Category Archives: Pantera

FAR BEYOND DRIVEN CELEBRATES 20 YEARS: Details of Two Disc Anniversary Edition revealed.

FAR BEYOND DRIVEN CELEBRATES 20 YEARS

Two-Disc Anniversary Edition of Pantera’s Metal Milestone
Includes Newly Remastered Version Of Original Album,
Plus A Live Performance From The 1994 Monsters of Rock Festival

Available From Rhino On March 25, 2014

LOS ANGELES – Pantera reached a major milestone in 1994 when the legendary metal band’s seventh studio album, Far Beyond Driven, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200, becoming the fastest-selling album of the group’s career and its second consecutive platinum release. Not only a commercial success, the album also earned positive reviews around the world for the beautiful brutality of its all-out sonic assault.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of that landmark album and Rhino is celebrating with a special two-disc version that includes a newly remastered version of the album, along with a live performance from the 1994 Monsters of Rock Festival. FAR BEYOND DRIVEN: 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION will be available on March 25 for a suggested list price of $18.98. A digital version will also be available.

Following the breakthrough success of 1992’s Vulgar Display of Power – which has since been certified double platinum – singer Philip Anselmo, guitarist Dimebag Darrell, bassist Rex Brown and drummer Vinnie Paul returned in March 1994 with Far Beyond Driven. Following its #1 debut, FAR BEYOND DRIVEN remained on the Billboard album chart for seven more months and many still regard it as the heaviest album to ever top the chart.

Its 12 tracks represented a continuation of the previous album’s relentless musical onslaught with hard-hitting tracks like the first single “I’m Broken” as well as the mosh-pit classics “5 Minutes Alone” and “Slaughtered.” Another standout track was the group’s swirling acoustic cover of Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan,” which became a live favorite when Pantera hit the road to support the album later that year.

Fans already familiar with FAR BEYOND DRIVEN are in for a treat with the second disc of the 20th Anniversary Edition. Dubbed FAR BEYOND BOOTLEG – LIVE FROM DONINGTON ’94, the disc contains Pantera full live set recorded at the Monsters of Rock Festival in Donington, England on June 4, 1994. The 40-minute show comprises nine tracks taken from the band’s three most recent albums including: “Use My Third Arm” and “Strength Beyond Strength” from Far Beyond Driven, “Walk,” “Mouth For War,” and “This Love” off of Vulgar Display of Power, plus the title track from Cowboys from Hell as well as the live staple melding “Domination” and “Hollow.”

FAR BEYOND DRIVEN: 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Track Listing

Disc One – Original Album Remastered
1. “Strength Beyond Strength”
2. “Becoming”
3. “5 Minutes Alone”
4. “I’m Broken”
5. “Good Friends And A Bottle Of Pills”
6. “Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks”
7. “Slaughtered”
8. “25 Years”
9. “Shedding Skin”
10. “Use My Third Arm”
11. “Throes Of Rejection”
12. “Planet Caravan”

Disc Two – Far Beyond Bootleg – Live From Donington ‘94
1. “Use My Third Arm”
2. “Walk”
3. “Strength Beyond Strength”
4. “Domination/Hollow”
5. “Slaughtered”
6. “Fucking Hostile”
7. “This Love”
8. “Mouth For War”
9. “Cowboys From Hell”…

Link to watch the live stream of Metal Masters 5 tomorrow (Wednesday).

Watch the live stream of Metal Masters 5 tomorrow (Wednesday). The Metal Masters 5 lineup is loaded with a star-studded cast of metal musicians. As in years past, the show will start with a brief clinic offering some tips and tricks, and will end with an all-star jam session of metal cover songs. Confirmed guests include:

– Philip Anselmo (Pantera/Down)
– Kerry King (Slayer)
– Gary Holt (Slayer/Exodus)
– Charlie Benante (Anthrax)
– Frank Bello (Anthrax)
– Scott Ian (Anthrax)
– David Ellefson (Megadeth)
– Chris Broderick (Megadeth)
– Billy Sheehan (Winery Dogs)
– Mike Portnoy (Winery Dogs)
– Rex Brown (Pantera/Kill Devil Hill).
– Chuck Billy (Testament)
+ special guests TBA!

http://geargods.net/metalmasters/

Decible magazine: That Time Monte Pittman Taught Madonna a Pantera Riff

We all knew Dime’s influence went beyond metal. Check out this article, it’s a better read than you think.

