Metal Anarchy

As previously reported, Power Trip were recently added to Pantera’s European/UK tour. However, the band have since faced backlash from fans due to past comments from the late Riley Gale, who turned down a tour Superjoint Ritual in response to Phil Anselmo’s infamous “white power” chant and Nazi salute at the 2016 Dimebash.

Gale said the following during a 2017 interview with Toilet Ov Hell after being asked if he would ever turn down a tour due to different political views:

“We already did. Superjoint Ritual asked us to go out… It was hard, it was hard, but you know what? It was one of these things where you know it was only a year ago since Phil got busted seig heiling on camera. And one of the guys from Pig Destroyer — I believe it was Blake — he plays in a band with Phil, and he was there [at the 2016 ‘Dimebash‘ event], and he kind of explained what Phil was doing was actually being sarcastic, he was trying to address the hecklers.

But you know what? He’s done some really… He’s done some stuff that made us too uncomfortable. And I didn’t want to go out there and feel like I needed to be the guardian for Phil Anselmo regarding his politics. And I certainly didn’t want to come out there and end up disagreeing and then being on tour with a band that hates us for our politics for the next few months. It was a really hard thing to turn down. I would love to see what Phil really is like as a person.

I believe that he probably is a good person at the end of the day. And we’ve toured with Eyehategod and Jimmy Bower is a pretty good guy. So it was one of those things where, do we want to… It more so had to do with his fans that kinda follow him around. Do we want these sort of lower income, kinda trailer trashy metal guys who just worship Phil Anselmo, do we want them to be exposed to our band, and then maybe become associated with a scene or a group of people that we don’t necessarily agree with.

So it was tough. I would love an opportunity to maybe play with Phil and get to know him as a person. But to commit to a five-week tour with a guy who has done and said some questionable things that we don’t agree with was something that we just kinda said wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth the risk. We didn’t need the tour, as cool as it would have been. Power Trip didn’t need to go on tour with Superjoint Ritual.”

He also added the following during a 2018 interview with the Chicago Tribune:

“We turned down a Superjoint Ritual tour, mainly because I don’t want to be associated with (former Pantera singer) Phil Anselmo. I didn’t know him personally, but I know he has gotten in trouble for saying a lot of stupid s— (celebrating ‘white power’ on stage, for which he later apologized). I didn’t want to be in the position of defending that. It’s down to what kind of band we want to be associated with, as people as much as anything musical.”

Considering Gale’s past comments, a number of fans have been voicing their disapproval:

[via The PRP]