Anselmo talks back injury, addiction, animals & more
By Neil Shumate, ootb646.com
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| Photo: Miikka Skaffari |
In the world of metal music, Phil Anselmo is a name that stands strong; being the former frontman of Pantera, his name carries massive respect. The words "you can't be something you're not," from the band's 1993 hit anthem "Walk," represents the man that Phi Anselmo really is. During a recent interview Anselmo held nothing back - who he is, where he's been.
What was it that made you want to pursue music?
Phil: Man, I've answered this before in the past and really the truthful answer is even being a little shrimp, six or seven years old with music, music, music always in the house. Having it being such a big part of my life and of course I guess you learn kind of young in certain instances, like I did, it's the more aggressive music that I liked. Which eventually lead to heavy metal, because god knows that when I was seven-years-old there wasn't what we call heavy metal today out there, yet.
But honestly it is something I think that I was always going to do anyway. I could sit back and think, if I re-lived my life again or something like that, shit man I could be a fighter, I could be a friggin' quaterback, I could be a small line-backer. I could do a million other dreams job, but the only real one and true one was music man and that in itself is the fucking truth.
Looking back through your life, what seems to have been your biggest setback?
Phil: Well you know, the old back injury wasn't any fun man. And still there are those days where it is fucking miserable. But I guess there is something inside you that I say builds a callous. A nd you just get used to it. It's a mental callous and you kind of block it out. You can't let it control everything about the day. So as far as a big setback in my life, getting injured was definitely tops man. As strong as I did feel, I still fee strong. Don't get me wrong, there's a point in my life where, put it this way, hypothetically, I felt like I could just fucking leap off the ground and fly. And I'm taking fly, like strong and eyes straight forward through the friggin' sky, like superman. But, these days when I fly, I cannot help but keep my eyes on the ground a little bit. Maybe there's a slight hesitation there.
I'm not 100 percent, not like I'm in bad shape. I'm not in great shape right now, because I've been in the fucking studio for so long and that totally eats up your fucking time. But, don't fucking injure yourself. Don't ever hurt your fucking back. That's my advice to anyone out there.
How did that injury happen?
Phil: Just being on stage man, accumulative. Just jump, after jump, after jump, after stomp, after whatever. Just being extremely physical on the fucking stage, man.
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