PHIL ANSELMO RAW : FULL UNCUT INTERVIEW ON PANTERA, DIMEBAG DARRELL, VINNIE PAUL, PAIN, ADDICTION

10 rounds all last week 10 rounds the old man still is yeah see let's take it out on your fingers eris no actually i got a real light glow of a bag and that i call musician friendly bag because it has a lot of leeway actually i hurt my back punching those big big huge heavy bags i was rehabbing this knee i was feeling great great great great shape and man i was whacking the bag bang and i leaned into a left hook i was like i sure hope about it and do something sure enough the next day he wake up oh my god i thought i knocked a screw loose or something i had to go get another mri and all this stuff anyone it was just like whatever not as bad as i thought that's half the mental battle right there yeah especially after six titanium screws and clamps and all this [ __ ] looks like a nail bomb inside of your body yeah looks like crap not a neat job what happens to the coaster detector of the episode zero it's titanium really that doesn't go since i started using titanium okay folks we're all set phone off over there everybody yep i've got mine on but it's not gonna bring um i've got my questions on here so john you're on sunday you're running yep camera's speeding blew you out i'm sure but i'm uh you know i'm also kind of uh somebody but maybe at the end i'll ask you a few things that i'd really love to ask you about but i'll stick to the script so um we're talking about pantera and your you know amazing band and the the whole impact of that that i just thought um just to hear you kind of talking about what you thought the legacy of pantera is you know i mean there are going to be people growing up who didn't get a chance to see you except on old youtubes but the music's there it's in the records it's what do you think about a legacy when you think about it now looking back that's a vast thing it's a plethora of emotions but i guess one of uh life's amazing journeys not your good journey not your bad journey no amazing journey you know the legacy what kind of legacy hopefully a legacy of distortion and energy that been inspires know hopefully thought of when you look at the ban and the music that was released hopefully hopefully it was inspiring and i know it was so hopefully you know remains in that light in terms of um you know [Music] amongst the pantheon you you guys are right up there um you must have been influenced but also you must have it have also influenced yeah yeah that's the way it works you know if you you know goes back to the old whatever i you know i guess the kid who comes up to you and says phil how do you make it big in rock and roll or music it's like you know the most truthful answer would be take 15 20 of your favorite bands and rip them off to all hell eventually if you keep going with the same unit meaning the same band members and you grow together and grow together and grow together that eventually you'll find your own sound so i i would say that was the case and for me especially you know rock vocalists out there from old radio rocker i grew up on the 70s and i guess the popular stuff i grew up in the house with growing up with mom and her sister and dad on and off i mean that's it's such a wide variety of stuff rolling stones leads up on jimi hendrix janice joplin queen [Music] and then later you know can't leave out kiss either i was a baby boy also at one time but you know kiss was a rock group peter frampton ted nugent old scorpions later van halen very innovative for guitar work and this elaborate david lee roth character and he's a baritone and i was always a baritone so i could match up there it's like when you're developing your voice and you're trying to sing these high notes and whatnot with robert plant out there and um david covered out and whoever the heck was singing for a band like deep purple at the time ian gillen or whoever they always had these outrageous ranges so i guess i took the david leader off first of all first and foremost because he was a great front man and once again a baritone but then with heavy metal there's no leaving now judas priest the mark that they've left nor black sabbath so you know blacks out of judas priest and then you know but for me you know i was there you know i was there when these bands went through these massive changes and music was going through changes heavy metal was going through changes uh eventually brought in what i guess would be known as hardcore music and punk rock i guess before that i i'm a music lover man and every to me every genre that actually has touched me growing up i've taken bits of pieces later there whether it be attitude whether it be whether it be the way uh one guy might pronounce something or other you know it's just you take from every generation and i still learn stuff today you know i'm a lover of underground music a supporter of it so still learn at this advanced stage i have a well-aged beef if you were just thinking back to the sort of or the feeling you might still have of the really good time in pantera when when things were really going well is there a kind of a memory that stands out of like you could tell us about just a sort of sense of what that was like when it was around good night well you have to understand there's some very strong personalities in panther and when you had eventually i guess after i'm and this is kind of funny but uh seemed like i was the new guy until like uh i don't know six months into vulgar display of power and we had done three records together at that point and