham] died and I never got to see it, so. It would be those bands in their prime. And nothing against them now. But we're talking alive or dead, it's my fantasy. So it would be those three bands in their prime.

Love that.

I get to see it. People probably would be like, "Well, why isn't Sabbath on that list?" And I'm like, "Well, 'cause I saw them." I got to see Sabbath a bunch with the original lineup.

Yeah.

You could say The Ramones too. I got to see The Ramones a whole bunch of times. So those are the three, I think. They're my biggest misses as far as not getting to see those bands.

Scott, earlier you were talking about Black Sabbath and obviously we're gonna be coming up on a year since the Back to the Beginning show which you guys played. It's almost a year too from when we lost Ozzy. Tell us your favorite Ozzy memory.

The first thing that popped in my head was when we were out on tour with him in '88 and we were we were going to film a video for "Antisocial" on that tour. And so we were capturing lots of live footage and audiences from the tour and whatnot. And then someone had the idea, what if on one of the shows we had someone in the Not Man head running around out in the audience and we'll get footage of that. And then what if we asked Ozzy if he would wear the Not Man head and then take it off, like the reveal at the end of the video like everybody knows.

And it's Ozzy taking the head off like he's been that dude all along. And that's him out there running around in the crowds every night. The fact that he said yes. We're a bunch of kids. I'm  24 years old on tour with one of my all-time heroes.

And we ask him, "Would you be the Not Man in our video?" Like, just expecting [a 'no']. But the fact that we were able to just ask him. He had said to us on that tour at one point, first couple of shows he comes into the dressing room and he tells us, "You know, anything you guys want, anything you guys need, you come to me. Don't worry about management or crew people. Just come directly to me and I'll make sure it happens."

So we just asked Ozzy if he would be the Not Man. AndI'm sure our manager spoke to Sharon as well. But we did say to him, "Hey, would you put the thing on and take it off and all that and..." And he did it. So, I mean, that's the one that I guess right off the bat just sticks out for me.

Not only was he cool enough to share his stage with us, but then he was like, "Yeah, I'll be in your video too." Like, what more what more could you ask for?

Obviously Anthrax is about to take over a, majority of your time, but is there anything else on the your horizon that you'd like to get to if the time opens up? Is there a to-do list when the calendar clears up?

There's always a list of stuff. But this album's coming out soon. Things are going to ramp up very quickly. As it is, we're spending seven weeks in Europe and then we've got a bunch of one-offs with Maiden again coming up, uh, end of August through September into the beginning of October. I think the last one with them is Mexico City. But we do the Jersey shows with them and the L.A. shows with them and the San Antonio show with them. And we've got Louder Than Life we're doing, Then we do get a little break in the fall and through the holidays because the real touring, I believe, will be a little bit after that. But yeah, it's safe to say '27 and all the way through '28 is going to be nonstop Anthrax.

Thanks to Anthrax's Scott Ian for the interview. The Cursum Perficio album is en route Sept. 18 and pre-orders are currently being taken. Stay up to date with Anthrax through their website, Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie's weekend radio show here.

Below, check out the most anticipated rock and metal albums of 2026.