Photo Credit: Rob Fenn
Down’s Philip Anselmohas one of the most interesting historys of anyone in the scene. Did you know that he dropped out of high school though? In a recent interview with Rocksverige.se he talks about why, if he has any regrets and what we can expect from the next Down EP!
You quit school in 12thgrade. Have you ever regretted not getting an education?
Phil: No, there was nothing more for me to learn. I was advanced because I was smart when I applied myself and I had four credits left, which meant I could get there early in the day and leave at noon. The credits were two PEs, mythology, which adore and love and wish I wouldve studied more of and geometry. I had a terrible teacher in geometry. She hated me, I hated fucking her and it was like a make up class. I was doing, at the time, four or five a week gigs night and getting home at six in the fucking morning, so for me, my homework was on stage. Dont get me wrong! There are certain subjects, like history and mythology that I wished I had applied myself more and had a better foundation. I enjoy history especially and literally work that you still read. If you look at the fucking Bible and the way its written, its very powerful. The text and certain use of antiquate and archaic language is powerful and I love it! Im a wordsmith, so its intriguing.
After all the stuff youve been through and experienced, if you had a chance to go back in time and give some advice to your younger self when you quit school to become a rock and roller, what would it be?
Phil: I would say, knowing what I know now, stay off the drinking! Quit fucking drinking so much andtake better care of your body! Make sure your core is strong, keep your back strong, because you dont wanna go through what you went through when you injured yourself and made every rookie mistake in the book with drugs, escapism and all of that. You dont play music, initially, to get chicks and drugs. You do it because you love music. Thats the big reminder I would definitely say. Do it for the love of music and everything else will fall in line eventually, or not? Take the chance, be a lifer or at least grind it out till you find out!
Italked to Jimmy Bower about the song Bacchanalia and its outro from the latest EP and he said that he would like to see the next EP be more of that laidback stuff. Any thoughts on that?
Phil: You know, we want the third installment of the EPs to be a use of different textures within the sounds and maybe even organization of songs and stuff like that. But in my heart of hearts, sometimes I wonder if it would be fair to Down fans, for us to put out an all acoustic EP, when were at heart are a heavy metal band? I know that in the past weve shown flexibility in using dynamics and we have smoother stuff like Stone the crow. I think that if theres a good balance there and maybe a progressive feel to it to where we can be heavy metal and then drift into a different dynamic, I think that is important. I think thats gonna be challenging and I love that challenge and I really think the third EP has to be perfect, for it to be pulled off. It has to be haunting, tearjerking and perfect, it has to be. Next year in summertime, hopefull, well start writing that thing and me and Pepper (Keenan) will get together, because he has a lot of great stuff and well start developing this fucking thing. Im looking forward to it, man. I really am.
Check out the rest of the interview at Rocksverige.se
