Vocalist Phil Anselmo (DOWN, PANTERA, ARSON ANTHEM, SUPERJOINT RITUAL) was interviewed on Ipek's Wytching Hour this past Thursday, January 27th - the chat is streaming now below:

Johnny Firecloud from CraveOnline.com recently spoke with Anselmo about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

CraveOnline.com: In the wake of this Arizona shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of all those people, Rush Limbaugh went out and said that the shooter's insane, and it's clear because he listens to heavy metal, among other things.

Anselmo: "If Rush Limbaugh said something about the idea that someone murdered someone or is crazy because they listen to heavy metal, that's a knee-jerk reaction. And from me especially, because motherfucker I create heavy metal and I don't have a murderous fuckin' bone in my body. Nothing that's gonna fuckin' take me somewhere and take the coward's way out. He's out of his mind. I think that's about the most shallow view you could possibly take. I think you really need to take a look at what ignited some stupid motherfucker to do something like this. Obviously it's a lot more than heavy metal. I don't know what the guy was listening to, but it wouldn't matter if he was listening to tapes of Osama Bin Laden preaching the goddamn jihad. Look at the guy first, don't look at the music. He's out of his fuckin' mind. Fuck Rush Limbaugh."

CraveOnline.com: Looking through the history of damnation of heavy metal music or rock music in general, it falls in line with MARILYN MANSON being blamed for Columbine and so many more incidents that preceded it...

Anselmo: "Even before that it was kids committing suicide and it getting blamed on JUDAS PRIEST, and OZZY OSBOURNE's been through this whole thing too. As a matter of fact, there's been some isolated Pantera fuckin' events where kids have done certain things and they were caught and they were wearing Pantera shirts. People were alarmed and what-not, but I mentioned Ozzy and Rob Halford from Judas Priest actually went to court and spoke in an extremely sane way - he took the stand on behalf of all of us, before any of us had been blamed. At least ten years before all that blame really took off. But Rob Halford almost single-handedly enlightened the court system to the fact that you cannot tie insanity, murder or anything into music people listen to. So Rob Halford definitely deserves a pat on the back for that one."

CraveOnline.com: You mentioned some newer, more aggressive material you've been working on that could be a figrehead, a little spearhead for Housecore.

Anselmo: "Yeah! I'm also working on a new solo record, and that's another important thing to me. I've got my main man David "The Puma" Troia works on all the Housecore releases with me as normally the engineer, he's going to be co-producing this record with me because he's a great, great motherfucker that's been my right-hand man for a long, long time. He's got his due, he's a fantastic idea man and right now he's going through all the drums that we laid for all the tracks. He's tightening that end of it up. Every little open space I have in my life I'm going to be working on this stuff. And I really do expect to release this in one form or another is release this this year. I think what I'm gonna do is release some 7" splits with a couple of my bands, sneak it out little by little that way, and lead it up to the full-length. It's good to give people a taste here and there, let 'em know what they're getting into. That's the plan, and we're all on the same page. I can't say it's like that every fuckin day (laughs), but today it is. And that means it's a good fuckin' day."

Read the entire interview here.