“I love that somebody’s job is finding new ways to murder people:” Scott Ian on Blood And Guts

Every week on the Nerdist YouTube channel, Scott Ian (Anthrax, the Damned Things) meets his violent, blood-soaked maker with some of the best special effects makeup and prosthetic artists in the horror game for Blood And Guts.

We caught up with the guitarist and self-proclaimed horror nerd to talk gore, what goes on behind the scenes of slasher flicks and how he feels about being sliced, diced and shot at week after week for the new season of Blood And Guts.

Blood And Guts is currently in its third season and airs every Thursday until Halloween on the Nerdist Channel. Check out the October 17 episode below!

INTERVIEW: Cassie Whitt

You’ve been a horror fan your entire life. How did you get involved in the horror scene? What attracted you to it?
SCOTT IAN: I’ve just been into it since I was a little kid watching horror movies since I was four or five. It is something I’ve never gotten tired or bored of–watching movies, reading books and comics. I’m a massive Stephen King fan as well. It’s been a part of my life forever, and being able to do Blood And Guts and, in some little, tiny way, get to be a part of that world has just been a blast for me.

Having grown up with horror, does going behind the scenes give you a greater appreciation for it, or does clearing the smoke and mirrors take away some of the fun?
Well, I kind of already had an idea of how things work. Someone asked me recently if there was anything that surprised me, and no, I can’t really say that there is anything surprising about it. It’s just technical aspects of how the effects are created through the things they do, how they think about things and how they come up with things. So that creative side for me is what I find the most interesting, just, you know, the fact that guys sit around and think of new and better ways to kill people on-screen. I love that that is somebody’s job, that someone is constantly trying to push that envelope and trying to find new and better ways to murder people.

You said nothing really shocked you, but has anything ever really grossed you out, where you were like, “Oh man, that’s gnarly.”
No, I can’t say that. It would take really, really, a lot. If anything, I’m just like “More, more, more!” I can say that cleaning up afterwards is a little annoying. [Laughs.] Like, a week later, my wife would be like, “You’ve got some weird glue stuck to the side of your head.” I’m like, “Still?!” But other than that, no. Nothing grosses me out.

What is the most involved or prolonged prosthetic application you’ve undergone for the show?
Off of the top of my head, Joel Harlow’s [Makeup, Pirates of the Caribbean] [H.P. Lovecraft’s] Fishman makeup was pretty intensive. Even when I got my face cut in half by Rob Hall [CGI, Buffy The Vampire Slayer], a lot of that was CG, so that wasn’t really my face. Actually, you know what? It’s either Joel Harlow turning me into Fishman or Jennifer Aspinall [makeup, Saturday Night Live, The Toxic Avenger] turning me into, you know, the kind of weird Jerry Garcia. It was probably one of those two because those were certainly the longest. There’s one you haven’t seen yet. Where we would kind of do a throw back to ‘80s gore, which was actually pretty cool. I don’t want to give too much of that away.

Is there anything you’re super-excited for this season that you would like to tease?
We just did an episode for the first time with not a makeup icon, but an actual character. It was the first time we got to work with a character from many movies. I’m not going to say how many because I’m not going to spoil it. But that was amazingly exciting.

What is your all-time favorite kill scene from a horror film that you would like to emulate?
There are a couple. One of my favorites ever is in Dawn Of The Dead where the biker sits down in the blood pressure machine all in the midst of zombies attacking and he decides to get his blood pressure taken and of course, he gets his arm ripped off, and he is on the floor and the zombies rip up his whole belly and eat all of his guts. Or there is a scene where, I think it was Maniac, and I think it was [the work of Tom] Savini, where he jumps on the hood of the car and blasts the guy in the front seat and blows his head off. Those are two that I would love to redo.

What’s your favorite way you’ve gotten “killed” so far on the show?
The first one that pops into my head is getting my head chainsawed, of course. That was certainly the bloodiest. The most over-the-top was Jerry Constantine and that was amazing. I was actually running one of the fire extinguishers attached to the hose, pumping blood, so of course, I went completely crazy with it. That one is the first one. And then in a smaller way there was a Gary Tunnicliffe episode where the camerawoman turns into a zombie, bites me in the neck and then Gary shoots her in the head. I thought that was pretty awesome. As well as the Ron Trost episode where I just get shot and they had the squibs tied to my chest.

How many times do you get to see someone get shot on TV or in a movie in your life? Like a billion times. But actually getting to do that for the first time, I was actually nervous. Having the little squib attached to me, I was like, “Okay, there’s going to be a little pop and a sting, but you know it’s fine.” I was actually nervous, like, “Are you sure this isn’t going to, like, blow me up or something?” And he was like, “No, that’s why they hire me, so they don’t blow people up.” That was also a lot of fun. Every one of them is fun. I get to do all the crazy stuff that I’ve only ever seen on the screen my whole life, and now I get to be a part of it. A lot of the time these guys are, like, apologizing to me when they’re making me up or doing things. I’m like, “Are you kidding me, dude? I wish I could do this every day. Just please let me be in a movie and let me do this every day.” I would love it. >>>

THIS WEEK ON BLOOD AND GUTS:

You actually got to take that bust of yourself that you got chainsawed in half home with you, right?
Yeah, after the head was chainsawed, Jerry sewed it back up. So it looks even worse, if that’s even possible. The head was detached from the other side, and he sewed it back on, which caused it to have weird bulges, and it was not quite even. It just looks amazing. It’s down in my studio, and it is the centerpiece.

