Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian has given his take on why the first annual Mayhem Festival Cruise, which was due to set sail on Friday, December 7 for a round trip from the Port of Miami, Florida to the Bahamas, was canceled.
Speaking with Entertainment Cruise Review, Ian said that Anthrax were unaware of the festival’s cancellation until it was announced online: “I saw the press release [announcing the cancellation], and we were as surprised as everybody else. We were literally out on the [Rockstar Energy Drink] Mayhem [Festival] tour when we heard that the cruise was canceled… It’s a bummer. We were all really looking forward to it.”
He added that the abandonment of the cruise had nothing to do with a lack of enthusiasm from any of the headlining acts: “It’s funny because us Machine Head, Lamb Of God, we’re all good friends; we’ve all known each other forever. None of us had ever been on a cruise before. We were all in Europe this summer playing festivals together and we were like, ‘What do you think of this cruise thing? What’s your take on it?’ Everyone was kind of like, ‘Alright, it’s a little weird; we’re going to be stuck on this boat for four days,’ but everyone was excited that we were going to get to hang out and all get really shitty and have a lot of fun. I know all of us were bummed and I heard from the Machine Head guys that they were bummed.
While his suspicions remain unsubstantiated, Ian had a theory as to why the Mayhem Festival Cruise never came to fruition: “I can speculate and think that maybe in this economy, it’s kind of tough to sell a ticket for that much money. You get all these bands and it’s three days on a boat, if you break it down to what it’s costing you per day, it doesn’t seem like a lot of money. But I understand where we’re at in this world in 2012. People just don’t have that kind of money to shell out. I can only assume it comes down to that.”