Anselmo Only in EXHORDER for 3 Hours, Says LaBella
Written by: David Porter
The birth of heavy, groove driven thrash metal in the late 80s and early 90s often can be attributed to the band PANTERA. But others say a little New Orleans quartet known as EXHORDER first came up with that bloody, riffy sound.
EXHORDER's Aggressive Origins
EXHORDER started in the mid-1980s and carved a niche for themselves in underground metal with their quick-fire thrash. ‘They were playing songs like "Desecrator" before PANTERA had a classic metal vocal track on their album Power Metal (1988),’ said guitarist and founder Vinnie LaBella.
There were some early lineup changes with EXHORDER as is standard among new metal bands. And in one instance, LaBella even enlisted the future PANTERA singer Philip Anselmo, but only briefly. Anselmo had tried out for EXHORDER, but lead singer Kyle Thomas swooped back in soon after.
How PANTERA Evolves
Around the same period based on the interview, PANTERA started moving away from their classic metal guise into something a bit funkier and closer to EXHORDER’s thrash blueprint.
‘I’ve done it before...Phil was actually in EXHORDER for like three hours,’ LaBella recently told an interviewer. "And then when I went back in the house my phone rang, and it was Kyle Thomas."
LaBella says PANTERA leaned into some of EXHORDER’s dirty riff-driven style when they retooled their sound in the early 90s. Albums such as "Mouth For War" and "Walk" showed off PANTERA’s newly-encumbered groove metal ethos.
Conflicting Accounts of Influence
If LaBella claims that his band should be credited for helping create PANTERA’s own sound, Anselmo has denied that EXHORDER had any big impact.
"It's absolutely untrue. EXHORDER was a killer band, don’t get me wrong", Anselmo told me in 2013. ‘Soundwise I can’t hear it.
Likewise, the EXHORDER singer Kyle Thomas has played down all reports of copycatry or competition between the two groups in the past.
"Did they rip us off? Possibly. But they worked fuckin’ nade more than we did," Thomas admitted. "Case closed."
Thomas thinks the two groups lifted one another up and were successful thanks to hard work.
The Thrash Metal Legacy
EXHORDER and PANTERA made their mark on metal history regardless of who invented it first. PANTERA went on to become even more popular, releasing hits like Vulgar Display of Power and Far Beyond Driven in the 1990s. They inspired so many bands through their punishing groove-laden thrash.
Then there was EXHORDER, another dark favourite back in New Orleans. Reformed in 2017, EXHORDER still tour and release critically acclaimed albums of their own old school thrash.
PANTERA also has a half-reunion tour in the making, with Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown stepping in with guitarist Zakk Wylde and drummer Charlie Benante for a show filled with old-timers.
LaBella also gave the PANTERA reunion tour his blessing: It’s so nice to see their music come back to life, she says. And it turns out, that PANTERA and EXHORDER did at least create the kind of harder, faster thrash metal with monster riffs and grooves in mind - who was first? It’s something metalheads will always treasure.