Scott Ian Guitars & Gear: The Complete Guide to Anthrax’s Rhythm Terrorist’s Jackson & EVH 5150 Rig

The first axe Ian picks up for most Anthrax shows is his current signature model from the Jackson Custom Shop, sporting the company’s old-school logo, an FU-Tone Floyd Rose, Seymour Duncan JBs, and — key — Eddie-approved Iron Maiden wristbands holding his wireless packs. The King V body shape — Jackson’s symmetrical V design with both lower horns pointing at equal angles — is a deliberate homage to the Randy Rhoads-era Jackson aesthetic while representing a different body silhouette from the asymmetrical Rhoads Concorde. This 6-string has a 24.75-inch scale neck, a mahogany body, a 1-piece through-body maple neck, Seymour Duncan pickups, a 12-inch-to-16-inch compound radius bound laurel fretboard, and 22 jumbo frets. The 24.75-inch scale — Gibson scale length rather than Fender scale — provides slightly lower string tension at the same pitch, which combined with the half-step down tuning Ian uses gives the rhythm guitar a specific physical quality: marginally easier to play at high tempo, with a slightly different attack character from the longer Fender scale. The FU-Tone Floyd Rose is Ian’s hardware upgrade choice — FU-Tone’s titanium saddles and stainless steel springs provide improved sustain, faster tuning return, and reduced string breakage compared to standard Floyd Rose hardware. The Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in the bridge is among the most widely used bridge pickups in rock and metal — its high output and aggressive midrange character providing the specific punch of Ian’s downstroked rhythms.

Ian plays his custom-painted Jackson Soloist — his previous signature model — during “In the End,” Anthrax’s tribute to Ronnie James Dio and Dimebag Darrell, from 2011’s Worship Music album. The Soloist — Jackson’s superstrat design with a carved maple top over a mahogany body — was Ian’s primary stage guitar for the Worship Music period and remains in rotation for this specific, emotionally significant song. The custom painting on this particular example is described as “a metal version of Mt. Rushmore” — a portrait of four significant metal figures rendered in a classic American monument format, which is both visually dramatic and characteristically irreverent.

The Franken V — built via a collaboration between Jackson and EVH as a tribute to Eddie Van Halen’s iconic Frankenstrat — has the body of a standard Jackson King V in a red-black-and-white striped colourway. It was assembled by Mike Shannon, the Custom Shop Master Builder who built Ian his first-ever Jackson back in 1983. “The Franken V is literally a dream come true,” Ian said. “It’s a design I’ve always wanted and I’m so grateful to Matt Bruck, Wolfgang Van Halen and the EVH family for making it happen.” The full-circle quality of this instrument — the same builder who made his first Jackson in 1983 building a tribute to the guitarist who inspired his amp choice four decades later — is characteristic of Ian’s specific combination of musical consistency and genuine guitar enthusiasm.

A custom McSwain zombie guitar was built with wood from a church at the cemetery where “Night of the Living Dead” was shot. This instrument — the most literally metal guitar in this series, constructed from materials with genuine horror cinema provenance — reflects Ian’s specific cultural enthusiasms. He is, alongside his thrash metal identity, an enthusiastic horror fan, Stephen King collector, and cultural omnivore whose non-musical interests run directly parallel to the lyrical themes of the Anthrax catalog. A guitar built from a church at the Night of the Living Dead cemetery is the physical expression of a specific set of cultural values.

Ian delivered fistfuls of metal with his first custom Rhoads Concorde. The Rhoads-model — the offset V design that Randy Rhoads made famous in his Ozzy Osbourne work — was Ian’s primary instrument through the early Anthrax catalog from Fistful of Metal through State of Euphoria. This guitar was built by Mike Shannon, the Custom Shop Master Builder who subsequently built the Franken V forty years later — the same craftsman’s hands at both ends of a forty-year relationship. The Jackson Rhoads’s specific alder body, quartersawn maple neck, and ebony fingerboard produce the combination of bright attack and clear definition that made it the standard for technically demanding metal rhythm playing in the 1980s.

