ANTHRAX Guitarist On Why 'Mayhem Festival Cruise' Was Canceled

Earlier this month, it was announced that the first annual Mayhem Festival Cruise — which was scheduled to set sail on Friday, December 7, 2012 from the Port of Miami, Florida and travels to the Bahamas, returning to the mainland on Monday, December 10 — was canceled.

Last week, Jason Simms got a chance to interview Scott Ian for an upcoming feature on ANTHRAX in The Oregonian. While Jason had Scott on the phone, he asked the guitarist for his thoughts on the cancelation, since ANTHRAX was to be one of the voyage's headliners. Here's what he said in its entirety.

"I saw the press release [announcing the cancelation], and we were as surprised as everybody else. We were literally out on the [Rockstar Energy Drink] Mayhem [Festival] tour when we heard that the cruise was canceled.

"It's a bummer. We were all really looking forward to it.

"It's funny because us MACHINE HEAD, LAMB OF GOD, we're all good friends, we've all known each other forever. None of us had ever been on a cruise before. We were all in Europe this summer playing festivals together and we were like, 'What do you think of this cruise thing? What's your take on it?' Everyone was kind of like, 'Alright, it's a little weird, we're going to be stuck on this boat for four days,' but everyone was excited that we were going to get to hang out and all get really shitty and have a lot of fun. I know all of us were bummed and I heard from the MACHINE HEAD guys that they were bummed.

"Yeah, I don't know why [it was canceled]. I can speculate and think that maybe in this economy, it's kind of tough to sell a ticket for that much money. You get all these bands and it's three days on a boat, if you break it down to what it's costing you per day, it doesn't seem like a lot of money. But I understand where we're at in this world in 2012. People just don't have that kind of money to shell out. I can only assume it comes down to that."

Mayhem Festival Cruise promised to offer fans a chance to experience a blistering 90-minute set from each one of six killer heavy metal bands — LAMB OF GOD, MACHINE HEAD, ANTHRAX, HATEBREED, SUICIDE SILENCE and KINGDOM OF SORROW — as well as additional showcase sets from Century Media, Metal Blade Records, Roadrunner Records and Sumerian Records artists, including GOJIRA, PERIPHERY, BORN OF OSIRIS, BATTLECROSS, OTHERWISE, GIRL ON FIRE, ANTI MORTEM, and GYSPYHAWK. Mayhem veterans JDevil (Jonathan Davis of KORN) and DJ Starscream (Sid of SLIPKNOT) were also slated to perform full DJ sets each night.

For more information, visit www.MayhemCruise.com.