#heavymetal pantera danzig anselmo

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23 Minutes Alone with Philip H. Anselmo

By Phillip Lawless

Blackest of the Black, Superjoint’s return, The Melvins, Housecore Horror and more

Phillip Lawless: This tour marks the return of Superjoint. For fans that only know you from your time in Pantera, how would you describe the Superjoint sound and maybe compare it to Pantera?

Philip Anselmo: I can’t, man. I think it’s different. The whole idea with Superjoint was to minimalize lead guitar and whatnot and just really shorten up songs hardcore style. I guess the overall for me, in doing Superjoint, was to get back into smaller rooms because, by the time [Superjoint] started I guess gigging and whatnot, Pantera had made significant strides and we were playing these big, gigantic rooms. When it comes individually to the band Superjoint, for me, it was about getting back into the more intimate rooms. I guess that’s exactly what we did.

PL: What do you remember about the initial formation of Superjoint? How did the band come together?

PA: Back in the day, when I lived in my first house in New Orleans, I was young, wild, free, and my house was a party house, man. Most of the time, musicians would end up at the house and normally ended up passing out at the house. So we’d wake up and the only thing to do would be to work out, start drinking and start jamming. And that would happen with several different cycles of people. Superjoint really started out as a band where Jimmy Bower and I could play guitar together. That was the initial focus. Honestly, I was not supposed to even be the singer in Superjoint. It really just started off as a jam band until we ran out of options and, you know, I picked up the microphone and we added Kevin on guitar. He was playing bass at the time, so he switched back to his original instrument, the guitar, and we went through several bass players. So that’s the truth of it.

PL: You and Jimmy are still the backbone of the new Superjoint lineup. How long have you guys been friends and how did you meet?

PA: Man, I met Jim in about 1987. Really our first bonding experience was, we were out at the local bar...one of many here in New Orleans...and he goes, “Man, come check this out.” So we went and sat in his car and he started playing me this tape, and it was a rough tape with no vocals on it. It was obviously a demo getting tracked. And he put me up for the test. He’s like, “Who is this? Guess who this is.” I kept listening and listening and listening, and I eventually pegged it. It was Exhorder’s Slaughter in the Vatican demos. The 1988 demo. Yeah, man, that’s how we bonded over music and became friends.

PL: That’s a long-term friendship, especially in the music business.

PA: Aw yeah, stronger than ever. Always my brother.

PL: Superjoint is hitting the road with a new lineup. Are there any plans to record new material with this lineup of the band?

PA: Yes. We’ve been working on some new stuff. You know, to be honest with you, it’s parts, and we keep finagling the parts and messing with them. So, as far as anything like even remotely close to what I would say a finished song would be, I don’t think we’re near that. But after this tour I think we’re going to sit down and take a good cold stare at what we have and start building around that. And yes, I would expect some new Superjoint hopefully in 2016.

PL: There’s a stacked lineup on this tour, Superjoint with Danzig, Prong and a great opener in Witch Mountain coming to Iron City in Birmingham. It seems Danzig and Pantera always took younger bands on big tours and helped introduce them to larger audiences. Also, through your record labels you’ve helped new bands. Why has helping young bands always been important for you?

PA: What happens...and it was the case with Pantera, it was veteran bands that helped us out. So, you learn from the best, and in this business...as successful as Pantera was and is...I can’t help myself but to give back and to try and identify with younger bands that are innovators, not imitators necessarily, innovators. Or bands specifically that are ready to go. Bands that are ready to hit the road. Ready to do it the hard way like Pantera did. We ground it out tour to tour to tour before we even saw one penny. So it’s those kinds of bands...lifers I like to call ‘em, that I’m looking for. Like I said, it feels natural to give back to something that’s been so freaking kind to myself and many others.

PL: Have you had much contact with Danzig? Is Glenn someone you’ve met and worked with over the years?

PA: Absolutely, Glenn is a sweetheart. He’s been nothing but a big brother to me since 1990 when I first met him. Always a complete gentleman. Always a supporter. He played my horror fest last year, and I’m figuring him sticking Superjoint on this slot is his way of thanking me back. And I’ve got a great relationship with Glenn.

PL: You mentioned your annual Housecore Horror Festival planned for November in San Antonio, Texas. The lineup of bands is amazing. How hands-on have you been with selecting the bands that have played the Housecore festival?

PA: I’m very much hands on. Whether it’s me reaching out to the bands or the bands reaching out to us. I got to give a lot of credit to Ryan Taylor who books Maryland Death Fest. He did a great job for us this year pulling some bands together. It’s always, “Let’s take a look at what we’ve got...let’s see how many we can fit.” You run into every avenue. You run into, “Oh my God, yes! We scored this band. This is great.” Other times it’s like, “Oh shit, we don’t have room this year, but please be available next year.” It’s always that type of thing. So, you run into all kinds of stuff. But like I said, big credit to Ryan and his team and our team. We’ve got a great team working for us.

And I do need to add that this year is absolutely dedicated to the memory of Corey Mitchell because he was the co-founder of the Housecore Horror Film Festival. He fought harder than anyone...anyone out there...to make this a real thing and something to look forward to every year. And he was always a big dreamer about moving it from city to city. He was talking about moving it to Europe at one point before we even did year one. I’m like, “Corey, slow down. Jesus Christ, you big dreamer, you.” It was that type of enthusiasm that made this shit happen, man. Big props to Corey, his family left behind, and rest in peace, big brother. We are carrying on in his tradition.

PL: Are there movies that have played the festival that you’ve really enjoyed? I was reading about your horror movie collection and wondering if you have any recommendations.