i'd still meet members of the abbott family who i just you know met and they're like oh you're the new guy it's like yeah okay i'm the new guy but we were always uh there was this bond between the guys and i am talking about panther all four of us uh dimebag and i always we have this this creative pushing force and it was like you know as far as being tight that was a given that they were a tight tight incredible group but we would push each other stage performance stage presence crowd interaction was always a tremendous thing so once we got past all the [ __ ] like um and this this could send me in a whole different direction completely and i will touch up upon it you know when i moved to texas in 1987 the bar ban thing was still this huge thing and i was always the youngest guy in most any band i was always in so here i am with older guys and not just pantera band i was in before panter or what not there was this mentality part pardon the uh beasts katya you might want to go pipe that little um shirley down peanut butter yeah ain't gonna work [Music] a muzzle and sutures might do really all right so uh my point was this man the train of thought going into uh you join a band with older guys who've been around longer and whatnot the idea was if you played in these bars and you are this type of bar band that i guess your chances of being discovered were better okay well when i was 16 17 years old there was no scene there was no there was nobody that was going to discover you despite all the rules and the rules were very strict and i mean i guess this is where all this that's talked about the glammy past of panter and all like that you have to understand we you you could not even come close to getting the gig if you didn't look the part if you didn't play the right cover tunes etc etc etc uh there were some bars that are more of a sympathy but also uh what did you how did you put it you had good reasons for good reasons okay there you go good reasons there's no good [ __ ] reason to stick a needle of heroin in your arm and i did it and once again i think it was a mentality of this can't kill me this can't stop me this cannot even get me the way it does other people because i'm the super superhuman monster and i'm indestructible well that was [ __ ] it couldn't even addict me that felt false no there's no good reason for anyone doing dope but it was a progressive ladder of once again you know the pain medications the grinding grinding road how quickly you can go from one pill to five pills to ten pills there is a ladder a gradual ladder of destruction going on inside of me not many people can come back from that not many people can cold turkey a situation like that but they have you know i'm not the only one i'm not the only one that's done it i'm not the only guy that's quitted come back to it quit it come back to it and failed over and over and over to you get it [ __ ] right you know until you say that's enough and another thing that was frustrating for me was i was searching out any doctor that could possibly help me i remember being on tour being riddled with drugs but still getting up in the morning getting in a cab going to see some specialists who looked at me like i was out of my [ __ ] mind and then you bring up the word injured back you bring up the word ruptured disc and they look at you even colder like you're [ __ ] man you're [ __ ] i'm talking about the middle 90s where i damn well know from experience that neurology had not come it had not advanced far enough so these doctors basically who at the time i felt like i was getting shafted they were basically trying to tell me man if we give you this surgery you're gonna be ruined back surgery is especially the type of back surgery that you need is it the percentage of people bouncing back for real was very low very low percentage and like i say the 90s there was no stopping anything okay um would you say that that was the principal reason for the breakup of pantera really this as a result of all this pain that we went through that whole well it must certainly didn't help but you gotta understand man when you are wounded in and the only escape is either sleep or some sort of narcotic that is a [ __ ] existence man it sucks i'll tell you because when you open your eyes and the second you open your eyes you feel that knife and there's right in the base of your spine it's like god damn it i don't even want to be here i don't even want to wake up much less get up stretch it out and get on a [ __ ] stage tonight you know i was in a lot of ways i needed a [ __ ] break and yet with this drug intake they're not called pain killers for no reason the more you take the more it erodes the will kills your true self numbs it down numbs it down your emotions everything numb down and i'm a willful person i do what thou wilt so to speak but at this point in my life i was like i said very vulnerable scared [Music] easily coerced weak weak minded completely different person such is the synthetic [ __ ] that drugs leave behind in your system the residue you know no one thinks about that no one puts all this together it's it's it's a no-win situation for anyone you know so i think you know i that my attitude on tour definitely wore on the other guys for sure when especially when they look to me to be the willful guy the the the stand-up guy that the tough guy of the band for god's sake whatever i the the the muscle that uh and believe me i saw this too i i noticed it all and that adds to the shame of it all my my i was ashamed you know i didn't never never want