In the special 50th edition of Rock Candy magazine, PANTERA‘s Philip Anselmo discusses with editor Howard Johnson the significance of the band’s return to touring and performing for sold-out crowds.
“I feel crazily lucky, crazily fortunate,” Anselmo said. “I have a hard time putting it into words, but I’ll try. Oh man, it feels like a blessing.”
Now 56, Anselmo joined PANTERA when he was 18 years old and has been suffering from chronic back pain since his early 20s, but surgery and rehabilitation have got him to the point he can deliver the goods on stage night after night on the band’s current tour, which will include the farewell BLACK SABBATH gig on July 5 in the U.K.
“It’s PANTERA, man, so it’s still going to war,” he said. “I’ll be honest, that’s some young-man s**t to sing, so you’ve got to throw everything into it. It’s a beating, very physical. But when I see the crowd reaction, I love it. I don’t care. That’s the payoff right there. And yet funnily enough, it’s also cathartic. When I get into the zone, it blocks out all the noise and the bullshit and it’s mellow.”
The exclusive interview with Anselmo and PANTERA drummer Charlie Benante is available in Rock Candy magazine‘s 50th issue. This special edition also includes extensive features and interviews with STYX icon Dennis DeYoung, Rich Williams from KANSAS, Chris Goss of MASTERS OF REALITY, Josh Todd from BUCKCHERRY, plus much more.
During an interview with AndrewHaug.com at Knotfest Australia in Melbourne last year, PANTERA bassist Rex Brown was asked if he would be open to collaborate on new music with the reunited iteration of the band.
“Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I could tell you more but I’m not going to,” he responded.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Brown discussed the experience of performing as PANTERA for an entirely new generation of fans.
“You can’t see it on the YouTube. You can’t feel that vibe until you actually come to the show,” he said. “And we haven’t been doing interviews just for the fact we want people just to come to the show. It’s not about anything prior past or present that I wanna talk about today — just the show tonight.
“We’re pinching ourselves over these new fans that have never seen this before, and it’s a whole another generation that we either didn’t know a) that were out there, b) that were still listening to us, and the turnout has just been unbelievable. Of course, at first you had the naysayers and all that stuff, and as we played gig by gig, it’s made us tighter. And I’ve been trying to rehearse this band as much as I can within schedules, and we’ll just go down for no f**king reason and just jam. That’s what makes a band tight.”
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.