Hatebreed, etc. frontman Jamey Jasta has weighed in with his thoughts on the racist gestures & remarks made by Phil Anselmo at the recent tribute to late Pantera guitarist ‘Dimebag’ Darrell Abbott at the recent ‘Dimebash‘ event. Notably, Anselmo‘s actions were publicly condemned by Machine Head frontman/guitarist Robb Flynn, who performed onstage at the event. In fact, Anselmo himself can be seen seig heiling during their performance of “A New Level“. Anselmo himself has since delivered a second apology for his actions, asking for “another chance.”
Speaking via the latest episode of his podcast, which features Prong frontman/guitarist Tommy Victor as the guest (recorded just prior to ‘Dimebash‘,) Jasta stated:
“People have said to me, ‘are you going to talk about it on the podcast?’ ‘You better not gloss over it.’ I’ve seen a lot of tweets, you know: ‘I know you enjoy Pantera, I’ve seen you in their shirts, what do you think about all this?’ ‘I’ve you in Down shirts,’ ‘I saw you on tour with Superjoint,’ Obviously I have to address it on the podcast.
And if saying that by doing a nazi salute and yelling ‘white power’ at a benefit, for a great guy, is really wack and ignorant. If saying that makes me a PC fuckwad or a ‘social justice warrior.’ Oh well, cause even the guy who did it said everyone has every right to be offended, and said his actions were ugly and uncalled for.
So, it’ll probably come up on future podcasts. It doesn’t come up in this interview with Tommy Prong, cause like I said, this was recorded prior to ‘Dimebash‘. So you’ll hear us, you’ll hear us as fans talking very highly of Pantera.
Talking very highly of Dimebag—which hopefully, everyone will still continue to do. Because Dimebag has nothing to do with this. And the riffs and his positivity and his influence that he put out into the world is beautiful and amazing. And all my experiences with ‘Dimebag’ Darrell were great.
So I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more videos coming out. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more statements from guys in bands and a lot more things. And we’ll address that on future episodes, in future interviews or whatever. I’m sure it’s going to be a topic that everybody’s going to be talking about for a long time.
But, for now, I want to move on with the show and I hope that this podcast and my music and my lyrics bring something positive into your life and I would hope that we can focus on the positive.
Let’s have metal, hardcore, punk rock—let’s have it all be inclusive, no matter what your race, your religion, what you make at work, your economic status—whatever. It’s inclusive to everyone and let’s keep it that way.”
He later went onto speculate:
“Who knows, maybe even Phil and Robb will mend fences. Maybe this whole thing has Phil in a different place and he’ll apologize for calling the ‘n-word era of the band’ or whatever he said to Robb. Maybe this’ll have some sort of silver lining that we haven’t even seen yet. Only time will tell.”
