Shinedown’s Brent Smith Discusses Philip Anselmo Controversy – We Should Allow People to Grow From Their Mistakes
Pantera were recently dropped from a couple of festivals in Germany due to Philip Anselmo's controversial actions in the past, and were replaced by Foo Fighters. Shinedown's Brent Smith spoke about the matter during a recent interview, and expressed that people should be allowed to learn from their mistakes and grow.
Smith touched on the subject during a new episode of Knotfest's Talk Toomey podcast, after host Joshua Toomey noted that someone recently called him a "casual racist" for being a fan of Pantera. The Shinedown singer mentioned the German festivals that dropped the band, and then reminisced on the Dimebash incident in 2016, where Anselmo threw up a Nazi salute.
"The reality is that Phil... when what happened, happened, he addressed it to the best of his ability. Most people — I believe — when he addressed it, believed that he was being sincere," Smith recalled. "Believe me man, I'll be honest with you. I was somebody that when I saw the video, the way that it was presented, it's not good. It's not."
"The fact of the matter is, the way that I see these types of things is, how are you gonna grow? If there's a constant level of just, giving no one an opportunity to say that they made a mistake, that they genuinely made a mistake," the vocalist continued.
Smith brought up that Anselmo eventually addressed the situation and denied that he'd ever support anything related to white supremacy, but added that a lot of people "called BS" on his apology.
"There's gonna be certain people — because you also don't know how they were raised, how they were brought up and how they're gonna feel about — and that's why it's called society," he said.
The rocker stressed that even as society moves past certain things that have happened, that people don't forget what happened so that those same occurrences and mistakes aren't repeated again.
"I think in a lot of ways, music is medicine. And I know a lot of people have been waiting for Pantera for a long, long time and the defiance of that music. Another thing people should think about is that Pantera music, I know this for a fact, has saved a lot of lives... It was born out of chaos, but it had a message, and it was built on strength and perseverance."
Listen to the full interview below.