Before appearing on Married… with Children in the early ’90s, Anthrax was banned by an entire TV channel.
Speaking with Metal Hammer, guitarist Scott Ian recalls MTV telling the thrash metallers that it would never play the band’s music due to their video for 1985’s “Madhouse.”
“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,” Ian says. “And 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?!'”
Instead of being upset about it, the ban emboldened the Anthrax members, who felt it was a “badge of honor” to be shunned by the mainstream channel.
“We were like, ‘F*** MTV anyway! Who need this s***?!'” Ian says. “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.”
MTV later rescinded the band and even sponsored a contest to win Anthrax trashing your home, which inspired the aforementioned Married… with Children appearance.
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