From deciblemagazine.com:
By Jeanne Fury

Some time around 2008, the internet became flooded with YouTube clips of Madonna playing a Pantera song on guitar on her Sticky & Sweet tour. Naturally, portions of the human population became severely butt-hurt and decided such a false display of metal was blasphemous, so they took to the comments section of metal websites to air their many grievances. That’ll show Madonna! Meanwhile, the earth continued to spin on its axis, and the butt-hurt people went about being butt-hurt about many other things.

Not surprisingly, nobody was interested in why Madonna was playing Pantera. Well, Madonna’s guitar teacher Monte Pittman is the man with the answer. Pittman has a metal pedigree, having played alongside Tommy Victor in Prong, and the guy grew up near Dallas, so he was pretty familiar with Pantera’s repertoire. Oh, also, Dimebag had something to do with it.

You’ll read more about Pittman in an upcoming issue of Decibel, but for now, here’s the story, as told by the man himself:

There are so many little details that led to it. It wasn’t like one thing that happened. That goes back to me playing in Prong. There was a Prong show we played in Dallas. That’s the closest place to where I’m from that we played. Dimebag came to the show. He came early, around sound check to say hi to everybody. Tommy Victor was introducing me to Dimebag. It’s just me, Tommy, and Dime backstage at the Galaxy. Tommy’s saying, “This is the new guy; he’s playing guitar with us.” Dime kind of knew about me from the area because I had a band there, [longtime Pantera producer] Sterling Winfield did our last album, so there was a little bit of a familiarity. And Dime was saying, “Do you guys do ‘Cut Rate’?” And we’re like, “Yep.” He’s like, “That’s one of my favorite Prong songs ever.” And he’s looking at me, like, “You can do the solo, right? You got that part?” And he was kinda singing out how the solo went. And I said, “Yeah, that’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to play because the song does not let up.” And we played it faster than how it was on the album. He said, “You gotta stay on top of that string!” And I’m like, “Yep, I know, yep.”

Fast forward years later, I’m playing bass with Prong. We were playing in Oklahoma City and we’re exhausted, doing a lot of traveling and playing every day. And we played that song, and I had to play that on the bass, which is even harder [than playing it on guitar]. And I’m thinking, “How did Paul Raven do that?!” Then this voice went off in my head: You gotta stay on top of that string. And I realized what Dime had been saying to me. When you play fast, your pick naturally goes away from the string, but it doesn’t need to go far away from the string. And so I kind of realized what he was saying, and that changed my right-hand technique forever.

Now fast forward again, we’re getting ready for a Madonna tour [Sticky & Sweet]. She and I go back and forth [practicing the guitar]. We work on some left-hand things, then we work on some right-hand things. I said, “Let’s work on your right hand. Here are some techniques.” Then I told her the story about how Dime told me, “You gotta stay on top of that string.” That kinda led to me filling her in on the whole story of Pantera and how that relates to me. They weren’t just a band that I found out about—that was our hometown heroes.

The next day, she comes back, and on the guitar I could tell she had been practicing what I told her. She was just chugga chugga chugga on the guitar. I was like, “Wow! That’s so much better! That’s a huge difference.” She said, “Yep. You gotta stay on top of that string.”

And so at the same time, she had gotten a new musical director. He wanted to do her song “Hung Up” with her playing guitar. But it’s in D minor. That would be a great segue to me showing her drop D tuning on the guitar. So I was showing her the song, and I was like, “You know what, I gotta teach you some Pantera.” So I showed her the riff to “A New Level” because I thought it would be easy to remember how the notes just move up chromatically, one at a time. She loved that. She kept playing that all the time.

When we were in band rehearsals doing “Hung Up,” once we ended the song, she would start going into that Pantera riff. The rest of Madonna’s band, they’re not really familiar with that music, so they just started playing what she was playing. Every day in rehearsal when we would end that song, we would just start playing that riff. I thought, “Oh that’s cool, that’s fun.”

