For Pantera singer Phil Anselmo, touring as the opening act for Black Sabbath in 1999 was a dream come true.
The Texan band were the main support as Sabbath performed in US arenas with their original line-up of Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, Tony Iommi on guitar, Geezer Butler on bass and Bill Ward on drums.
In an interview with Kerrang!, Anselmo loudly proclaimed: “I’m the biggest Sabbath fan on this tour!”
Five years earlier, Pantera had demonstrated their love for Black Sabbath on their seventh studio album Far Beyond Driven, which featured a cover version of Planet Caravan, a track from Sabbath’s 1970 masterpiece Paranoid.
As Anselmo told Kerrang!, Paranoid was the album that blew his mind when he was a school kid.
“I was 14 years old when I heard the Paranoid album at a buddy of mine’s house, and I didn’t know what happened to me,” Anselmo recalled. “Then weed gets into the mix, and if you smoke weed you end up enjoying Black Sabbath more than anything.”
His obsession with the band peaked when he found a copy of their 1975 cult classic Sabotage.
He revealed: “When I heard the Sabotage album it was over, man! It’s all I listened to. I couldn’t not listen to that record! I had to hear it every day, every waking moment.
“I was at school supposedly trying to get a fucking education and all I could think about was that album. Black Sabbath are the gods, man!”
He named his two favourite songs from Sabotage as Supertzar and The Thrill Of It All.
He cited Sabbath’s self-titled debut album as the perfect illustration of Ozzy Osbourne’s prowess as a vocalist.
“You listen to that first fucking Sabbath album, man! His voice is so hoarsely beautiful, and he nails everything so hard, I can’t even believe it. I’m stoned an amazed and gasping for air!”
Anselmo also hailed a number of Norwegian black metal bands as saviours of heavy music in the ’90s.
“I think that no matter what the fuck ever happens, underground heavy metal is always there,” he said. “It’s reached tremendous proportions due to the Norwegian bands – Emperor, Mayhem, Immortal and the kings, Darkthrone.
“They had a vision and stayed true. And I think that Pantera have really stayed true to ourselves, our fans – and there’s nothing else you can call this music but heavy metal, so we’ve been true to heavy metal!”
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