How did you get involved in this series in the first place?
I’ll try to make a long story short. You know the show Talking Dead that Chris Hardwick does?

Yeah.
So, initially, the Talking Dead thing, they asked me to be a part of that initial pilot. It was Chris, myself and another guy. Basically my job was that he sent me out as a field reporter for the webisodes. So my thing was that I was made up to be a zombie, I got to be a walker, and was part of this pilot that they put together for AMC. But they moved forward in that show only with Chris, so I didn’t get my gig as a field reporter. Which I was a little bummed about, but what was I going to do? And then not too long after that, Chris hit me up and said, “Hey, we’ve got this idea for a show on Nerdist, and we think you’d be perfect for it. So are you into it?” I said yeah, I would love to do something like that. And that is basically how Blood and Guts came to be.

We’re all music people here, and I think it’s pretty abundantly clear that metal and horror have always had a tie. But for you, what is that connecting point? How do you bring your love of horror into your music?
I don’t know. I don’t analyze it. But I’m sure somehow it influences me certainly because I’ve written songs based on Stephen King characters over the years. It’s not something that I really think about when I’m coming up with ideas for lyrics. Something may pop into my head and if I find a way to use it, I use it. It’s not something that I think about in advance. It’s not like I’m going to see a horror movie next week and go, “Oh, I’m writing a song about this.” That’s just not how it works. It’s just when I’m writing lyrics there’s a ton of shit in my brain and sometimes something will relate to something I’ve seen on the screen already and maybe I’ll find a way to use that. But other than that, I don’t really think about it.

It sounds like it is kind of a part of you. Like it has always been there.
Yeah. I mean so much of it is in my brain since I was a kid. From reading comics at the age of five and starting to watch horror movies on TV on Saturday mornings. It’s all in there.

You’ve mentioned films, novels and comics. What’s your favorite horror medium?
Probably books. For me, sitting down and reading is one of the most enjoyable things. And I read more good books than see good movies. And also you know, when a movie is made from a book, nine times out of 10, the book is better. So I’d have to say books. And I still get to read books. I don’t get to go to the movies all that often anymore. So I catch up on airplanes and on iTunes when I’m on tour. Reading is still something that I can do. But throughout my whole life, my introduction to all of this was comic books. I started reading Marvel and DC in the late ’60s, and that opened the door to anything that came after, so really for me, it all goes back to reading in the first place.

We are fittingly talking horror during the month of Halloween. Do you have any plans? Are you going to get together with your horror makeup friends and scare the hell out of anyone?
If I was going to some kind of party or event, I would ask one of these dudes to hook me up. But we aren’t really doing anything like that. My son has his awesome Hulk costume, and he’s all set. And he wants Daddy to be Iron Man, and I’m probably going to find one of those pre-made Iron Man costumes and tuck my beard underneath. But that’s the thing about my beard, you know, it kind of ruins most costumes. You can’t be a lot of things with this beard. It doesn’t look right. And so anything with a mask is good, and I can hide it. I would love to go to something completely unrecognizable and been made up by one of these pro dudes and really just blow people’s minds.

That would be so cool.
Yeah, I could be a real ringer at a contest and ask Joel Harlow to make me up again as something and just win every Halloween contest.

Every single Halloween contest known to man. They’re all yours.
When I was with Rick Baker and he was showing me all of these pictures of his kids made up for Halloween, I was like, “Your kids must win every time.” And he’s like, “Yeah, they’re not allowed to compete anymore in the competitions.”

Is there anything else you want to add about this season of the show or about the Nerdist channel?
I just think the show keeps getting better and better. My director, Jack [Bennett], and my [director of photography] on the show Justin [Cruse] are just awesome and super-creative. We’re doing something on the show with a shoestring budget, and it just looks amazing how we shoot it and what we do. And what’s also so cool is people in this industry just love to be a part of it. We are asking these people to do movie-quality effects for our little, tiny internet show on the Nerdist channel, and they are doing stuff that is essentially costing them money. It just shows you how people love to do what they do, and it goes to show you that it’s not all about money. It’s just been an amazing experience getting to work with all these guys. We are putting it all up on the screen for people to see. People are always asking, “Well, how much does this cost to download your show?” And I’m like, “It doesn’t cost anything!” You can download our show on the Nerdist channel or on YouTube or just Google “Scott Ian Blood And Guts.” People should just check it out. Even if you’re not into horror, I think it is just a cool show. It could open the door for you.

I know that on Sy Fy, they have Face Off. It’s a bigger-budget makeup show. You’re doing something that is just as cool.
Yeah, I haven’t seen that show, and I don’t know what they’re doing, but there isn’t much out there, certainly on the internet or TV that is doing what we are doing. I would love if a network would want it and pick this up and flesh this out into a solid 30-minute show once a week. We shoot so much. I can’t tell you how much footage. They have about seven to eight hours of footage that Jack every week has to narrow down to eight or nine minutes. And it would be amazing to bump it up to an actual 30-minute episode.

Well I hope you get to. I’d like to see that.
Yeah, you hear that TV networks?

When we promote this we will make sure to tag every TV network that has a Twitter account.
AMC needs content. Breaking Bad is off the air. C’mon. Blood And Guts. Pick it up. ALT