Bad blood has been brewing between Pantera singer Philip Anselmo and and Panter drummer Vinnie Paul since the band decided to take a break in 2003. Guitarist Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul formed Damageplan while Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown put more time into the New Orleans based sludge supergroup Down. Mud was slung from both sides making any chance of a reunion seem unfathomable. In 2004, Dimebag Darrell was tragically shot while performing on stage with Damageplan at Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio on December 8th.
After a long time battle with heroin addiction, Philip seems to have been cleaning up his act these days. I’m sure there was a lot of things said and done but in the end, I can only hope that Vinnie and Philip can bury the hatchet and let bygones be bygones.
RockConfidential.com recently conducted an interview with former PANTERA and current DOWN singer Philip Anselmo. An excerpt from the chat is below.
RockConfidential.com: Is there still a lot of bad blood between the PANTERA guys? You’re all contributing to this anniversary release of “Cowboys…” How are things right now?
Anselmo: Me and Rex [Brown, bass] have always been cool. We fought through a lot of the hard times together. I think about Vinnie Paul every day. I think about Dimebag every day, at least 25 times if not more. I wish things were cool between me and Vince, but I know him. If he’s got his mind made up that I’m the bad guy, then that’s just how it rolls. Anyone that knows me and knows us that was there will let you know that if we were all thrown into the same room together that my biggest hopes would be to come out with a mutual understanding and as friends, without the hatred. I sympathize with Vince constantly. What he went though I wish on no man. There is no room in this world for anyone — including me — to judge what he is going through. We all take our own path in life. Life is extremely short. All those old adages and analogies are all fuckin’ true or we wouldn’t have heard them time and time again from all the old-timers. Now here I sit at forty-fuckin’-two, and although that’s not old by a 50-year-old’s standards — I’m not 22 anymore. Before I die — and we’ll never know when that will be — I would love to make peace with Vince. I would love for that to happen. But, as we sit here today, there really hasn’t been any contact. As far as working together on this fuckin’ awesome 20th-anniversary release of “Cowboys From Hell”, we all mediate through this lovely young lady named Kim who has worked for the band for many years. That’s how we’re working. There’s no hostility or anything. It’s all smooth sailing. Maybe one day… it’s a shame.
Read the entire interview at RockConfidential.com.
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