Category Archives: En Minor

Philip Anselmo’s En Minor Project To Release Debut 7″ In August

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Phil Anselmo (Pantera, Down, etc.) has announced that the debut 7″ from his En Minor project will be released on August 7 via Housecore Records. The effort will feature two songs, “On The Floor” and “There’s A Long Way To Go,“ and it can be pre-ordered HERE.

Anselmo said the following about the project:

“The initial strains — in the most primitive sense — came about when I was given my first guitar at nine-years old. I didn’t have the patience to learn other people’s music, so I wrote my own. And some of those early parts are still prevalent in the songs we’re working with now. Fast forward to 1988 when I bought my first four-track recorder; those old songs took on a new life and newer songs were written.

Heavy metal was at the forefront of my performance-based output, but these little four-track songs were always there. I always had an apprehension about allowing them to be heard though, because they were so different; only a small circle of close friends got to hear them.”

He went on to say the sessions continued in 1993:

“At ungodly hours, these old four-track songs took on an even newer life jamming with these cats. We learned a few of the songs and wrote several more, and soon we were recording under the moniker ‘Body & Blood.’ We wrote more songs, all recorded on a newer model four-track. It was fun. We did it for the vibe. And it was pleasing to break away from multi-tracking studios and heavy metal. Metal music consumed most of our time and lives. Those ‘B&B’ sessions were damned-near therapeutic.”

“We kept things simple and just jammed when everyone was home and played our recordings for friends. Then I eventually moved again, Hurricane Katrina hit, and life sent all of us in different directions.”

The frontman also revealed that the project fully took shape in 2012 when he met Stephen Taylor:

“He and I began experimenting with some vibey stuff, and soon after began recording the sessions. This led to the current incarnation of En Minor. Together, we re-worked a few of the old four-track songs and wrote several new ones in short order. These sessions are hypnotic and pulling. And we continue to write songs suitable for this project to this day. Ugly and beautiful, En Minor, isn’t ‘party music.’ This is ‘kill the party music.’”

En Minor’s first show will take place on August 16 at the 2019 Psycho Las Vegas festival.

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Phil Anselmo’s En Minor Project To Make Live Debut At Psycho Las Vegas

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Phil Anselmo (Pantera, Down, etc.) has announced that his The Cure, Sisters Of Mercy, etc. influenced project En Minor will be making their live debut at this year’s Psycho Las Vegas Festival. That event will take place at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, NV on August 16-18 and previously announced artists can be found HERE. En Minor recorded their debut album “When The Cold Truth Has Worn Its Miserable Welcome Out” in 2015, but it has yet to be released. However, Anselmo recently said the effort is “the truest, darkest record [he’s] ever done in [his] life.”

Phil Anselmo On His En Minor Album: “It Is, I Guess, The Truest, Darkest Record I’ve Ever Done In My Life”

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During a recent interview with DamnationVault.com, Phil Anselmo (Pantera, Down, etc.) talked a bit about his The Cure, Sisters Of Mercy, etc. influenced project En Minor. The frontman recorded an album with the band in 2015 and it has yet to be released, but he says it is “the truest, darkest record [he’s] ever done in [his] life.”

Anselmo said the following:

“I will say that the darkest, heaviest, most miserable shit I’ve ever written I have not released and that’s a band called En Minor. I’ve never put it out, man. And I still…I don’t know if I’m getting cold feet or not, man. It’s not party music, it’s not good time music. People are asking me to do gigs with it and shit like that and I just don’t know if it’s going to translate the way people might envision because they haven’t heard the music, it’s so hard for me to explain it. It’s heart-wrenching shit, man. It’s very hard for me to just explain and it’s also very hard for me to…It’s tough because no one’s heard it and I don’t know if people should fuckin’ hear it, man.

It is, I guess, the truest, darkest record I’ve ever done in my life and I’m just not sure about it. I’m not sure about it. I think the musicianship is great, I love the band I have surrounding me… I just… When I do a project, I go 1000%. So like, with the last Illegals record, it was a Death Metal style, Death Metal flavor of the moment that was really reigning supreme when we were writing the stuff. So that’s where I went with that and stayed true to it stylistically. The same can be said with En Minor.

Except…The way I sing on En Minor is completely bass… Originally, I was saying baritone. But then I was corrected and someone was like, “no, it’s really a bass vocal.” And really, that’s what I’m doing. It’s a comfortable style, it’s a different style than people I guess have heard me attack before. But it is what it is. And I’m just not sure– I don’t know how people would take it, I don’t know.