Ian has worked through Anthrax’s modern-day renaissance with an arsenal of signature X-Series King Vs. The Jackson X-Series provides the production-level version of his signature specification — poplar body, maple neck, compound radius amaranth fingerboard, Seymour Duncan JB bridge humbucker, and Floyd Rose Special tremolo — at a price accessible to the broader guitar market. The “Among the Living” limited edition — produced in collaboration with Guitar Center in a run of 250 units at approximately $699 — brought the signature to an even more accessible price point. “This one, Jackson did a deal with Guitar Center, and they did 250 of these limited edition for like $699 bucks,” Ian said, noting he bought his example at a Guitar Center in Philadelphia.

Scott mentions the Seymour Duncan JB at the relevant point in his gear discussion. The JB (Jazz/Blues) humbucker in the bridge position is the primary sonic constant across all of Ian’s Jackson instruments — the high-output ceramic-magnet pickup that provides the aggressive, mid-forward character of his downstroked thrash rhythms. The JB’s specific attack character — the initial transient of a downstroked power chord at speed — is more defined and more aggressive than lower-output or alnico-magnet alternatives, and this specific attack quality is the essential element of the Anthrax rhythm guitar sound. The pickup’s output drives the EVH 5150 III’s crunch channel into the specific “right amount of edge that makes it metal” that Ian has described as his tonal target.

For lower tunings, Ian uses D’Addario .010-.052 sets. At one point, he was using .012-.060 sets, but was brutalizing his hands. For standard, he employs .009-.042s. The transition from .012-.060 to .010-.052 for down-tuned playing — reducing the string gauge when the hand damage from the heavier strings became problematic — is the practical wisdom of a professional musician who has been performing thrash metal at high intensity for forty years. The .012-.060 gauge at a half-step down produces a specific tension; the .010-.052 gauge at the same tuning is lighter and easier on the picking hand without sacrificing the tonal weight that the lower tuning provides.

Ian says he’s gotten every EVH 5150 model since they debuted, and the EL34 tubes that stock his trio of heads provide his vision of the ultimate tone. He plugs into the crunch channel, channel 2, and runs clean “but has that right amount of edge that makes it metal.” “I’m running two of the EVH IIIs with the EL34s. So, two heads into two cabinets, that’s it.” The EL34 tube choice is significant: where the standard 5150 III uses 6L6 tubes with a warmer, more American character, the EL34 version produces a specifically British, more aggressive quality. The crunch channel preference is equally significant: Ian avoids the ultra-high-gain lead channel in favor of the crunch channel, which provides the specific dynamic response he needs — a channel that cleans up when he picks lighter and saturates when he digs in. This is exactly the Malcolm Young approach: the amp responds to the player rather than compressing all dynamics into a constant high-gain wall. Contrary to what everybody thinks, he rocks the “Crunch” channel which allows him to retain clarity while getting generous chugging tones by digging into the guitar harder.

Scott Ian used his Randall signature modular amp — which is no longer in production — for his primary live amplification for an extended period. It has three modular channels which he custom designed. Channel 1 is his “clean” channel and is nicknamed “Malcom” for its AC/DC-style tone, Channel 2 is called “1987” and is modeled after his ’80s JCM800s, and Channel 3 is nicknamed “Nuts” and is a modern gain channel that he kicks in sometimes for feedback at the end of a song. The naming of the channels is the most revealing gear documentation in this article: calling the clean channel “Malcom” — after Malcolm Young — confirms that the AC/DC guitarist’s specific clean-but-punchy character is the foundational tonal reference point around which Ian builds his amplification approach. The “1987” channel’s reference to the Marshall JCM800 from the Anthrax recording prime years confirms the second tier of the tonal hierarchy. The “Nuts” channel is the modern high-gain option used only for specific extreme effects — not the primary tone but the available emergency reserve.

The sound of the first four Anthrax records — Fistful of Metal (1984), Spreading the Disease (1985), Among the Living (1987), and State of Euphoria (1988) — was delivered through a Custom Shop Jackson Randy Rhoads guitar and Marshall JCM800 amplification. In recording contexts, Ian used his signature Randall heads in combination with one of his old Marshall JCM800s with his TC Electronic Booster/Distortion pedal from back in the ’80s in front of it. The JCM800 is the fundamental historical amplification of the Anthrax thrash catalog, and its continued presence in Ian’s studio arsenal confirms that its specific tonal character — the EL34-powered British warmth and the preamp gain of the JCM800 architecture — remains a reference point even as the live rig has evolved to the EVH 5150 III.