But then all of a sudden, you would start to see, like, some runners bring water in to stock the refrigerator. And the tour manager just happens to walk in, doing something. All of these people just started showing up at rehearsals who are there working, but just kinda popping their head in the door, like, “Hey I wanna see Madonna play that Pantera part again.”

And it stayed [and became part of the live show]. I was surprised that it stayed. Of course, I’m not gonna say no. When else am I gonna get to play Pantera on a stage in a stadium? But it stayed, and that’s where that story came from.

Here’s Madonna and Pittman performing “Hung Up” and getting their Pantera on beginning at the 4:27 mark.

Source: http://www.decibelmagazine.com/featured/that-time-monte-pittman-taught-madonna-a-pantera-riff/

Sterling Winfield: (Pantera) had the ability to not only talk the talk, but they could walk the walk, and they could walk it all over your fucking face. They had raw power.

(Pantera) had the ability to not only talk the talk, but they could walk the walk, and they could walk it all over your fucking face. They had raw power. That’s what they were all about, just unforgiving. Pantera were the forefathers. They could assault your senses and have you beg for more. They had this energy, and they not only delivered these cutting-edge albums, but each one broke the last one’s mold. Engineer Sterling Winfield on Recording Vangough and Working with Pantera. Read it here: http://www.guitarworld.com/engineer-sterling-winfield-recording-vangough-and-working-pantera

Dimebag Darrell spoke to Guitar World in May 2002 about the Pantera song he would most like to be remembered for.

“I think the kind of music we play will stand the test of time for however long. But if I had to pick just one, I’d go with the powerful, off-the-cuff statement that is ‘Fucking Hostile.’

“When it came out it definitely set the tone and pace for what we were about. I also think our boy Philip [Anselmo, vocals] got it perfectly right lyrically and we got it perfectly right musically.

“So I believe that if somebody heard this song 500 million years from now, they’d go, ‘Goddamn, these motherfuckers knew what they were talking about and sure had their jamming skills down’. Plus, I think people will always be hostile, which is another reason I went with this one.”

-“Dimebag Darrell Abbott

ARTISTdirect posted what they believe are the top 10 Dimebag Darrell Pantera riffs.

Every riff Dimebag Darrell recorded for Pantera could be considered legendary. Let’s just get that out of the way first off. The man was one of the greatest to ever pick up a guitar, and he’s responsible for an entire generation of players. So, that said, narrowing down a list to the “Top Ten Dimebag Darrell Pantera Riffs” wasn’t easy…but we did it anyway.

Dime tragically passed away nine years ago on December 8, but his spirit shines through in every note he cut to tape. Once again to honor his memory, ARTISTdirect.com editor in chief Rick Florino and AllAxess.com co-founder and DevilDriver guitarist Jeff Kendrick and DevilDriver drummer John Boecklin assembled a list of ten. Now, this took a ton of back and forth, but we think we nailed it…

Click here to visit ARTISTdirect and seehear the clips they selected.

Metal Insider’s Top 5: Bands Who Released Three Great Albums In A Row.

From Metal Insider:

While Pantera was a popular regional glam band, when Phil Anselmo joined in 1987, the band started evolving. Power Metal was heavier than anything the other band had joined, evoking the album’s title more than their previous three albums. Yet they got much heavier for their major label debut. Vulgar Display is simply one of the best metal albums ever, and needs no explanation. Yet instead of following that album up with a Vulgar Display part two, Far Beyond Driven was heavier than either of its predecessors in every aspect. In fact, the band’s album-closing cover of Black Sabbaths’ “Planet Caravan” is one of the only times the album lets up.

Click here to visit Metal Insider and see the other bands selected.

Rollingstone.com recalls Pantera’s final concert.

By
Andy Greene
November 14, 2013 2:50 PM

Pantera were in pretty rough shape by the time their Extreme Steel tour touched down at the Beast Feast in Yokohama, Japan on August 26th, 2001. They’d spent the past couple of months on the road with Slayer, Static-X, Skrape and Morbid Angel and were playing to huge crowds, but long-simmering internal tensions and addiction issues were starting boil over.

“The tour seemed to go on forever,” bassist Rex Brown wrote in his memoir, Official Truth, 101 Proof. “The financial offers were great, but because we felt like we were in a marriage that was going south, that just didn’t matter anymore. Something had to give sooner rather than later.”

