PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE ILLEGALS To Tour U.S. With KING PARROT in Spring 2018

PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE ILLEGALS, the project led by the former PANTERA and current DOWN/SUPERJOINT frontman, will join forces with Housecore labelmates KING PARROT this spring for a U.S. live takeover. The trek will take place from mid-May to mid-June, with full routing details to be announced in the coming weeks.

Anselmo said in a recent interview that he was "still kind of chilling out" after undergoing back surgery at the end of January — the latest in a line of corrective procedures designed to helped him deal with the damage to his back, neck, and knees sustained over two decades of touring. "[I have] good days, bad days, which is the way of the beast right this second," he told the WSOU radio station. "But with a little bit of work and effort, I shall rise again." Philip went on to say that he was "going stir crazy" after spending a couple of weeks "laying on ice."

A few days prior to the operation, Anselmo told Jack Antonio that he was feeling good about his chances of having a successful procedure, explaining that he knows his surgeon "well enough. He did the big surgery back in 2006, so we have a great relationship," he said. "He seemed to be very cognizant of exactly what I was talking about, very confident. He's a cool cat to put you at ease, man, about what's ahead of you."

Anselmo told Jack Antonio that while all the surgeries have certainly helped, he was never completely cured from the physical damage he had done to his body.

"I think the only pain I have left is this one little nagging thing," he said. "I think once they zap that, shit… I guess I'll be closest to feeling as close to normal for the first time in decades.

"I've talked to everybody close to me and tried to explain to them that I'm gonna have to re-learn how to live life, man, on many, many different levels," he added. "It's interesting. But it's good. I look at it as a positive, because after a decade of the nagging thing, I'd hit a wall, and when I hit a wall, I get pissed off and I tend to hit back, and my way of hitting back is resenting my condition. Therefore I'm doing everything in my power to overcome, and I'm gonna do it, man, again. Watch."

In a 2005 interview with Revolver magazine, Anselmo said that the back problem has plagued him since the late 1990s when the lowest lumbar disc in his back was "ruptured — shattered from being onstage since I was 14 years old, jumping off the stage, off [PANTERA drummer] Vinnie's [Paul Abbott] drum set, going as crazy as possible."

PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE ILLEGALS released its sophomore album, "Choosing Mental Illness As A Virtue", via Anselmo's Housecore Records in the U.S. and Season Of Mist in other parts of the world.

Photo by Jody Dorignac