to be seen as a symbol of weakness it was totally counterproductive to my existence therefore the band's existence because whatever i you know you feel on the inside you're going to project on the outside do i think it broke the band up i think there was a lot of things that you know it didn't help i'll put it that way and one quick thing of trying a train i thought that i just had my head when i think about me projecting this ugly version of phil and the distance that it caused the band at the same time we were growing into different people too no matter what i'm not a tit bar guy i'm not a gambling casino loving guy and i you know i just it just does nothing nothing for me you know i it's not my thing whereas the rest of the guys tit clubs every night gambling every night did a strip club strip club stripper over there party and i couldn't do these things i couldn't do it i couldn't just hang out anymore there was no hanging out for me man and the reason why there was a knife driving into my spine i couldn't do it so on you know with the there i guess the last thing i had i could touch on was i always felt like they resent uh like the guys in the band resented my condition and there's a great percentage of my emotion where i i understand where they're coming from but then again there was a misunderstanding too you know they it's like i tell people you know you don't know chronic pain until you feel it for yourself and other people you can describe your pain all day long night from the back uh etc etc but if they can't feel it they're not going to understand what the [ __ ] you're talking about so there was this lack of understanding from them and i guess i resented that and then every excuse every reason i gave for over drinking or pain pills or anything like that completely goes out of the [ __ ] window the second the band finds out the hard way that i've been doing heroin now there's no trust then there was no trust at all that i understand at the time did i understand it not at all but from seeing young people now struggling with drugs and i here i am a veteran a recovered drug addict telling them every rule in the book you know okay you can't do this can't do this can't do this and then seeing them walking them off clean and straight go right back to the [ __ ] drugs you feel like you just wasted a great portion of your life you can't do it you can't make someone do it so you can't you know it's got to be a personal choice to really want to uh take control of your life back i'm getting off the subject but in any way i think i'm sure you got some stuff in there that's really clear i think uh so you were saying that it was misunderstanding do you think um when when you kind of separated and away from them and then you had a side project do you think that create misunderstanding as well absolutely and by all accounts there was no [ __ ] way i should have been if i was going to do a side project doing a record would be one thing but there i was touring and the whole idea behind this sideband super joint ritual was to get my ass out of the arenas and go feel what it's like to be back in the clubs again with that intimate gathering and i love all that you know that's fine and danny but i shouldn't have been doing gigs to be to begin with and that's where the erosion of the will comes in can't say no hey man we got this chance to do gigs where's phil annihilated next the next room go ask him if he wants to do some gigs i don't care sure whatever no will no will i was weak weak weak weak and i could see where being in pantera or watching this guy who was supposedly injured too injured too continue with pantera sit here and do gig after gig with this [ __ ] other bad i'd be pissed off too and i get it do i have a excuse yeah here's my excuse i had no [ __ ] will i was an eroded big giant [ __ ] being yanked around jerked around and allowing myself the ultimate contradiction in in me you know i'm the captain of this [ __ ] ship man can't use those big words for back then though not at all so to kind of get get uh away from that sort of um a more mundane thing where we're like talking about the uh the 20th anniversary of uh vulgar display of power it's hard getting away from it when it keeps being brought up in your life next question well yeah just maybe one more on that then just just wait whatever we gotta do what you gotta do man i'm an open book everyone would like to see some kind of uh what's the word reproduction or get it coming together again of of you guys and there's always this kind of did you use the word reproach well ha ha i'm trying to be too you know french french exactly um i think the thing is um there's a lot of pain in all this uh with dimebags death a lot of pain in the in the both sides you have a lot of pain and obviously from what you said it's like but it's very clear there's a really strong feeling still i imagine vinnie still has a lot of pain from the death of his brother and he probably you know who knows what he thinks so we'll hopefully we'll interview him eventually but he he is uh beyond all that is is there some kind of sympathy and well fans paul and i are about as opposite as two people can get but you put us in the same room together with the sole purpose of writing music we could jive that way vinny paul watched his own flesh and blood get shot multiple times right in front of his very eyes i am in no way shape or form going to test nor judge what he is feeling inside but i lost a brother too because the fact that i lost a brother too mean that he needs to act as