"With this LP we were all very clear on the approach we wanted to take, which was to do something heavy, but also experiment with a lot of other things we really like"
About this Quote
“Heavy, but also experiment” is the tightrope Phil Anselmo is always walking: honoring metal’s demand for force while refusing to let heaviness become a costume you put on and never take off. The intent is practical - an LP needs a guiding principle - but the phrasing telegraphs something else: this is a preemptive defense against the genre police. “We were all very clear” signals internal alignment, the kind a band stresses when it knows fans will interrogate every sonic left turn for signs of weakness, trend-chasing, or “selling out.”
Anselmo’s subtext is that heaviness isn’t just distortion and double-kick; it’s an attitude that can survive new textures. By framing experimentation as “other things we really like,” he smuggles curiosity into a scene that often treats taste as a purity test. It’s not “we’re evolving” (a word that can sound like PR), it’s “we’re indulging what we’ve always been into,” which makes innovation feel less like betrayal and more like autobiography.
Context matters because Anselmo comes from a lineage where bands are mythologized for consistency and punished for deviation, yet also expected to keep the adrenaline high record after record. This line tries to collapse that contradiction: you can have riffs that hit like concrete and still pull from unexpected influences without diluting the core. It’s a manifesto disguised as a shrug - the most metal way to claim artistic freedom is to insist it was obvious all along.
Anselmo’s subtext is that heaviness isn’t just distortion and double-kick; it’s an attitude that can survive new textures. By framing experimentation as “other things we really like,” he smuggles curiosity into a scene that often treats taste as a purity test. It’s not “we’re evolving” (a word that can sound like PR), it’s “we’re indulging what we’ve always been into,” which makes innovation feel less like betrayal and more like autobiography.
Context matters because Anselmo comes from a lineage where bands are mythologized for consistency and punished for deviation, yet also expected to keep the adrenaline high record after record. This line tries to collapse that contradiction: you can have riffs that hit like concrete and still pull from unexpected influences without diluting the core. It’s a manifesto disguised as a shrug - the most metal way to claim artistic freedom is to insist it was obvious all along.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|
More Quotes by Phil
Add to List
