Interview: Philip Anselmo of Pantera

Far Beyond Driven changed the face of heavy metal. It skyrocketed to the top of the Billboard Top 200 without the band sacrificing its patented intensity. In fact, it trumped both Vulgar Display of Power and Cowboys From Hell in terms of being visceral. It's uncompromising, unmitigated, and unique to this day. The 20th anniversary addition of this earth-shaking album is out now, and it includes Far Beyond Bootleg - Live From Donington '94—a recording of their legendary Donington performance.

Given the album's gravity and importance, ARTISTdirect.com editor in chief Rick Florino spoke to Philip Anselmo of Pantera about the record and so much more.

Far Beyond Driven feels like Pantera at its purest or most unbridled. In some ways, this is the rawest spirit of the band.

That's an interesting way to put it. It's hard for me not to endorse the way you put it, but it's also hard for me to endorse it. I think, at that time, we were all very much on the same page, so to speak. Let me side step really quickly and just remind you. Pantera had a lot of success before I was in the band. When I first joined the band, I was singing fucking tracks on Power Metal after two weeks of being with them. Then, we wrote Cowboys from Hell all throughout the rest of 1987 and 1988. We had been playing those songs live. We had been through a lot up to the point as far as personalities go and getting to know each other. Becoming a trusted member and true singer for this band was a process to where I didn't have the rest of the band peaking over my shoulder like, "What are you writing about?" By the time I got to Far Beyond Driven, it was, "I'm going to write what the fuck I'm going to write". So, I was very comfortable at the time. I guess the rest of the guys were like, "Leave Phil alone. Let him do his job" [Laughs]. It felt so fucking natural.

Were those Far Beyond Driven sessions particularly intense?

Well, I knew that's what I wanted. There was a lot of speculation out there about what type of record we were going to make. I definitely had a chip on my fucking shoulder because there was no way in hell I was going to go the fucking commercial route. At the time, I think we were very aware of other heavy metal bands that had found a little bit of fame and taken that "commercial route", so to speak, with their music. I very much instilled that there was no fucking way I was doing that into the other guys. I think they were on board quite a bit. It's like when you have a favorite band, you follow their entire career, you wait anxiously to buy their new record, you open up it, you put it on, and it's a letdown. That's a shitty feeling. We knew what our fan base wanted. We were very focused on delivering what our fan base had come to know and come to know of us. A lot of people like to say we did things in reverse. Meaning, we didn't start out this heavy fucking band and get more commercialized. It was kind of the other way around. That was the main focus there. When I laid my vocals on that fucking record, I wanted people to feel the fucking spit on their faces coming out of the speakers [Laughs]. I meant every fucking second.

What was inspiring you back then in 1993?

I had always followed the sport of boxing. In 1993 and 1994, I was probably in the midst of the Evander Holyfield reign of boxing, the heavyweights, and his battles with Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, and all of these fucking fighters. Aside from boxing and horror flicks, it was always music. At that point in time, I had gone through about my third phase of jamming a lot slower stuff. It was a Sabbath phase, so to speak. Also, it was Black Flag—the My War and Slip It In era when they did more slow, droning, ugly-sounding tunes instead of hardcore anthems. That was very effective and influential. Also, at that time, Morbid Angel really brought me back to death metal. To me, that was a great revelation as far as getting back into faster music, more modern faster music, and shit like