Pantera announced Power Trip as the openers for their upcoming 2025 European tour dates and Power Trip fans are pissed.
Fans' anger stems from comments made by late Power Trip vocalist Riley Gale in two separate interviews regarding Pantera and Superjoint Ritual vocalist Phil Anselmo. First were Gale's opinions from a 2017 interview with the Toilet Ov Hell Podcast, where Gale said he wouldn't tour with Superjoint Ritual due to Anselmo's views expressed during the 2016 Dimebash event – namely shouting "white power" alongside a "Sieg Heil" and trying to pass it off as a joke later.
"We already did. Superjoint Ritual asked us to go out… It was hard, it was hard, but you know what? It was one of these things where you know it was only a year ago since Phil got busted seig heiling on camera. And one of the guys from Pig Destroyer — I believe it was Blake — he plays in a band with Phil, and he was there, and he kind of explained what Phil was doing was actually being sarcastic, he was trying to address the hecklers.
"But you know what? He's done some really… He's done some stuff that made us too uncomfortable. And I didn't want to go out there and feel like I needed to be the guardian for Phil Anselmo regarding his politics. And I certainly didn't want to come out there and end up disagreeing and then being on tour with a band that hates us for our politics for the next few months. It was a really hard thing to turn down. I would love to see what Phil really is like as a person.
"I believe that he probably is a good person at the end of the day. And we've toured with Eyehategod and Jimmy Bower is a pretty good guy. So it was one of those things where, do we want to… It more so had to do with his fans that kinda follow him around. Do we want these sort of lower income, kinda trailer trashy metal guys who just worship Phil Anselmo, do we want them to be exposed to our band, and then maybe become associated with a scene or a group of people that we don't necessarily agree with."
"So it was tough. I would love an opportunity to maybe play with Phil and get to know him as a person. But to commit to a five-week tour with a guy who has done and said some questionable things that we don't agree with was something that we just kinda said wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth the risk. We didn't need the tour, as cool as it would have been. Power Trip didn't need to go on tour with Superjoint Ritual.”
Gale later echoed those same sentiments in an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 2018, saying: "We turned down a Superjoint Ritual tour, mainly because I don't want to be associated with Phil Anselmo. I didn't know him personally, but I know he has gotten in trouble for saying a lot of stupid s— (celebrating ‘white power' on stage, for which he later apologized). I didn't want to be in the position of defending that. It's down to what kind of band we want to be associated with, as people as much as anything musical."
Power Trip has not issued any comment or response to fan backlash. Gale passed away in 2020. Power Trip has since carried on with Fugitive vocalist Seth Gilmore as of 2023.
