Philip Anselmo‘s SCOUR and PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE ILLEGALS bandmate Derek Engemann has defended the singer over the controversy surrounding his actions at a California concert more than nine years ago.

Anselmo performed the PANTERA classic “Walk” at the January 2016 “Dimebash” event at the Lucky Strike Live in Hollywood in honor of late PANTERA guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott. As he left the stage, he made a Nazi-style salute. He appeared to say “white power” as he made the gesture, but later claimed he was joking about drinking white wine backstage and was reacting to the audience members up front who he says were taunting him.

In a new interview with the John The Ninja podcast, Engemann addressed the incident, saying:  ”Yeah, that was an unfortunate event, to say the least. (SCOUR‘s) John Jarvis and I were actually there at the ‘Dimebash’ that night. We were backstage hanging out and drinking. There was a lot of drinking involved. It is what it was back then. But a lot of people don’t really realize what happened.

“So, they jammed all night for Dime, bringing out supergroups of different people. Rex (Brown, PANTERA bassist) was there; all kinds of people were there. And Phil came out at the end for three songs. I think they did a cover of a MOTÖRHEAD song, they did (PANTERA‘s) ‘A New Level’, I think, and something else. The second Phil came out on stage, there was a group of these three guys that were just — they were just heckling him from the second he walked out on stage, like, You racist. You fucking racist,’ blah, blah, blah. And everyone’s, like, ‘Yo, shut the fuck up. We’re trying to enjoy PANTERA. This is for Dime. This isn’t about your bullshit.’ And they just kept on heckling him the entire time he was out. And at the end, he just lost it. And he was a little drunk and he did the most offensive thing he could to those people. And they were there with their camera. It wasn’t like he had pure hate in his heart, and he’s, like, ‘This is what I’m gonna say tonight. I’m gonna make a statement.’ It was, like, these motherfuckers were heckling him all night long, and he just threw gas on the fire. And it was super unfortunate. I know he feels terrible about it. It was probably a little embarrassing, I’m sure.”

Engemann went on to say that the negative publicity surrounding Anselmo’s actions nearly derailed SCOUR‘s launch. “We weren’t sure if SCOUR was gonna happen, ’cause we had the stuff ready to go, and we had every record label wanting to put it out at that time,” he explained. “We almost had our pick. And then that happened, and we didn’t have our pick anymore. So the album got delayed by, like, six, eight months. And then I wanna say it was the first thing that was released by Phil after that incident. So it was kind of, like, ‘How much slack are we gonna be taking for this?’ ‘Cause black metal has a history of some not nice people involved, and it was kind of a toss-up. But we were, like, ‘You know what? The music’s good. We’re just gonna go with it.’ We put it out.”

Circling back to Anselmo‘s controversial gesture, Derek added: “It’s not the best part of history, but Phil‘s owned it. He’s apologized. That’s not who he is. I’ve toured with him around the world with THE ILLEGALS, SCOUR shows, PANTERA stuff. It’s just not who is. Even our most recent videos were shot by Malcolm Pugh, who’s half black. That’s my dawg. We go back 20 years too. We used to live together and whatnot. But he said people kept asking him, like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe you’re working with Phil after that.’ And he’s like, man, ‘Phil‘s been nothing but gracious to me, backstage, at his home.’ He’s, like, ‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’

“So, I don’t know. I don’t know how else to say it, but it’s, like, that’s not who Phil is,” Engemann concluded. “It was a bad moment.”