Adult Swim: Celeb-Nerdy with Anthrax's Scott Ian

In this Halloween-scented Celeb-Nerdy, we take a close look at yet another amazing famous person who just so happens to have a spooky, nerd-like fascination with an unusual subject. In this edition, we chat with Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian about his undying love of zombies. Did we scare you? Hope you took your heart meds. Here, you know what might calm you down? Spinning Anthrax's "Fight 'Em Til You Can't" off their latest, Worship Music -- but be warned: it's about zombies, too.

Fight 'Em Til You Can't

When did you first start getting interested in zombies?

I guess just watching horror movies as a kid in the '70s. I've just been into horror movies my whole life, probably since the age of five. I can remember on Saturday mornings watching these shows Chiller Theater and Creature Feature on channel 5 in New York. I was watching those instead of Saturday morning cartoons.

Was that something your parents encouraged you to watch, or did you pick it up on your own?

My mom was a big horror fan, so I guess she just passed it down.

How does that interest manifest itself these days, as an adult?

I guess the same way. As far as horror movies go, they're few and far between these days for me. More in the realm of comics and books, certainly, there's a lot of good comics and books out there, where it's zombies specifically or just horror in general. That field I guess is a lot more satisfying to me than movies have been for at least 15, or 20 years.

So for you zombie movies have gotten kind of stale?

Well, no, because the Dawn Of The Dead remake was actually great. [Laughs.] And I thought Zombieland was pretty good, too. That's two movies in the last 20 years. I wouldn't say zombie movies have gotten stale, just horror movies in general have gotten stale. They just suck. And they have sucked for a long time, except for the rare gem that comes out these days that isn't a s****y remake of a good movie from the '70s or '80s.

Dawn of the Dead (2004, Rated R)

Why do you think the studios have gotten so lazy with it?

Because they are lazy. That's the answer to the question right there, because people are lazy. They don't want to pay, and they're cheap. They don't want to pay for original material, so they go to a known source of something that's already had success and figure, "Well, we can just do this again." It's probably cheap for them to get the rights to it. I don't want to point fingers, but anything that Michael Bay does pretty much sucks. I know that's an easy target, but he seems to be remaking all these horror movies and every one of them blows.

“I don't want to point fingers, but anything that Michael Bay does pretty much sucks”

At the same point, I can't blame him. I've gotta blame the idiots who go see these remakes. If you're gonna spend money on a ticket to go see a s****y remake of Friday The 13th, it's your own fault. [Laughs.] That's why these movies keep getting made, because people keep going to see them. I just don't understand why people don't go out and get the DVDs or on Netflix watch the originals of all these movies which are so far superior to anything that's been remade.

Excluding The Walking Dead, what hidden zombie-gems have you discovered as far as graphic novels or comics?

I'm drawing a complete blank. But for me The Walking Dead, nothing has equaled that comic as far as telling a zombie story. To me, not even Dawn Of The Dead, as great as the original of that movie was -- and like I said, I did love the remake as well -- the comic The Walking Dead was the best zombie story ever done. I think it's the most realistic, the most horrific. Nobody's safe.

The one thing about movies is, generally going in, you already know by the lead actor in it that he's probably not gonna die. Ninety-nine percent. Nothing bad is going to happen to this dude. Which, already going in, is like, "Why am I even bothering if I already know the outcome of this?" That's what so great about The Walking Dead comic, is it's reality. Nobody's safe. People die. It's a zombie holocaust and people are gonna get bit. That's the bottom line. There are no heroes, it's just about survival. To me, that's the most realistic thing and I really like the TV show as well so far, and I just hope they will follow the comic in that aspect of, you know, Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes -- I'd be really bummed if he doesn't lose an arm on the TV show. I doubt it's gonna happen. But I can only hope.

Walking Dead Season 2 Trailer

Aren't you in the new season?

I was in one of the webisodes that just premiered online. They reached out to me. They were shooting a pilot for a thing called The Talking Dead, which is going to be a live call-in show that's going to air every week right after The Walking Dead. I got to be a part of that pilot. I was basically a field correspondent, and my gig was I went out onto the set of one of these webisodes. I got made up by Greg Nicotero's team, and I got to be a zombie for a day. It's something I've always wanted to do, so it just worked out so great that I got to do that.

