PHILIP ANSELMO Discusses Upcoming Solo Album In Second Part Of New Video Interview

On January 12, "Robb's MetalWorks" conducted an interview with Philip Anselmo (DOWN, PANTERA) at Backstage Live in San Antonio, Texas. The second part of the chat, in which Anselmo discusses his new split EP, "War Of The Gargantuas", with Texas thrashers WARBEAST and his upcoming solo album, "Walk Through Exits Only", due out this summer, can be seen below.

In a recent interview with ARTISTdirect.com, Anselmo stated about "War Of The Gargantuas": "I think those songs are still a far cry from the full-length that will be coming out this upcoming summer, though. To me, they're more in line with the straight-ahead songs I've come up with. Be prepared for a different listen when you hear the upcoming full-length. I wanted to do something different with a lot of fucking energy that would, I guess, come off as faster or more energetic than your basic fast playing at a million miles an hour with blast beats. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's just been overdone so many times. In my mind, there are ways to rhythmically capture a lot of energy without having to resort to the common way or speed-for-the-sake-of-speed feel. If you look at the basic drum beat on 'Conflict', it's not a blast beat. It's a big syncopation of kick drums and toms. It creates a massive energy with the double-picking guitar. It's a first taste people can wrap their heads around. Be forewarned when the full-length comes out, though."

Anselmo told U.K.'s Terrorizer magazine that he chose to release the CD under his own name because "if I was to name it something, to me, it may be tough on the fans, or people, that might be interested in hearing what I'm doing, just to buy into a whole new band, where in all truth, I'm very, very, what's the word, just very guarded and I wrote every fucking goddamn note of it and that's just how its going to fucking be."

He added, "I don't want another all-star band, I don 't want another supergroup, if you will, I don't want it to be misconstrued, and this is something I can take as a solo artist, as a free agent, I can take this wherever I want to go. If I want to make the next record a completely different style, yet still extreme in its own right, I can do that … So it's gonna be up to y'all to figure it out: it's really not my place to say it's death metal or it's extreme thrash or black metal, I'm not gonna put it in a category. It is extreme, though, in its own right. Anything that was completely traditional, I would stop it and fuck with it a little, make sure it wasn't so paint-by-numbers, because that's the last thing I wanna do, and as a matter of fact, I believe that's what people will be expecting."

On the topic of his lyrical approach on "Walk Through Exits Only", Anselmo said, "[It's] very real, very honest, very close to the sleeve, close to the heart, close to the fingertips, close to everyday life, and maybe [about] periods of my life that I've gone through. People that have heard the record have said it is the angriest record that they've heard in a very, very long time. And I have to agree with them — it is an angry, angry album. It is just a statement of my condition a lotta times. Daily I still deal with heaps of chronic pain, if you will, whether it be my knee, my hip, the shoulder sockets, the elbow, the fucking back — you name it, man. I've busted everything, man, so there is a frustration there that you can't necessarily get across in DOWN, so it does have an angry edge to it and really, truth be told, the name of the record could be 'Songs From The Bedroom Of Philip Anselmo'; it's not a pretty place. [laughs] [It's] not as sexy as it sounds'l [It's a] fucking, raging fucking place where I can simmer and boil over in private."

Part 2:

Part 1: