There were a lot of people not exactly happy when it was revealed that the inaugural Mayhem Cruise, which was scheduled for later this year, was canceled, and that goes beyond just those who had made arrangements to attend. Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian says the news was a bit of a surprise to him as well.

The musician told interviewer Jason Simms while doing an interview for the Oregonian (via Entertainment Cruise Review), “I saw the press release, and we were as surprised as everybody else. We were literally out on the Mayhem Tour when we heard that the cruise was canceled. It’s a bummer. We were all really looking forward to it.”

He adds that he’s friends with a lot of the bands, and he was looking forward to some time together on the open seas with acts like Machine Head and Lamb of God. He explains, “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 sh—y 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.”

As for why the cruise was canceled, Ian said he didn’t know for sure but added, “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.”

While it didn’t work out this time, the guitarist says he’s holding out hope that Anthrax will take part in a cruise event of some kind one day.

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