Yeah, I was going to ask if that was a lifelong dream of yours, to be made up like a zombie by a pro.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, professionally, absolutely. It's something I've always wanted to do, and to get it done by Greg Nicotero and his people? That's the best you could ever get. [Laughs.] It was definitely an amazing day. If the makeup didn't start to pull on my face and stuff, I just would've left it on for days.

“If the makeup didn't start to pull on my face and stuff, I just would've left it on for days. ”

Was there anything about the process of getting made up like that you were surprised by?

It was just easier than I thought it was going to be. Those guys are such pros, and especially with them doing this TV show, they've really got it down to a science. They've already had my photo to work with and had already created the silicon appliqués in advance, knowing exactly what they were going to do with me. I guess just because of that, it went faster and easier than I thought it would. You always hear, "Oh, it's six hours in the make-up chair." Ninety minutes later, I looked like I had spent six hours in the make-up chair. It was amazing.

I guess zombie technology has just gotten better over the years, too.

It actually really has. They are saying now people are constantly coming up with new and better ways to do the make-up.

Where do you fall in the whole fast-moving zombies versus slow-moving zombies debate? Which do you prefer and why?

For me, it's slow. I break it down to the science of decay and you can go on zombieresearch.org and actual scientists break down the decay process of the human body. If you just suspend your disbelief enough to say, "Okay, the dead have risen and are coming back and they're walking around." You just get past that and don't attribute any supernatural qualities. Now they're just dead bodies. That's it. No superpowers or anything like that. They're just dead, decaying bodies by the time they start moving around again.

28 Days Later (2002)

Fast zombies are gonna burn themselves out much quicker. First of all, there would be no such thing as a fast zombie. Physically, as dead bodies, they wouldn't be able to move like that. Okay, if they are fast, they would burn themselves out much quicker. So in the short term they're kinda scarier and worse because they could get you easier than a slow zombie. But if you can avoid them you have a much better chance of long-term survival against the fast zombies because they're going to burn out and decay and in a matter of days they're just gonna be crawling. They're not going to be running anymore. Everything's going to have just decayed and turned to crap inside them. Their muscles aren't going to work. Their bones aren't going to work. They'll just be on the ground. If you can get through those first few days of fast zombies, you're much better off. That's why slow zombies are scarier and worse.

I prefer them in the movies because they're gonna hang around for like two years, according to the scientists. [Laughs.]

They're not gonna tucker themselves out.

No, no. Slow zombies have a two-year span, so that means you need a lot of water, a lot of food, and a really good hiding place.

Did you ever lose interest in zombies? Since you started at such a young age?

No. I saw Night Of The Living Dead around '73 or '74, but it was the first Dawn Of The Dead, in '78 or '79, that really grabbed me. It seemed so real to me, the whole concept with the shopping mall. That was what really grabbed me and shoved the zombie genre ahead of vampires or wolfmen or Godzillas, or whatever else was out there. That just became my favorite because at the time it was easily the best horror movie ever made. It might still be. It was really around that time. When I was 14 or 15. No, I never lost interest.

Have you ever been surprised to find out you have this in common with someone you might not have suspected of being interested in zombies?

No, I assume everybody is interested in zombies. Why wouldn't they? [Laughs.] It's the biggest pending threat known to mankind. Everybody should be interested and aware because when the zombie holocaust comes, I don't want to have to be saying, "I told you so" to four billion people.

“When the zombie holocaust comes, I don't want to have to be saying, "I told you so" to four billion people.”

If you got turned into a zombie, do you have a plan for what you'd do?

No, I would just want to bite people. One thing no one's ever looked at -- and I would like to see a movie made from the other side -- is how do we know it's not f***ing awesome to be a zombie? How do we know what they're thinking or feeling? Obviously we know they want to bite the living and eat us. They have this instinct to do this, but how do we know it isn't f***ing awesome? Or it could be really horrible. Who knows. No one's ever done it from that point of view.

Maybe they just want to share the good vibes and the good times.

Yeah, exactly. They're just trying to get us to turn into zombies so we can be like, "Wow, this is great! Who knew people tasted so good?"