Read the entire article here: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/flashback-pantera-play-their-final-concert-20131114

Ex-PANTERA Bassist REX BROWN Guests On ‘Talking Metal’ Podcast (Audio)

Former PANTERA and current KILL DEVIL HILL bassist Rex Brown was interviewed on episode 444 of the “Talking Metal” podcast (link textweb site). You can now listen to the podcast using the audio player below. (Note: The Brown chat begins around the 27-minute mark.)

KILL DEVIL HILL is the band featuring legendary drummer Vinny Appice (DIO, BLACK SABBATH, HEAVEN & HELL) alongside Rex Brown, Mark Zavon (RATT, W.A.S.P., 40 CYCLE HUM) on guitar and Jason “Dewey” Bragg (PISSING RAZORS) on vocals.…

‘Dimebag’ Darrell Abbott Wins Loudwire’s Greatest Metal Guitarist Tournament

As originally posted on loudwire.com here.

In a competition that started out with 32 of metal’s finest axe-slingers and shredders, and featured well over a million votes, late Pantera legend ‘Dimebag’ Darrell Abbott has emerged victorious in Loudwire’s Greatest Metal Guitarist tournament.

The fan-voted competition took some unexpected twists and turns during its one-month run, with early favorites like Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi and late virtuoso Randy Rhoads being ousted by the likes of Avenged Sevenfold’s Synyster Gates and Tool’s Adam Jones in the bracket-style tournament.

In fact, it was the Tool guitarist who made it all the way to the final round against Dimebag. And with about 12 hours left, the championship match was a virtual tie, with only a few votes separating the two remaining contenders. However, Pantera’s legions of fans came through in the final stretch, leading Dimebag to the ultimate victory.

Dimebag’s path to victory wasn’t an easy one, as he also beat such accomplished musicians as Zakk Wylde and Dream Theater’s John Petrucci along the way. While the debate will continue well beyond our tournament, in many ways it can be argued that Dimebag was the ultimate metal guitarist. He took what he learned from the likes of Iommi, Rhoads and Joe Satriani and made it his own. He then went on to influence a generation of guitarists who came after him.

With all the votes in from you, the fans, Loudwire proudly declares the late great ‘Dimebag’ Darrell Abbott as the Greatest Metal Guitarist. Getcha pull!

Extreme Steel Tour – Pantera, Slayer, Static-X, Skrape, Morbid Angel – June 21st, 2001 – Uniondale, NY @ Nassau Coliseum

Read the review in it’s entirety on blistering.com here.

“Thankfully I have most of Pantera’s discography so I was able to appreciate their set. Perhaps because this is their third tour in support of Reinventing the Steel they only played two songs off of the newest release – “Goddamn Electric” and “Revolution Is My Name.” In front of a huge steel wall of amps and speakers, they played such classics as “Mouths of War,” “Becoming,” “5 Minutes Alone” and “I’m Broken.” Phil, who I heard was much more coherent than he was at the three shows at Hammerstein, took time to talk between most every song in the set. Mentioning those shows, and the turnout this night, he thanked New York for all of the support that the fans have always given the band. He also said that this would be the last time, for a long time, that Pantera would be coming around. After three tours they are going to take some time off. While a friend of mine thought it sounded like a good-bye, perhaps forever, the love that was shown the band by the packed house has got to be enough to keep them together and bring them back. The fans were going nuts screaming along, head banging and moshing throughout the set. Later on, Phil took a time out to thank all of the New York bands that they are friendly with, including Type O Negative, Anthrax and Biohazard. I mention that because both Scott Ian of Anthrax and Evan from Biohazard came up and did guest vocals with the band.

As per usual, Pantera wrapped things up with “Walk,” sending the crowd into a frenzy of singing along and head banging. Dimebag proved yet again that he is one of, if not the, best heavy metal guitarists ever by hitting into every riff hard and accurately, even adding some improvisational notes from time to time. He literally threw out boxes of picks after they finished, giving the now half-deaf hardcore fans up front cool mementoes to go along with the inevitable ringing in their ears.

If my idiot friend is eventually proven right, which I sincerely hope he isn’t, and this was Pantera’s last New York show ever, then the Texas metal gods went out with a bang.

Reviewed by: Scott Olivenbaum”…