But eventually… It’s recorded, it’s written, and eventually I guess people will hear it… I just…I don’t know when the right time is. I’m sure all the guys in the band are like “NOW!!! NOW, IS THE RIGHT TIME YOU STUPID MAN!” But… We’ll see…

I do think it is some of the most painful stuff I’ve ever written and it’s definitely true as fuck. But if you look into the past, the stuff that I’ve done, songs like Suicide Note Part I and II are pretty miserable, pretty true, pretty honest. Then it depends of the band you’re looking at. Down…Down has a lot of really, really– I mean, everything from the first album, Losing All to Bury Me In Smoke to Stone The Crow, all of that stuff has big messages in there of depression-liberation, depression-liberation, depression-liberation.”

Phil Anselmo Discusses His En Minor Project

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Phil Anselmo (Pantera, Down, etc.) was recently interviewed by Revolver and during the chat he was asked about his upcoming En Minor project. According to him, it will feature “songs that have grown up with [him] over the years” and that it is essentially based on his “appreciation for songs written in a minor key.”

PHILIP H ANSELMO AND THE ILLEGALS, LIVE, 2013, PAUL JENDRASIAK

Anselmo said the following:

“…Really it’s just songs that have grown up with me over the years, and I’ve never really had a place to put ’em. Some of them resurfaced in the Nineties under the Body and Blood moniker, but it’s way different than anything I’ve done. It’s acoustic-based, clean guitar.

The name of the band really says it all: It’s my appreciation for songs written in a minor key. That’s a lifetime of influences — everything from U2‘s ‘Drowning Man,’ ‘She’s Leaving Home‘ by the Beatles, or even — this is gonna sound crazy — there’s a Fishbone song called ‘Pouring Rain‘ that’s beautiful. Songs like that. It makes for a very different listen, and I look forward to the conversation we can have when it comes out.”

He also added the following when asked about a timeline:

“Well, I wanna let this new Illegals breathe for a bit but the En Minor‘s been done for over a year now. The core band is me, [Superjoint guitarist] Kevin Bond, [Down drummer] Jimmy Bower, Steve Taylor and [Down guitarist] Bobby Landgraf, but we’re gonna need some extra musicians at some point. The album has 16 songs and it’s called When the Cold Truth Has Worn Its Miserable Welcome Out. If you decide to throw a party one night and your house is packed but you get tired, just pop this En Minor record on and your place will fucking empty in seconds. It’s a bummer.”

On another note, he also talked a bit about the back surgery he was set to undergo today (January 31):

“I’m about to undergo the second back surgery tomorrow [January 31] to clean up one more little nagging issue that has been dragging my ass down for the last decade. My sciatica has just been driving me fucking bananas ever since the nerves reconnected about four months after the main surgery. It’s a small surgery compared to the first one — no overnight stay at the hospital or anything like that — but once I get this done, we can start accepting shows and get back to fucking work again.”

Head to Revolver to read the full interview in which Anselmo also talks about The Illegals, his thoughts on Slayer’s retirement, and more.

Phil Anselmo To Release New Album From The Cure, Sisters Of Mercy, Etc. Influenced Project En Minor

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Phil Anselmo (Pantera, Down, etc.) was recently interviewed by Jimmy Cabbs, and revealed that he will be releasing a new album with a new group called En Minor. That project is heavily influenced by The Cure, Sisters Of Mercy, and more.

Anselmo said the following:

“I have a record coming out that’s been finished for two years almost now, of course—just like every other fucking record. It’s with a band called En Minor. And I guess it would be my, ‘Hello, great dark eighties of Sisters Of Mercy, of The Cure ‘Seventeen Seconds‘ record and ‘Faith‘ album.’ Early The Cure. Early U2. Nick Cave and the fucking Bad Seeds or The Birthday Party. David Bowie… I take all these influences and then somehow we came out with results.

“It is what it is. I’ll let the people decide at the end of the day. And we’ll see. But, once again, I’m not shootin’ for radio time here; I’m just trying to broaden my horizons, write some harkening songs. But I think they have their own life, honestly. It’s retro only to a certain degree, I think, within me, because I know where it’s coming from. But I guess when a listener hears it these days, most people react… I hear the word ‘cinematic’ a lot, and I hear, ‘This is the best record you’ve done in thirty years,’ or some shit like that, something like that.”

[via Blabbermouth]