In 2020, Riley Gale passed away, leading POWER TRIP to go on hiatus until late last year. The band made a return to the stage with Seth Gilmore (SKOURGE/FUGITIVE) as their new vocalist, performing a short set. A few months later, they officially announced their comeback with this lineup and have since played several well-received shows.
On September 16th, POWER TRIP was announced as a supporting act for PANTERA’s early 2025 European/UK tour. This decision has sparked conversation among fans, with some pointing out that Gale had previously turned down a tour offer from SUPERJOINT RITUAL due to concerns with vocalist Phil Anselmo, who is also PANTERA’s frontman.
In 2016, Anselmo was filmed making a racist gesture and remark onstage during the annual ‘Dimebash’ event. He later denied being racist and apologized in several interviews, though in 2019, he downplayed the incident as an “off-color joke.” Additionally, some speeches from the 90s surfaced, showing Anselmo making problematic statements about race.
Despite these controversies, Pantera’s reunion has been widely successful, with many fans seemingly willing to forgive or give Anselmo another chance.
Following Power Trip’s announcement of the upcoming tour with PANTERA, a 2017 interview with Riley Gale has resurfaced. In the interview with the Toilet Ov Hell podcast, Gale was asked if he would ever decline a tour offer from a band whose political views he strongly opposed.
He responded at the time: “We already did. SUPERJOINT RITUAL asked us to go out… It was hard, it was hard, but you know what? It was one of these things where you know it was only a year ago since Phil got busted seig heiling on camera. And one of the guys from PIG DESTROYER — I believe it was Blake — he plays in a band with Phil, and he was there [at the 2016 ‘Dimebash‘ event], and he kind of explained what Phil was doing was actually being sarcastic, he was trying to address the hecklers.
“But you know what? He’s done some really… He’s done some stuff that made us too uncomfortable. And I didn’t want to go out there and feel like I needed to be the guardian for Phil Anselmo regarding his politics. And I certainly didn’t want to come out there and end up disagreeing and then being on tour with a band that hates us for our politics for the next few months. It was a really hard thing to turn down. I would love to see what Phil really is like as a person.
“I believe that he probably is a good person at the end of the day,” Gale continued. “And we’ve toured with EYEHATEGOD and Jimmy Bower is a pretty good guy. So it was one of those things where, do we want to… It more so had to do with his fans that kinda follow him around. Do we want these sort of lower income, kinda trailer trashy metal guys who just worship Phil Anselmo, do we want them to be exposed to our band, and then maybe become associated with a scene or a group of people that we don’t necessarily agree with.
“So it was tough. I would love an opportunity to maybe play with Phil and get to know him as a person. But to commit to a five-week tour with a guy who has done and said some questionable things that we don’t agree with was something that we just kinda said wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth the risk. We didn’t need the tour, as cool as it would have been. POWER TRIP didn’t need to go on tour with SUPERJOINT RITUAL.”
In a different interview with the Chicago Tribune in 2018, Gale stated: “We turned down a SUPERJOINT RITUAL tour, mainly because I don’t want to be associated with (former PANTERA singer) Phil Anselmo. I didn’t know him personally, but I know he has gotten in trouble for saying a lot of stupid s**t. I didn’t want to be in the position of defending that. It’s down to what kind of band we want to be associated with, as people as much as anything musical.”
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.