The EVH 4×12 straight cabinets are the standard cabinet pairing with the 5150 III heads in Ian’s current live configuration. The EVH cabinets are loaded with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers — the 30-watt ceramic magnet speaker with a specifically mid-forward frequency response that suits the aggressive, mid-present character of the 5150 III’s crunch channel and the downstroked rhythmic attack of Ian’s playing approach.

The CAE Boost/Overdrive is in the signal chain all the time. “This just gives it a little extra push that I need to get the edge and the chunk and the gain that I need out of it. And my main rhythm tone all night, this boost side stays on all the time.” The Custom Audio Electronics Boost/Overdrive functions as Ian’s permanent signal enhancement: always engaged, never bypassed during a performance, providing the consistent midrange push and signal level increase that gives the EVH 5150 III’s crunch channel its specific rhythm guitar character. This always-on boost philosophy is consistent with the approach of a guitarist who has identified exactly what his tone needs and applies it consistently rather than experimenting with dynamic engagement and bypass.

The MXR Smart Gate is always on. The MXR Smart Gate is a noise gate — a device that mutes the signal below a threshold volume to eliminate amplifier and pickup noise during the silences between notes. For a thrash metal rhythm guitarist playing with the levels of gain that Ian’s rig produces, a noise gate is essential: the tight, aggressive downstroked rhythm playing of thrash metal relies on the silence between note attacks being genuinely silent, and the high-gain amplification that produces the required distortion also amplifies the noise floor of the system. The Smart Gate ensures that the pauses between downstrokes are clean and controlled rather than hum and hiss-filled.

Scott uses minimal effects, employing the MXR Carbon Copy Delay for specific song parts. The MXR Carbon Copy analog delay — a compact, warm-sounding analog delay using BBD chip technology — provides the time-based effects for specific Anthrax songs that require echo or delay character. Its analog character suits the vintage-influenced tonal approach of the Anthrax catalog better than cleaner, more precise digital delay alternatives.

The MXR EVH Phase 90 is used for specific song parts. The EVH Phase 90 — the MXR Phase 90 voiced to the specific character of Eddie Van Halen’s Phase 90 use, with the “Script” logo circuit character — adds the same phase modulation texture that Eddie used on his early Van Halen recordings, available selectively for specific Anthrax passages. Its inclusion alongside the EVH 5150 III amplification confirms the coherence of Ian’s Van Halen-inflected tonal approach — the EVH amp, the EVH phase pedal, the Franken V tribute guitar.

The TC Electronic Corona Chorus is used for specific song parts. The TC Corona is a high-quality stereo chorus pedal with the TC Electronic TonePrint technology for custom voicing. Its selective use — for specific passages rather than as a constant tonal presence — is consistent with Ian’s minimal-effects philosophy: every effect has a specific purpose and is used only for that purpose.

A TC Electronic Booster/Distortion pedal from back in the ’80s was used in combination with the Randall and Marshall heads for studio recording of later Anthrax albums. The TC Electronic Booster/Distortion — a vintage TC Electronic product from the brand’s early professional pedal period — provided the additional drive and midrange boost for specific studio applications where the amp’s natural character needed supplementing.

Ian’s standard performance tuning is a half-step below concert pitch — Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Bb, Eb. This is the same half-step-down tuning used by numerous hard rock and metal guitarists (Slash, Hendrix, Motörhead) for the specific combination of slightly lower string tension (easier to play at high speed), slightly darker and heavier tonal character, and compatibility with vocalists who prefer a slightly lower key. Combined with the .009-.042 string gauge for standard material and .010-.052 for further down-tuned material, Ian’s string and tuning configuration is specifically optimized for the physical demands of aggressive thrash metal rhythm playing at sustained tempos.

One of Ian’s King Vs has lightning bolt inlays as a tribute to Malcolm and Angus Young. This specific instrument modification — replacing the standard dot or shark fin fretboard inlays with lightning bolt-shaped markers as a tribute to the AC/DC brothers — is the most direct possible physical expression of Ian’s primary guitar influence. The guitar he plays every night has the initials of his heroes embedded in its fretboard.