In the wake of Phil Anselmo’s thing that happened (we’re not going to link to it, you know by now) a few weeks ago at the Dimebash, some of his contemporaries in music are starting to speak out about it, with both Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde and Anthrax rhythm guitarist Scott Ian holding forth on the subject. We’d actually already heard from Ian via his website suggesting Anselmo put his money where his mouth was if he was sorry and donate to a non-profit organization to fight anti-Semitism. Ian says in an interview with sticksforstones.net that he’d been in touch with Anselmo throughout everything that’s been going on:
Just asking to be forgiven doesn’t mean you should be forgiven, and I’ve had a running dialogue with Phil since this happened; it’s not like I just posted something online without actually speaking to my friend. I’ve been having a dialogue, back and forth, with him because if I didn’t care I wouldn’t have contacted him at all, but I care. I’ve known the dude almost thirty years, he’s like a brother, he’s family, and when someone in your family has a problem you discuss it and you try and find a solution, you know?
My attitude towards the whole thing is, to me, silence is complicity, if you don’t say something about something like this then you’re condoning it, and I can’t condone that in any way, shape, or form; it’s not okay, in any world, let alone the metal world, to do these kind of things, in any type of context, because words are too powerfully, especially, Phil Anselmo’s words, because there’s too many impressionable people out there who listen to every fucking thing that he says. Bottom line is he needs to prove that he should be forgiven and the only thing that will prove that is his actions. I am, of course, willing to give him the opportunity to prove that because, like I said, he’s like my brother, so I didn’t write him off; I talked to him about it and I have every hope inside of my heart that he will prove to the world that he’s not this person.
Meanwhile, Zakk Wylde spoke to Fuse about the incident. In short. Zakk says he’s bummed out about the whole thing:
“Phil, what are you doing, man? ‘Cause the Phil I know, Phil’s always a sweetheart and always hugs and kisses and he is nice to everybody, man. So then I’m watching this, and when I saw the video [of the incident], I’m, like, ‘What are you doing, man?’ But he apologized, and he knows he’s wrong, man. And it just got canceled, that one [DOWN] tour or whatever, and the promoters are gonna be, like, ‘Uh-uh. This ain’t good.’ So we’ll just hit back and see what happens now. I’m pretty much… like everybody else, just as bummed out and upset and saddened by the whole thing, man.”
You can see video of Zakk’s response below:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/5YlHsP9nxvI[/youtube]