any other way than he's acting i'm not sure but i'll say this i've said in numerous interviews that i think it would be so healthy healthy for me for vince and rex to sit down and not have this gigantic [ __ ] gigantic separation to where there is absolutely no chance at healing that to me feels unhealthy to have a a loose end in life that feels wrong in the in my heart once again i cannot think for vince do i wish he'd want to sit down and speak with me of course dying for the guy to sit down with me matter of fact i've even written in emails you know vince if it takes if you're if it's just this wall of anger and you feel like you need to just beat me up i'll let you i'll let you just beat me up as long as we can sit down after and talk whatever it takes man so you know it is what it is and i think uh my just to wrap it up really i i my door is always open that's all i can say benny paul wants to call this house wants to get in touch with me wants to talk about anything if he wants to scream at me whatever he knows where to find me and i wish it could happen i really do i really really do so anyone else out there that wishes [Music] pantera would reunite or or whatnot you know uh i better get in line because you know there isn't a day that goes by that i don't think about this very [ __ ] thing okay great um vulgar display of power sometimes and then sometimes no you know how it is you look back at stuff it's like time flies and then sometimes you know i don't know i it i get both ways it you know yes it seems long and then sometimes i guess it just said it's like [ __ ] just like it was yesterday you know i mean when you get something like a an anniversary edition you know there's a there's a whole bunch of uh kids teenage kids 20 year old kids who who've never heard it in the first place and suddenly you know there's a lot of publicity and so on so they'll they'll listen to it and it'll be completely new to them i mean just that's always stunning in a way isn't it like do you think this is can there be a 40th anniversary in the 60s i mean is this a record that will last and last that's tough for me to answer really uh i'll leave that to the conjecture and judgment of the fans out there you know of all ages all age groups but you bring up this new wave of uh youngsters out there that like you say it's for their first listen their first spin with pantera [Applause] and you know it it's hard for me to judge it because when vulgar display came out heavy metal production the sound of heavy metal was going through so many changes and we were at the forefront of this more modern sounding thing so at the time is this this modern sounding heavy metal unbelievably tight angry group and 20 years later you know you've had so many bands that have used that same formula since then you know it's i i don't know what kids will think so you know i don't know that's a good question i'll leave that up to them to answer uh i'll ask a supplementary question on that because uh so at the time when you were making that did you have a sense of like the the the tightness the kind of it had a lot of rhythm in it too that was our strength we didn't pantera didn't have to we knew one of our main strengths as songwriters and as a genre band we did not have to play fast for the sake of speed we didn't have to do anything for the sake of extremity we knew that our our strengths were our uh rhythmic shaking of the room so to speak you know uh we knew it moved the audience you know we knew what our strengths were so you know definitely i got to agree with you you know we were a rhythmic force can you i hear my was me no it's my god let's just uh have a look on uh sort of influence the question which bands would you point to and say that pantera had influenced it like you said an awful lot of bands came after you oh i don't know i you just said to me uh i don't i i'm not gonna name drop any bands but there's a lot of bands out there uh modern bands even bands that have been around for a decade at least or more that you know you can hear yeah you know like just little things like production you can hear where daryl's guitar tone has been mimicked as best as possible and finney's drum tones have been mimicked you know and uh yeah there's a lot of tough ass lead singers out there with you know these days when they speak and address the audience i guess uh i guess i've been used as a prototypical uh um what's cool to say to the audience type guy uh whatever you call that so i've seen it i've seen it all so good keep on chugging away youngsters i you know i did the same thing man you know music is one just gigantic influence you know you know from from decade a decade a decade the genre the genre of the genre everybody has their own damn influences and you know such as music you you're still out there you're still performing uh you know long after in spite of everything that's happened with your back and so on but um how do you how do you deal with like on the one hand you've got this long-term health problem really on the other hand you're absolutely driven to keep well you it takes work you know after i had major back surgery in 2006. i was warned ahead of time you know this is going to be with you the rest of your life and to have any quality of life that can be considered a good quality of life you're going to have to work for it and i embraced physical therapy full throttle and it you know it's it's really you know like i said neurology at one point in time the doctor wanted to take the titanium that is my lower back out at one time