Has PANTERA Seen Enough Of Phil Anselmo’s Racist Behavior? The Answer Is YES!

In a shocking turn of events, the biggest story in heavy metal music right now centers around Phil Anselmo’s big mouth and a ‘racist misstep’ getting him into trouble once again. The PANTERA vocalist is being disowned by everyone around him apparently, and the venues holding concerts are starting to take a stand, and word going around the industry is Anselmo is in hot water unlike never before, and this could be career ending for the singer, the backlash is becoming so bad.

“This was meant to be a celebration of Darrell and Vinnie Paul’s music and has turned into a publicity nightmare centered around a very bad moment starring Mr. Anselmo the attention seeker, leaving a further black and blue mark on the legacy of Pantera.”

Three shows of Pantera’s reunion tour got cancelled earlier this year, due to a 2016 incident in which frontman Anselmo decided to take it upon himself to boldly flash a Nazi salute and yell “white power” as loud as he possibly could at a Dimebash concert event.

Word going around is the Abbott family, mainly Dime and Vin’s dad Jerry are not too pleased with the sudden turn of events surrounding the Anselmo racism controversy. The Abbott family controls 50% interest or more in the band and could easily make a legal move to attempt to “oust Anselmo legally” due to the ‘racist tirade’ that is coming back to haunt him (as is the ghost of Dimebag and Vinnie Paul), and once the family gets this wrong turned into a legal maneuver from Hell, that will mean Anselmo can be fired, and a new singer brought in. This would also mean no more producer Sterling Winfield, who is Anselmo’s puppet, and it would clear the way for the Abbott brothers’ final recorded songs to be made into the last Pantera album, (which is what Dimebag wanted) and it could very well be executed as an instrumental record without vocals it is that good apparently.

As Consequence reports, the legendary Texas heavy metal band, who had not toured in more than 20 years, were dropped from the lineups of Germany’s Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals.

 The promoter of the festivals cited public backlash to Pantera’s booking as the reason for dropping the band, saying the decision was made due to “intensive conversations with artists, our partners and you, the festival fans”.

The band’s May 31st gig at Vienna’s Gasometer venue got cancelled too. As with Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, the promoter for the Austrian show did not provide a clear reason for the cancellation, writing only that “refunds would be available for ticket holders.”

According to Blabbermouth, at least part of the backlash to the band’s German bookings came from the German Green party; at a recent Nürnberg city council meeting, a spokeswoman for the party criticized Anselmo’s “repeated” use of Nazi slogans and ideology and said that it was irresponsible to book the band given the fact that Rock im Park takes place at the Zeppelinfeld, a former Nazi party rally ground, including a 1934 rally filmed by Leni Riefenstahl for the notorious party propaganda film Triumph of the Will. Rock am Ring and Rock im Park are separate festivals that share a lineup, in the style of the UK’s Reading and Leeds festivals.

Anselmo came under fire in 2016 after he was filmed at Dimebash, a show celebrating the life of murdered Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, ending a set by saying “white power” and making a Nazi salute. After video of the incident circulated on YouTube, Anselmo first claimed that he had been making a joke about the white wine served to performers at the event and told those criticizing him: “Some of y’all need to thicken up your skin.”

The 2016 incident was not the first time Anselmo had been accused of racism. In 1994, a reporter for MTV questioned him over elements of racism in his lyrics, and a year later Anselmo reportedly told a crowd that Pantera shows were “a white thing”. Writing for the Guardian about the incident at the time, Dom Lawson said that “the consensus in the metal world seems to be that Phil Anselmo is a racist” and that he “has some form in this unsavory area”.

Pantera shares the bill with the mighty Metallica tonight (11/10) at Ford Field in Detroit, MI, then their schedule for shows is empty until later next year. The future for Anselmo behind the microphone for Pantera is definitely in question and only time will tell how much this mistake is going to cost “The Kid”.

What a powerful statement it would be to fire Anselmo immediately and leave Anselmo’s singing off the last Pantera album, as a way to get the upper hand on the problematic and “opportunistic” singer once and for all.