Hello Everyone!!!
WE’VE GOT SOME INCREDIBLE NEWS TO SHARE!!!! Philip H. Anselmo and The Illegals are in the midst of recording new Music!!!
Earlier this summer on June 09, 2021, the Official Instagram Page for Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals posted a photo, shown at the right, of Phil and Mike sneaking in a few games of pool after jam time. In the caption they informed us all that it had been a very productive week at Nodferatu’s Lair outside of New Orleans, LA working on all things Illegals. The rest of the caption read, “New tunes in the works. Get ready for some fkn Metal!!”
[[Please note: We are READY for some fucking Metal!!!]
Nearly 6 months later, on November 26, 2021 we were greeted in our newsfeeds with a photo of guitarist Mike De Leon cheesing at the camera, showing off some serious selfie-skills, holding his Dimebag Darrell Dean Guitar and flashing the Metal horns with one hand and taking his selfie in the other! The caption stated that he was up to some HIGHLY ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES at his home studio, and that we shall expect tons of old-school headbangers on the new stuff!
This will be the first Music to feature The Illegals current lineup of guitarist Stephen Taylor, who also plays in Superjoint and En Minor, guitarist Mike De Leon, who plays in Flesh Hoarder, drummer Joey ‘Blue’ Gonzalez, who played drums for Warbeast and Hank III, bassist Derek Engemann who also plays in Scour, and joined the band shortly after departing from Cattle Decapitation, taking over for Walter Howard IV on bass, and of course, Philip H. Anselmo on vocals!
Over the past few years, The Illegals have been busy honoring our beloved Pantera brothers in Valhalla, Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul Abbott by performing their A VULGAR DISPLAY OF PANTERA shows all over the world!
In April of this year, Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals played their first livestream concert in front of 50 people at The Fillmore in New Oreleans. The special Danny Wimmer Presents event was opened with a performance by Housecore Records labelmates from Australia, King Parrot.
The Illegals played one of the first festivals of 2021 at Rock Fest in Cadot, Wisconsin. The festival was headlined the same evening by Limp Bizkit.
Philip H. Anselmo And The Illegals recently played two A VULGAR DISPLAY OF PANTERA shows in San Antonio and Dallas, TX. They performed over an hour of classic Pantera songs, even including a captivating rendition of This Love with Victim of Changes by Judas Priest.
Philip H. Anselmo and The Illegals released their second full-length album, Choosing Mental Illness As a Virtue on July 26, 2018 via Housecore Records. Housecore Records is Philip and Kate Richardson-Anselmo’s record label based outside of New Orleans, Louisiana. The album has 10 tracks and is the first Illegals record that guitarist Mike De Leon is featured on, after he took over on guitars for Marzi Montazeri.Â
The album includes Little Fucking Heroes, a song in which Phil had the following to say about in our very first interview in 2019, “And I mean, on a lighter note and a more poking note, but still as true as it is, a song like Little Fucking Heroes off of The Illegals record. It’s fuckin’ true, man. It’s realistic enough. There’s not so much lamenting in that song as there is in observation. I can’t say that that song’s about mental illness initially, but it is a great starting point or a launch pad, so to speak.”
You can read and/or listen to our entire hour and a half long interview here!
In our same interview, Phil also shared more insight to the Choosing Mental Illness As A Virtue album, “At the same time, when I take these– like, I mentioned it straight up, Death Metal and Black Metal, all those styles, they encompass a certain type of lyric/lyrical content and shit like that. Death Metal has it’s thing, Black Metal has it’s thing. But I don’t apply the same methodology, I don’t at all. Matter of fact, I think more about, in my opinion, more God-level, street-level, down-to-earth-stuff, no matter how I put it… Like, with the Choosing The Mental Illness record, I was taking a stab at a lot of the post modern type of jargon that you hear today and this is my way of slammin’ it back a little bit, messing around with that, in my own way.”
Choosing Mental Illness As A Virtue is the follow up record to their July 2013 debut full-length release, Walk Through Exits Only, which followed a split EP that was released in January 2013 with labelmates Warbeast, titled War of the Gargantuans, featuring Warbeast’s late vocalist, Bruce Corbitt.
Walk Through Exits Only is 40 minutes long with 8 tracks, including a 12 minute long song titled ‘Irrelevant Walls And Computer Screens‘ and was also recorded at Nodferatu’s Lair, released via Housecore Records. It was co-produced by Philip Anselmo and Mike Thompson, who also produced Down IV – Part I – The Purple EP and Down IV – Part II.Â
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