Whether you think it’s for better or for worse, people think more carefully about how the things they say will affect others when they speak. Some artists and comedians have labeled so-called cancel culture as the death of free expression, fighting against it with creative and original arts and crafts.
In a new interview with Metal Hammer, Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian says that his short-lived ’80s side project Stormtroopers of Death (better known as SOD) would be canceled if it came out today.
“If it had never existed in 1985 and we tried to put that out today, no matter how hard we tried to explain the joke or the humour, yes, certain sections of people would cancel it. It would have a much harder time now. We didn’t have Internet back then.”
Stormtroopers of Death’s debut album, Speak English or Die, was released in 1985 and featured songs like “Pussy Whipped,” “Kill Yourself,” “Fuck the Middle East” and “Premenstrual Princess Blues.”
Ian goes on to explain that the main character on Speak English or Die, Sergeant D—who inspired a certain loudmouth on this site—was meant to be a comic book character who ended up in the album.
“If people don’t know, Sergeant D is a character that I created, because I wanted to try and make a comic book. I didn’t know how to write a comic book, so I wrote songs about this character, who’s dead! He’s unliving, and therefore he hates anything alive. We explained it a few times in interviews back then, but either people want to hear it or they don’t.”
Stormtroopers of Death—who featured Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante, who has been in the news as part of the controversial Pantera reunion—probably occupy a similar place in extreme music lore as Peter Steele’s pre-Type O Negative band, Carnivore, who made a name for themselves with such enlightened song titles as “Race War” and “Jesus Christ Hitler.” As they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions and not everyone hearing Speak English or Die or Carnivore for the first time today will have the context of satire. That said, the band featured Ian, Benante, living metal god Danny Lilker (ex-Anthrax, ex-Brutal Truth, et al) and M.O.D.‘s Billy Milano, so they may have been too big to fail.