after everything had settled and grown in what a couple years later after surgery you know i walk in the room and the doctor is like whoa look at you dad i'm standing up straight and you look great you look like you're a different person when you first walked in here you were sad eyed and slumped over and could barely sit down and walk and i'm like wow he remembers all this stuff but i've got the feeling from the doctor as well that neurology is like rolling the dice man it's like either you know you don't know what the patience how the patient is really going to react you know are they really going to embrace the physical therapy or are they just going to let the pounds get on as they keep taking pain medicine pain medicine pain medicine i decided i did not want that jail cell in my life anymore and like i said when i embraced this stuff i embraced it big time i didn't miss one meeting with these wonderful place down the street rehab dynamics was the name of the lady's name is susan and she brought me so far man she brought me so far taught me about keeping my my core strong and re-strengthening all that stuff and it took five good years before i could say wow life is different you know because every morning no matter what your day consists of there's a stretching routine that to me for my life it's mandatory it's mandatory you've got to stretch it out you've got to get blood flowing you gotta you know that there's still someone comfort uh uncomfortable moments in the morning certain days especially living in the where we live here in the gulf coast and pressure drops weather changes you can feel it you know physicality bad knees whatever i busted both my knees on stage man you know pain is as relevant as you let it be you know there is such a thing as a mental callus as i like to call it you know it toughens up toughens up you and i were speaking earlier and i said if i was thinking about it right now sure i could feel a foreign object in my back right now does it mean it controls my life anymore nope because the callus is built because i have put in the hard time and the hard work and it's true the harder you work at rehabbing it's like an elite athlete you know what i'm saying it if you want to get back on the football field you're going to rehab your ass off until you're able to get back out there without the risk of you know re-injuring or whatnot i know that that risk is always there so these days it's like i know what not to do what i shouldn't do that i might still do but at least i know to keep my core strong and at least i put that damn bottle down jesus i can't even smell whiskey anymore without [ __ ] the old gag reflexes no more nips for the kid you know all that stuff comes with the territory though you know uh especially when you're rehabbing your back and you're in the midst of it there's no time to wake up with a hangover no time at all to be half-assing it through rehab no way no way and i can't tell you how many different phases this back thing went through like at one point when i would bend this way you could hear an audible thoughting and it was like what the hell is that and then first you know it felt like kind of like when your back pops but it wasn't not that and i went and saw my surgeon i'm like put your ear up to my back right here i should have broke wind but no i i said put your ear up right there and i bent and bent and he heard this noise i said what the hell is that doc best neurosurgeon in this area he's like i have no idea i said what is it when is it going to go away what's going on man i have no idea sure enough a year later whatever quit doing it quit doing it no more thoughtting no more whatever which leads me to believe it's some sort of fascia breaking up or something like that so i don't know it's interesting man it's been a heck of a journey you learn a lot about yourself it hasn't stopped you stage performances now do you would you clearly you're going to be a little careful right yeah absolutely but you know i i don't have to be this insane dynamo up there on the stage that's gonna leap from the drum riser to the stage to the crowd i don't have to do all that you know it's not required you know that's why they've got this stuff called songs you get to sing them that's tough enough is down still the main project for you no it down is a project is it the main project i don't know what my my main project really is house core records and the bands that lie within and [ __ ] i have a solo record i've been doing and and you know i just i love music so much so many [Music] so much about music yeah so many different genres but you know i once again i'm working to my strengths i know what my forte is i know what my calling is i know what my genre and my style of music does that is i guess uh the best that i do and you know people might have different opinions you know because i can scream as good as anyone i can sing too i'm not gonna say as good as anyone but i can sing carry a goddamn note and i do that in down where i'm relied to or relied on to actually hit real notes i have to be in key you know uh you know i like i like singing sometimes but i like screaming sometimes and i like you know i like her i love it i love it i love writing songs i love producing bands i love the whole process i love it i just one final thing i think how would you rate uh daryl as a guitarist as you say you you love so many different kinds of music i mean there's so many amazing guitarists would you rate how would you break daryl as a guitarist thinking back i still think to this