PHIL ANSELMO - "To Me, DOWN Is A Slippery, Soulful, Almost Bluesy Metal Band"
September 29, 2012, 12 years ago
Vocalist PHIL ANSELMO (DOWN, ex-PANTERA) is featured in a new interview with Linda Leseman at The Village Voice. An excerpt is available below:
Q: In metal, vocals range from singing to screaming. How do you think your own style has evolved over the course of your career?
Phil: "With Pantera, there was, in my very young mind, this big yearning to cross what I was enjoying about hardcore and thrash metal and speed metal at the time, where melody kind of went out the window, but still there was a power there. With Down, this is the type of band where, 99% of the time, I have to be in key when I'm singing. So, I can't really rely on a bunch of screaming, but when I do it...I'm kind of thinking a little bit of James Brown. To me, Down is a slippery, soulful, almost bluesy metal band. Even Pantera was bluesy a whole lot of times in the riffing."
Q: We like to think of Pantera as the blues on steroids.
Phil: "I totally understand that. I really do. As far as our influence that we left on the world, the easiest thing to grasp would be the chugging parts of our music...but a lot of people failed to realize that there were bluesy parts in there."
Click here for the complete interview.
Down have released their new video, for the Down IV Part I – The Purple EP track, 'Witchtripper'. Check it out below:
Down IV Part I – The Purple EP is out now. The EP has debuted at #35 on the Billboard album chart. It features the following six songs:
'Levitation'
'Witchtripper'
'The Misfortune Teller'
'The Curse Is A Lie'
'Open Coffins'
'This Work Is Timeless'
On September 26th at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia, PA, Down performed 'Misfortune Teller' from the new EP; check out officially issued video below:
Catch Down live at the following shows:
September
29 - Starland Ballroom - Sayreville, NJ30 - The Fillmore - Silver Springs, MD
October
2 - Tremont Music Hall - Charlotte, NC19 - 02 Academy - Manchester, UK
20 - HMV Institute - Birmingham, UK
21 - Roundhouse - London, UK
23 - Trix Hall - Antwerp, Belgium
24 - Bataclan - Paris, France
25 - Melkweg - Holland, Amsterdam
27 - Den Atelier - Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
28 - Komplex - Zurich, Switzerland
29 - Magazzini Generali - Milan, Italy
31 - FZW / Freizeitzentrum West - Dortmund, Germany