NEUROSIS guitarist/vocalist Scott Kelly says that Philip Anselmo “fucked up” when he gave the right-arm salute and yelled a white-supremacist slogan at a California concert almost two years ago.
At a January 2016 “Dimebash” event at the Lucky Strike Live in Hollywood in honor of late PANTERA guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, Anselmo performed the PANTERA classic “Walk”. As he left the stage, he made a Nazi-style salute. The former PANTERA frontman appeared to say “white power” as he made the gesture, but later claimed he was joking about drinking white wine backstage and was reacting to the audience members up front who he says were taunting him.
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During a recent interview with Exclaim.ca‘s Aggressive Tendencies, Kelly was asked for his opinion on the incident. “I think [Anselmo] fucked up, man,” he said. “I think Phil really said some shit that you can’t really take back.
“I think that Phil‘s an intelligent guy and I think that… From what I’ve heard, he’s taken steps to change his life and he’s taking things more seriously,” Kelly continued.
Scott also recalled the experience of touring with PANTERA back in 1996 and 1997. “They treated us great,” he said. “Absolutely. We couldn’t have asked to be treated with more respect. Honestly, we were just… I don’t think we contributed very many people to the door of those shows — those guys were packing them in at the time. And they let us have this spot and do what we were doing every night and gave us full use of the P.A. and paid us what we needed to be paid and made sure that we always had food and a nice dressing room, and they were always looking out for us. It was a totally good time.”
Seven years after NEUROSIS‘s final tour with PANTERA, Dimebag was shot and killed by a crazed gunman while performing with DAMAGEPLAN at a Columbus, Ohio rock club in December 2004.
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“It’s just such a shame the way everything shook out for those guys, man,” Kelly said. “You can’t discount all that shit into this situation. Honestly, I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through losing one of your guys the way that they did and the reverberations of that fucking brick being thrown into the lake and the fucking… You know what I’m saying? The reverberations from that moment are… It’s gonna be a long time, and cause a lot of shit and wreak a lot of havoc in people’s lives. So, yeah, I just hope for the best out of it.”