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DARKEST HOUR Guitarist On PHILIP ANSELMO's 'White Power' Gesture: 'Racism Has No Place In Metal'

January 29, 2016

Guitarist Mike Schleibaum of Washington D.C. metallers DARKEST HOUR has joined MACHINE HEAD's Robb Flynn in criticizing Philip Anselmo for the apparent "white power" gesture the ex-PANTERA singer made onstage after his appearance at Dimebash last week.

Anselmo performed the PANTERA classic "Walk" at the January 22 event at the Lucky Strike Live in Hollywood, California in honor of his late bandmate "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott. As he left the stage, he made a Nazi-style salute. He appears to say "white power" as he made the gesture, but he later claimed he was referring to drinking white wine as part of an "inside joke."

Earlier today, Flynn, who performed at Dimebash alongside Anselmo and a number of other notable musicians, uploaded an eleven-minute video response to the incident in which he called Anselmo a "big bully" and described Philip's actions as "fucking wrong."

Now Schleibaum has released a message of support for Flynn, saying that "racism has no place in metal."

The guitarist wrote on the DARKEST HOUR Facebook page: "It's a video like [Robb's] that reminds me to say it was an honor to have toured with MACHINE HEAD.

"Robb is both brutality honest and totally on point in this video.

"I know that most of the world would watch this video and say, 'Who the fuck gives a shit?' but PANTERA meant a lot to me, music means a lot to me, and heavy metal is my life. So this is like sort of in my backyard.

"I have nothing to add only to echo Robb and the band's sentiment.

"I'm not the moral police. We pride ourselves in the fact that we have many different friends and fans who feel differently about a wide range of subjects... but racism has no place in metal to me. Metal / punk / hardcore / whateverthefuckyoucallit should be unifying.

"It's a shame to type these words as I am sure most of us know better.

"Honesty and sincerity in music nowadays is hard to find.

"Cheers to Robb for keeping it 100%. I'm going to crank up some MACHINE HEAD!"

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