"But if I've learned anything from touring with Ozzy Osbourne, it's if he gets sick, I get sick. The last time I had the deathly f-----' pneumonia-type flu or virus was in ‘97 with Ozzy. I caught it again this time. So when he gets sick, I get sick, and what a beautiful bond that is."

Anselmo is in an unusually good mood. On Nov. 7, Pantera--Anselmo, guitarist Dimebag Darrell, drummer Vinnie Paul and bassist Rex Brown, is embarking on a U.S. tour with Morbid Angel and fellow OzzFest vets Kittie.

This month, Anselmo is supporting New Orleans' House of Shock, a grotesque horror chamber complete with live, crawling maggots, impaled nuns and a vomiting televangelist. Despite massive protests by community and animal rights organizations, the 8-year-old House of Shock organizers are still hell-bent on doing good. They donate proceeds to Children's Hospital of New Orleans, the Parish Police Bullet Proof Vest Fund and the Greater New Orleans Riding Rehabilitation Center.

"It actually has become it's own thing. That's due to the diligent work of all the guys over there. I got to give credit where credit's due--it's the House of Shock crew that deserves all the praise. I was way more hands-on in the early years, but as business grows, business tends to pull me away from things, so I'm still an investor and this and that, of course," Anselmo said.

Shortly after House of Shock closes its doors, Pantera will begin its tour, in support of "Reinventing the Steel," the band's first studio album in four years. The delay is no fault of its own.

During a separate telephone interview, drummer Vinnie Paul said, "We were going to do one little tour. One more time around the States and call it quits and go in the studio midway through '98. Then Black Sabbath called and says, ‘Hey, we want you to go tour with us.' We were like, ‘Black Sabbath? All [original members]? No f-----' way we're turning that down.' So we go and do it."

The "one little tour" stretched into one more European and U.S. tour with Sabbath, and a Mexican tour with Metallica.

"After that, we said, ‘Turn the phone off and let's go to the studio,'" Paul said.

But the tours were productive. For the first time, Pantera completed a song on the road, the meaningful "Yesterday Don't Mean S--t." They also had skeleton versions of "Hellbound" and "Goddamn Electric" by the time they returned home.

"We wrote ("Yesterday Don't Mean S--t") in a hotel room in Toronto," Paul explained. "That really set the tone for the record. We didn't want to be a band that looks back: ‘Yeah, we had a No. 1 album in ‘94. We sold 13 million records and we've got all these platinum albums and s--t.' We want to approach this thing like a new f-----' band. We want to go out and kick everybody's a-- all over again. That's where ‘Yesterday Don't Mean S--t' came from."

"Reinventing the Steel" marked more firsts. Paul produced the record himself, making it the first time Pantera worked without longtime knob-turner Terry Date, who was aiding the Deftones in the studio at the time.

"We knew that we weren't going to sit in the studio for four weeks and pound it out," Paul said. "We wanted to take our time with it and write the best f-----' songs we could write. For us, this record was all about songs. The last two records were statements and attitudes. When you went away from listening to ‘Great Southern Trendkill,' you had an emotion. You were angry. You were p----d off. You were fired up.

"When you go away from this record, you still have that f----' attitude but you remember the songs. ... [The record company said,] 'It's the best Pantera record we've ever heard. For my buck, it's the best Pantera record we've ever done. Obviously with 161,000 units sold in the first week, the fans must be diggin' it too."

"Reinventing the Steel" debuted at No. 4, sandwiched between Ice Cube and Sisqo.

Pantera has not only inspired fans, but peers as well. When Pantera performed as part of the traveling metal circus OzzFest (reportedly the last to include its namesake Ozzy Osbourne), a handful of bands fessed up their love of Pantera, including Static-X and Godsmack.

"It makes me feel f-----' great to know that you made music that changed somebody else's life and inspired them just like f-----' Ozzy did for me," Paul said.

"When Wayne from Static-X says, ‘Oh I'm a big Pantera fan. That's what started me playing,' all I can say is ‘Thank you.' That's how I felt about Judas f-----' Priest and Kiss and Black Sabbath."

The forthcoming headlining tour is a celebration of Pantera's 15-year career. Fans can expect a healthy dose of "Reinventing the Steel" and plenty of older material, according to Paul.

"We're definitely doing a lot of new stuff, but we're one of those bands that doesn't want to forget where we came from. We want to please everybody. We don't want to show up and play all new songs and two songs from the last record. We want to try to do at least two or three off of every record, and five, six, seven off the new record," he said.

"You go to see Kiss, and if they play something off of ‘Psycho Circus' first, you'd go, ‘Oh man.' If they came out and played ‘Detroit Rock City,' you'd say, ‘That's the f-----' shit.'"

Anselmo has a different take on the tour.

"We're going to do what Pantera does. I think it would be a let down if we didn't do it. We're gonna have us some whiskey and beers before the show, and whatever happens, happens."