john kat brooks talks about phil anselmo

Case in point: that interestingly-named latest LP… Apologies have been offered, and Phil Anselmo recollects the evening with a tone of heartfelt regret, but this is an individual who only knows how to move bull-headedly onward. His actions that night – roaring “White Power!” into the audience and throwing what appeared to be a Nazi salute – regardless of their reason, will not be quickly forgotten. I had to drink to destroy!”) his resolution to “put down the bottle” perhaps catalytic to this ongoing late-career renaissance and (unspoken) rehabilitation, following the drunken ignominy of Dimebash 2016. Not that Anselmo indulges in alcohol these days (“When I drank, that was my problem. But as Anselmo explains that the members of his ‘solo’ project The Illegals were in town last night, it’s understandable if there’s something of a ‘weekend’ feel to our conversation. I’m easy like Sunday morning!” It is, in fact, an unusually chill Tuesday outside NOLA. “You can ask me anything,” he laughs, early on, that deep voice creaking with the luxuriant tenor of a coffin door. And, despite a caricature image of gruff machismo that’s only intensified with time, he speaks to Kerrang! today with the ease of someone coming to terms with everything. A child of New Orleans, Louisiana’s multicultural melting pot, he’s nonetheless been plagued throughout his career – from his bands’ incorporation of Confederate imagery, to his own ill-advised proclamations – by accusations of racism and bigotry. Once the frontman of ’90s metal’s mainstream-bothering behemoths Pantera, he’s retreated further towards the genre’s hazier extremities with each passing year. Anselmo is, by his own time-worn admission, a tough nut to crack.

John kat brooks talks about phil anselmo