In a new interview with Sticks For Stones, Scott Ian (Anthrax) has further commented on Phil Anselmo’s recent racist outburst, which Anselmo issued multiple apologies about. You check out what Ian had to say below.
“Yeah, if he proves that he deserves to be. Just asking to be forgiven doesn’t mean you should be forgiven, and I’ve had a running dialogue with Phil since this happened; it’s not like I just posted something online without actually speaking to my friend. I’ve been having a dialogue, back and forth, with him because if I didn’t care I wouldn’t have contacted him at all, but I care. I’ve known the dude almost thirty years, he’s like a brother, he’s family, and when someone in your family has a problem you discuss it and you try and find a solution, you know?
My attitude towards the whole thing is, to me, silence is complicity, if you don’t say something about something like this then you’re condoning it, and I can’t condone that in any way, shape, or form; it’s not okay, in any world, let alone the metal world, to do these kind of things, in any type of context, because words are too powerfully, especially, Phil Anselmo‘s words, because there’s too many impressionable people out there who listen to every fucking thing that he says.
Bottom line is he needs to prove that he should be forgiven and the only thing that will prove that is his actions. I am, of course, willing to give him the opportunity to prove that because, like I said, he’s like my brother, so I didn’t write him off; I talked to him about it and I have every hope inside of my heart that he will prove to the world that he’s not this person.”
He also added:
“The fact is he made his mistake in front of the world. You just need to be smarter than that, bottom line, you know? Words have power and that’s what people need to understand. Not everybody understands your context, not everybody sees everything you’re going to say about it, some people will only see what you did and think that’s okay, and that’s the truth and in the aftermath of the whole thing, and after I posted what I posted, I couldn’t believe some of the ignorance coming back my way.
Possibly the stupidest thing that I saw was someone saying to me “Well, why would you want him to donate money to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that’s a Jew thing, and white power has nothing to do with Jews.” That just shows you the ignorance out there, so people need to be educated, that’s the bottom line here. People just really need to fucking learn a little bit and I hope good will come out of this in some way, shape, or form, because it can’t be accepted anywhere, not just the metal community, but anywhere in the world; it’s unacceptable.”
This new comes after some recent Hellfest contoversy, and the cancellation of Down’s Fortarock, and New Orleans shows.
Metal Anarchy 