day you know when you're on the inside with a guy like dimebag daryl i'll even go as far to say he's underrated because i don't think he even showed he showed one side of himself really you know we were writing heavy metal songs and sure he could do the blistering leads and all that what not he's excellent lead player excellent excellent excellent rhythmic player but the guy could play anything really you know i have bragged about it before but you know if if those guys wanted to sound exactly like a country in western band just for a couple seconds they could just break into it and man it sounded authentic if he wanted to play in a i don't know uh he could do anything man he could do anything and if he wasn't sure of the uh genre that he was going for but he had an idea his take on it would be interesting you know it's like whoa and he was a master of a four track and he was a songster he loved singing he loved to sing you know much to everybody else's sugar sometimes but it was funny man but he loves singing too so he was a great guitar player and uh so much more than just a heavy metal guitar player especially if you grew up with him right there on the inside i indeed just jack of all trades man you know as a musician you know just unbelievable do you mess up every day every day of my life several moments a day i'm surrounded by musicians there's little momentos mementos laying around everywhere platinum records upstairs gold records next door at the friggin jam room guitar picks little things you know what none of that matters because i'd probably still be thinking about him anyway great man too good man great man and when he wanted to be he could be even greater one of the biggest hearts i've ever been around come across intense intense character spoke his own language i you know i hear his voice every day something no matter what i do even when i don't feel like working out tired of it sick of the grind i can hear him in the background get your ass up and somo put in the hard work you see yonks on it's worth it every day okay that's great thanks phil that's something you would like to say by the way before we start just to me the story of pantera will always be a good one an inspiring one there's been like i probably said it in this [ __ ] interview but i've been doing a lot of interviews lately so i'll just go ahead and get it out again it's been a lot of bands we're not the first band to have a drug problem fallenness an alcohol problem and then death murder and it just it makes me think about a guy like john lennon and when his life is celebrated it's a beautiful thing a whole lot of times most times as it should be and that's how i think about dimebag that's how i think about the years with pantera those are years that should be celebrated not the bitter ugly ending was there a band falling out sure we're not the first dimebag being murdered can i come to grips with that hell no there's not there's a bit there's a tremendous part of me that you know how can you reason with insanity you can't and if you stay there long enough trying to reason with this ends insanity you sink at least i do i think i can't progress i have chosen to take that proverbial step forward i need to walk forward man not sideways not backwards and in order to do that you've got to move on doesn't mean i'm out of sight out of mind we've been over that he's the dimebag is in mind pantera is in mind every day i just choose because i feel like it's healthy for me to look at the good stuff because there's plenty of it on a percentage of the body of whatever the [ __ ] happened to panther from here to the end i mean it's got to be 95 [ __ ] awesome great story now i know i know the tr the weight of tragedy i know this very clear on it once again i'm taking the john lennon route it's the songs that you leave behind that are forever death is just death that's all it is no matter how it comes and grabs it's gonna get us all tragic yeah but pantera especially during this time when we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of vulgar display of power this is the ultimate time to look at the good and every day i gotta look at the good and i know the critics or whatnot can say well phil just is not choosing to look at the bad because he he's in the equation as far as the bad goes a whole lot so don't look that way that's [ __ ] believe me i've taken a good cold long hard [ __ ] stare in the mirror know who the [ __ ] i am i know the mistakes i've made therefore i can move on and whether that makes sense to anyone else i could give a [ __ ] i know what i'm saying and i have moved on and pantera will be a fond memory dimebag will always be you can't take away those beautiful memories he's gonna be a fantastic memory in my heart until i hit the dirt and when it comes to pantera and healing all i can say is my door is wide [ __ ] open we could probably end right there cut fantastic yeah

Channel: JOHN EDGINTON DOCUMENTARIES

Views: 371,978

Keywords: addiction, anselmo, back pain, charlie benante, dimebag, dimebag darrell, dimebag darrell interview, dimebag interview, drug addiction, heavy metal, pantera, pantera documentary, pantera interview, pantera live, pantera phil anselmo, phil anselmo, phil anselmo 2022, phil anselmo and the illegal, phil anselmo interview, phil anselmo interview 2022, phil anselmo pantera, philip anselmo interview, vinnie paul, zakk wylde, vulgar display of power, groove metal, cowboys from hell

Id: _uSSfE4QELE

Length: 56min 14sec (3374 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 30 2021