PHILIP ANSELMO: RONNIE JAMES DIO Was 'One Of The Coolest Motherf**kers In The Biz'

Johnny Firecloud of Antiquiet and CraveOnline.com recently conducted an interview with DOWN/ex-PANTERA vocalist Philip Anselmo. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Antiquiet/CraveOnline.com: Where are you right now?

Phil Anselmo: Down in Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans. It's like fuckin' Cambodia here, just fuckin' miserable hot outside.

Antiquiet/CraveOnline.com: How's the reaction to the oil nightmare down there?

Phil Anselmo: Dude, I can't begin to even fuckin' touch that shit. I mean, economically and as a community it's just fuckin' terrible, man. Miserable. Nothin' good comin' out of this.

Antiquiet/CraveOnline.com: People are still pointing fingers while we still can't kill the thing a month and change into it.

Phil Anselmo: Exactly. The responsible parties are pointing fingers at each other, and it's so fuckin' bureaucratic and retarded, in all honesty. There ain't nobody who wants to stand up and say, "Hey, okay, it's my fault on this one. Bad on me. We're poisoning the earth for fuckin' real right now, and we can't do a fuckin' thing about it after we promised we would." How can you promise anybody that after you drill a mile into the fucking earth through the ocean that one fuckin' day it's not gonna fuck up?

Antiquiet/CraveOnline.com: While they're trying to politicize it and minimize the impact, we're seeing pictures of oil washing up on shores in Alaska from a much smaller spill that happened in 1985. The shit doesn't just naturally go away.

Phil Anselmo: Makin' the earth angry. It's already a fuckin' planet that changes every few thousand fuckin' years. You're just poking a beehive with a stick now. (Phil starts pissing) It hasn't even begun to really bear down and affect the people, the economic scenario, not to mention the long-term impact on everything. Two years from now, then we'll be able to ask, "How's New Orleans looking?" in a real negative light, cause believe me brother, it'll be there. This shit ain't going away. It's fucked — everything but our insanely great football team.

Antiquiet/CraveOnline.com: You've dealt with chronic pain forever, your entire career. How's the situation with all that?

Phil Anselmo: Well actually I need to get the fuck up once we're finished here and do some core work. I've been pretty lazy since we got home from Europe. But other than that man, look: it's almost to the point where eight times out of 10 I can just say alright, I have pain, I accept it. If I can get up and get moving, no big deal. I can live with this. It doesn't stick in my head 24 hours a day anymore. I'm past all that. I'm the Evel Knievel of fuckin metal. But you do get those certain fuckin' days that make you feel every bit as mortal as you are. And yeah, you can call 'em bad days, but just to be blunt, a whole lot of it is something they don't tell you about back surgery or knee surgery. Mostly neurology. It's all the after-effects of nerve damage. There's no pain medication for that, there's no stopping it. When it tweaks, it's a fuckin' miserable thing. so those two time out of that ten, those are bad days. But you know what, man? Even if it lasts a week that's just a week of your life. You still get shit done, you still take care of yourself and do what you gotta do. It's just gonna sting more. But I'm alright, man. I appreciate you asking.

Antiquiet/CraveOnline.com: What's the status with DOWN once EYEHATEGOD and CROWBAR tie up their situations? Shows this summer right?

Phil Anselmo: We played Switzerland at a festival a week ago, and we played with AC/DC in Bucharest, Romania, and sadly enough to say, that HEAVEN & HELL show — BLACK SABBATH was supposed to play and [Ronnie James] Dio wasn't doing good. We actually got a phone call before the man passed saying that this could be it. And sure enough after we played the gig we woke up the next morning to the news that he had passed. Just to go out here and say it — Ronnie James Dio was probably one of the coolest motherfuckers in the biz. A lot of people could say that and just be talking nice, but I'm being very sincere here. PANTERA first did a gig with BLACK SABBATH and Dio in '93, I believe. It was in Italy. He was just the most down-to-earth motherfucker. He toked weed with us after the gig, he sent "War Pigs" out to me, he was just a very, very engaging person. Really, really sweet, real down to earth. He kept in touch throughout the years, and DOWN ended up playing some shows with SABBATH and Dio a couple years ago. Once again, I just wanna let everybody know that this guy was just one of the true good guys of this entire fuckin' business, man. So yeah, we've got one more gig at the end of July, and other than that we're talking about getting together to do a little jamming here and there before the year's end. Maybe even this fall, just fuckin' gettin' some stuff out there. We have some song that just need a little bit of tweaking here and there, and fuck, man. We're ready for people to hear this shit. So expect some more DOWN for sure.

Read the entire interview from Antiquiet and CraveOnline.com.

DOWN live in Romania - May 2010: