Philip Anselmo is having a really bad year. Those new to the story cringe at hearing about the Down frontman’s Nazi salute and exclamation to “white power” at the Dimebash Benefit earlier this year.
According to sources at Loudwire, “During an appearance on Eddie Trunk’s SiriusXM Volume show, Anselmo opened up about the incident and let loose on two of his peers — Machine Head‘s Robb Flynn and Anthrax‘s Scott Ian — who were publicly critical of him in the days after the incident.
During the interview, Anselmo revealed that during his performance at Dimebash, he was getting ‘more and more aggravated by these two or three little hecklers’ who had been screaming ‘racist’ at him. After a while, the singer says he took the bait. “When people start screaming racist, over and over and over and over again at me, what I did was show them what was the ugliest possible thing I could think of at the time was,” says Anselmo. ‘They were looking for what they got and sadly I gave it to them.’ Though he had been drinking, the singer adds, ‘What I did was absolutely stupid and I own it, I own it. Instead of pawning it off on oh I was drunk or whatever, I did it. It’s on video.’
When Trunk questioned him about what he called the ‘pounce’ culture in modern society, Anselmo addressed Machine Head’s Robb Flynn and Anthrax’s Scott Ian, who made headlines with their public commentaries on Phil’s actions after it happened.
‘These so called peers, those are your words, who gave me backlash need to take a good cold stare in the mirror themselves and anyone else who throws that word racism or racist around so freely, they need to understand the implications of said word,’ says Anselmo. ‘It’s a heavy duty implication when you don’t know jack s–t about me except what you’ve seen on what … a live performance, music videos, interviews? Whatever!’
He went on to speak of his history growing up in the South around all kinds of people from different races and orientations and the work he’s done for inner city kids.
Hmmm…