PA: This year for sure we are doing...first and foremost we’ve got Dawn of the Dead and that’s going to be scored live by Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin. I gotta say, year one we had Goblin score Suspiria, and that was one of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen. To see it again, except Dawn of the Dead this year, that’s going to be incredible. Also, we’re definitely giving homage to Bob Clark and Alan Ormsby, the films they made: Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Deranged, Deathdream. Those are great films, man. Great films from the 70s that maybe a lot of the younger audience doesn’t know about so it will be educational for them as far as what an extreme film is, because they absolutely were extreme, especially in the case of Deranged.

And also, something that I look forward to always is the submissions, from the newer crowd of directors that are the lesser known, newer directors out there that are trying to do something with the horror genre. I always find that very interesting. So sifting through all that stuff is always...it’s telling, it’s educational, it lets you know what’s out there. And I think we picked some good ones this year.

So all that stuff is very worthy to look forward to. And then again, you’ve got the bands playing too, so it’s like pick your poison. If you come for the films, we got that. If you come for the bands, we got that too.

PL: I’d like to ask a little bit of a historical question, I guess. Watching the Noisey series on the metal scene in New Orleans, it seemed like one of the major touch points for the New Orleans scene was always The Melvins. I was wondering how a band from upstate Washington ended up having such a deep and lasting effect on a bunch of wild metalheads in New Orleans.

PA: I think it was timing. I think it was around the time when thrash had worn a bit of its welcome out. Death metal was just blossoming. There were the individuals here that I guess got tired of speed for the sake of speed within music. And out of nowhere came this band called The Melvins that were doing things their own way. And once you grasped what The Melvins were doing...which is very challenging, at the time especially...because not only are they great musicians, but they can fuck with the format of music as well - timing wise and intricacies and all of that, subtleties - the fact that they would drone to a certain degree, or a huge degree, that brought us back even further to the reappreciation of Black Sabbath and bands of that ilk and bands that were influenced by Black Sabbath later like Saint Vitus and Trouble and Witchfinder General, The Obsessed, etc. Truthfully, I think Jimmy Bower, Mike Williams and a handful of other people - Kirk Windstein for damn sure - were really moved heavily by The Melvins, and they were the guys that sent me home with a tape of Gluey Porch Treatments and Ozma, The Melvins’ first two records. Yeah, man, that was absolutely a 100 percent game changer right there. So it is interesting...it’s interesting how that happened.

You can see it, you can feel it, when Jimmy Bower plays drums people can cite John Bonham or Bill Ward type beats, but really it’s Dale Crover that he’s really emulating to a certain degree. It’s the strike on the kit itself...it’s the velocity with which one hits the drums. Dale beats the hell out of those drums, man, and with a passion. With what we like to call, he plays behind the beat, so to speak. There’s a drag there that is essential to the slow groove and I think that resonated throughout the New Orleans scene, and here we are today in 2015 still talking about it. That’s a big resonation.

PL: Especially for them to be three kids from Washington. It’s just crazy to follow their career arc.

PA: Very much so. And talk about a group of awesome guys. Just really super guys. Great to tour with...funny, hilarious, nice, easy to be with, down to earth, you name it, The Melvins, they got it all, man. Awesome group.

PL: One my favorite live videos of The Melvins, it’s their four-member lineup, and you can see a crowd of guys from other bands on the side stage during a festival in Europe. You can see Jimmy Bower and you just rocking out the entire time.

PA: Yeah, Cody and them. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Because that day, I had seen so many bands play...Morbid Angel, I saw so many bands that were awesome. And somehow The Melvins came out there out of nowhere with a completely different style…and blew everyone’s ass away. I mean smoked everybody. And we were just stunned, amazed and gasping for air. It was like, “Whoa. This is the real deal.” I’ll go on record and say, of this generation...I guess this is more of a statement/question...but who’s done more for rock music than The Melvins? I’m not sure anyone has.

PL: I was lucky enough to see Superjoint in 2004 as part of the Ozzfest. That day you came out on the main stage and your stage banter just killed. You had mothers turning purple, you had serious metal fans laughing their asses off. I just wonder if your stage bits are things you’ve worked on over time or is it all spur-of-the moment/improvised?

PA: Dude, there ain’t nothing rehearsed. There’s nothing practiced. I don’t think about it. I don’t know what I’m going to say when I hit the stage. So it’s like all right off the top of my head. And as far as the sense of humor goes, I guess in the early days, and as aggressive as Pantera was...look no further than the home videos to see that we did have a sense of humor. So that sense of humor has always been essential. Because if you walked around constantly uptight, angry and whatnot, I’d probably already have had a stroke or something like that. You know, we thrive on the absurd around here. Everything’s a fucking joke. There’s really no limits to the joke. We’re pretty wide open with each other. If somebody’s a dickhead, somebody’s a dickhead, and it’s funny. So we’re gonna make it fucking hilarious one way or another.

PL: Wrapping up here, what are you personally looking forward to the most on the upcoming tour with Danzig and Prong?

PA: I would say the camaraderie, man, and the audience. I would just say expect the unexpected and big props to Glenn for taking us out. I know his entire band...all those guys from years and years back, and it’s going to be awesome to see them again and hang out with them and work with them again. Our appreciation level for them taking us out is through the roof. Big props on Danzig’s side, and I’m really looking forward to the audience and the gigs, man. I think it’s gonna be a fucking blast, man. I think it’s going to be well worth the time anyone takes out of their busy and hectic schedule to come see this rock ‘n’ roll program. I think it’s going to be awesome.