Phil Anselmo can't be a Nazi because he's not clubbable

Phil Anselmo's Nazi salute and "white power" cry during a Dimebag Darrell memorial hasn't gone down well - and perhaps the best thing about this whole story has been the way metal fans have called him out on it.

Phil has tried two approaches now to try and explain what he might have been doing.

Attempt number one was to try and claim he was making a reference to the wine being served backstage:

He claimed at first he had been making a joke about the white wine served to performers at the event, who included Dave Grohl and members of Metallica, and said: “I fucking love everyone, I fucking loathe everyone, and that’s that. No apologies from me.”

In a lot of ways, that's probably a worse claim than the original - everyone expects Anselmo to spout Nazi bollocks, but suggesting that he was organising a protest against the backstage spritzers paints a picture of what happens when entitlement collides with too much time on a person's hands.

Still, he's realised that "I was taking wine" wasn't going to work, and he's now issued a statement:

Philip H Anselmo here, and I’m here to basically respond to all the heat I’ve been getting that I deserve completely.

“I was at the Dimebash, and it was extremely late at night. There was heavy-duty talk between myself and those who love Dime. And heavy emotions were flowing, jokes were made backstage that transpired upon the stage, and it was ugly. It was uncalled for. And anyone who knows me and my true nature knows that I don’t believe in any of that; I don’t want to be part of any group. I’m an individual, and I am a thousand percent apologetic to anyone that took offence to what I said because you should have taken offence to what I said. And I am so sorry, and I hope you just … man, give me another chance to … just give me another chance. I love all of you. And anyone who’s met me, anyone who knows me knows that I love all of you. Bless you.”

This might have worked if he'd not tried to pass it all off as vinicultural humour a couple of days earlier.

Two great problems lurk in this apology, though: the first being that jokes from backstage were "transpiring" on stage, which suggests that other performers might have been having a third-reich yukfest and only Anselmo was gauche enough to take his Hitlerian hijinks the wrong side of the curtain.

The second is that he seems to be pleading with us to believe he couldn't be a Nazi because he's not the sort of guy who joins things.

No, Phil. We'd want to know you're not a Nazi because Nazism is an odious skunk of a political ideology, not because you'd find it a faff to have to turn up to meetings and maintain your membership fees.