2008 marks the 20th anniversary of New Orleans’ EYEHATEGOD. Vocalist Michael Williams recently spoke with BW&BK; scribe Aaron Small and revealed that the band plans to release a live album titled, Eyehategod Live At CBGBs, sometime later this year. It will be issued via HouseCore Records – the label owned and operated by PANTERA/DOWN frontman Phil Anselmo.

“Phil plays on it actually. He played guitar at that show; it was a couple weeks before (Hurricane) Katrina. We had this gig booked for CBGBs when they were closing. They were doing all these awesome shows and they asked us to play. We had to do it. But then Brian, our guitar player, who’s in SOILENT GREEN, was on tour. It was like, fuck – what are we going to do? Phil just overheard the conversation and decided he would do it. That was his first time coming out after the thing with Dimebag. He hadn’t even been in public since then. He decided to do it with us, which I thought was cool. We practiced for a week and Phil learned all the songs. He knew them already, but we got tighter and went up to New York and played at CBGBs – it was great!”

According to Williams, Anselmo “wants to tone down the fact that he’s even on it. He doesn’t – and we don’t either – want it to be ‘Featuring Phil Anselmo.’ I wouldn’t want to sell a record like that. We just want to mention that he does play on it, ‘cause it’s not Brian. It’s not going to be a big deal on the album, but people will know he’s on it.”

Live At CBGBs will pre-date any new studio material from Eyehategod. “There’s some songs written, but Jimmy (Bower)’s schedule is just insane. With Brian doing Solient Green, they’re going out on tour. It’s been really hectic and kind of hard on Eyehategod, but we’re still a band. The spark’s still there, we just work as slow as we play. But we’re still doing it. The live shows are pretty easy to set up; it’s just writing this album that’s been hard. We’re hoping to have the Eyehategod DVD come out this year, which is a couple live shows and a bunch of unreleased stuff with some rare footage from back in the day – kind of like a 20-year retrospective. We’re working on that right now. MVD wants to put it out. They’re a cool company. It’s just a matter of getting everything together. I lost all my videos in the Hurricane (Katrina), so I’m trying to slowly get stuff back. Gary (Mader), our bass player, he’s got a bunch of stuff and Jimmy’s got some videos. It’s a matter of compiling it all. We’ll get it together.”