PHILIP ANSELMO Blasts 'Phonies' In Music Business Who 'Pretend To Be Perfect'

January 4, 2017

Former PANTERA frontman Philip Anselmo has blasted "phonies" in the music business "who pretend to be perfect" while suggesting he was racist because a video surfaced of him last year giving the right-arm salute and yelling a white-supremacist slogan at a California concert.

Anselmo performed the PANTERA classic "Walk" at a January 2016 "Dimebash" event at the Lucky Strike Live in Hollywood in honor of late PANTERA guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott. As he left the stage, he made a Nazi-style salute. He appeared to say "white power" as he made the gesture, but later claimed he was joking about drinking white wine backstage and was reacting to the audience members up front who he says were taunting him.

MACHINE HEAD's Robb Flynn — who played PANTERA songs with Anselmo at "Dimebash" — released an eleven-minute response video in which he denounced Anselmo as a "big bully" and a racist. He concluded by saying that he would never play another PANTERA song again. ANTHRAX's Scott Ian, who is Jewish, released a statement on his official web site saying, "Philip's actions were vile" and invited Anselmo to make a donation to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

During a brand new interview with Loudwire, Anselmo said about the Internet reaction to what transpired that night (see video below): "I've just been sitting back and silently observing the scrutiny and the hypocrisy and the online… what you call, I guess, pile-on. And, you know, I sit there and I'm, like, 'Okay. All right.' And it's interesting to me — it really is interesting to me — how many people I know in the music business that I could name by name, but I won't, because I've got too much class for that, who pretend to be virtuous and pure and pious and perfect in their lives… And I'm glad that they know deep down inside… They know who they are. They know that I know they're phonies."

He continued: "Just to end this, when I apologized, I meant it, as far as anyone that I may have truly offended. But, in this day and age, I have come way too far. My book is way… My life is open. I'm open about everything. You ask me about drug use, you ask me about anything in this world... I'm an open book. And I think that there is this online community, and then there's the real world, you know? There's the real world. Over this past year, I've seen that for my very own eyes that there's an online community, and then there's real life."

Anselmo also cautioned against knee-jerk reactions from people who know nothing about the situation and whose only connection to him is through his music and his media persona. "It's dangerous, too, in the long run, because it goes hand in hand with the computer age of instantaneous everything — instantaneous everything," he said. "And that is where the Internet is very interesting, with Facebook and all this shit, where everyone has a platform, everyone is an expert, everyone's a fucking mind reader, everyone knows everything about everybody, because they can look at a couple pictures and, 'Huh! I know you, from head to toe, since the beginning of your birth… I know your every thought.' And it's fake, and it's sociopathic."

The new album from Philip's SUPERJOINT project, "Caught Up In The Gears Of Application", was released on November 11 via Anselmo's Housecore record label.

Find more on Philip anselmo
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).