By Rick Florino
From artistdirect.com

Swedish: sambla.se

Far Beyond Driven changed the face of heavy metal. It skyrocketed to the top of the Billboard Top 200 without the band sacrificing its patented intensity. In fact, it trumped both Vulgar Display of Power and Cowboys From Hell in terms of being visceral. It’s uncompromising, unmitigated, and unique to this day. The 20th anniversary addition of this earth-shaking album is out now, and it includes Far Beyond Bootleg – Live From Donington ’94—a recording of their legendary Donington performance.

Given the album’s gravity and importance, ARTISTdirect.com editor in chief Rick Florino spoke to Philip Anselmo of Pantera about the record and so much more.

Far Beyond Driven feels like Pantera at its purest or most unbridled. In some ways, this is the rawest spirit of the band.

That’s an interesting way to put it. It’s hard for me not to endorse the way you put it, but it’s also hard for me to endorse it. I think, at that time, we were all very much on the same page, so to speak. Let me side step really quickly and just remind you. Pantera had a lot of success before I was in the band. When I first joined the band, I was singing fucking tracks on Power Metal after two weeks of being with them. Then, we wrote Cowboys from Hell all throughout the rest of 1987 and 1988. We had been playing those songs live. We had been through a lot up to the point as far as personalities go and getting to know each other. Becoming a trusted member and true singer for this band was a process to where I didn’t have the rest of the band peaking over my shoulder like, “What are you writing about?” By the time I got to Far Beyond Driven, it was, “I’m going to write what the fuck I’m going to write”. So, I was very comfortable at the time. I guess the rest of the guys were like, “Leave Phil alone. Let him do his job” [Laughs]. It felt so fucking natural.

Were those Far Beyond Driven sessions particularly intense?

Well, I knew that’s what I wanted. There was a lot of speculation out there about what type of record we were going to make. I definitely had a chip on my fucking shoulder because there was no way in hell I was going to go the fucking commercial route. At the time, I think we were very aware of other heavy metal bands that had found a little bit of fame and taken that “commercial route”, so to speak, with their music. I very much instilled that there was no fucking way I was doing that into the other guys. I think they were on board quite a bit. It’s like when you have a favorite band, you follow their entire career, you wait anxiously to buy their new record, you open up it, you put it on, and it’s a letdown. That’s a shitty feeling. We knew what our fan base wanted. We were very focused on delivering what our fan base had come to know and come to know of us. A lot of people like to say we did things in reverse. Meaning, we didn’t start out this heavy fucking band and get more commercialized. It was kind of the other way around. That was the main focus there. When I laid my vocals on that fucking record, I wanted people to feel the fucking spit on their faces coming out of the speakers [Laughs]. I meant every fucking second.

What was inspiring you back then in 1993?

I had always followed the sport of boxing. In 1993 and 1994, I was probably in the midst of the Evander Holyfield reign of boxing, the heavyweights, and his battles with Lennox Lewis, Riddick Bowe, and all of these fucking fighters. Aside from boxing and horror flicks, it was always music. At that point in time, I had gone through about my third phase of jamming a lot slower stuff. It was a Sabbath phase, so to speak. Also, it was Black Flag—the My War and Slip It In era when they did more slow, droning, ugly-sounding tunes instead of hardcore anthems. That was very effective and influential. Also, at that time, Morbid Angel really brought me back to death metal. To me, that was a great revelation as far as getting back into faster music, more modern faster music, and shit like that. I think I got a little bored with thousands of thrash bands trying to emulate Slayer. Morbid Angel stuck out because they were doing different things with riffs and ideas. Not to mention, Pete Sandoval was extremely innovative. Trey Azagthoth was also very innovative. I was listening to a lot of different music whether it was Witchfinder General or Morbid Angel. Then, there was Suffocation’s Effigy of the Forgotten record. If you put things into context, 1994 was about five or six years removed what I consider the first wave of black metal as well. Bands like Sodom and Bathory were not called black metal bands when they first came out. To me, the true genre of black metal started in Norway and Finland. I was very much into a handful of those bands. Other than that, I loved the attitude of black metal. I loved the intensity of certain death metal back then. With hardcore, it was Victim in Pain by Agnostic Front. That’s still my favorite record they ever did. Also, Poison Idea’s Pick Your King record was really balls-out, one-take hardcore that fucking delivered. I’m a frigging music nerd, dude! I wear that shit on my sleeve. I think everybody knows that. Any influence I could fucking take from this, whether it be cupping the mic for effect like Frank from Suffocation did or absolute disdain for over-pronunciation in the vein of Mike Williams from Eyehategod or Seth Putnam from Anal Cunt, all of that shit was an influence on me.

When was the moment the whole vision of Far Beyond Driven crystallized for you?

Well, ever since I joined the band, it was recognized that one of my strongpoints, for sure, was not just song structure, but the way an album flows. In other words, that’s synchronizing songs as far as which one would go first, second, third, fourth, and so on. I always need to see what we have before I put them in order. I had to wait and see exactly what we had. You’ve got to take into consideration that “Planet Caravan” fell from out of nowhere. We had originally recorded that for a Black Sabbath cover record. Through label politics, of course we couldn’t be a part of that record. We were sitting on top of “Planet Caravan”. I thought it would be ironic to end such a blazing record with something that, to me, people would think would be the last song Pantera would ever cover. Considering there are so many heavy Black Sabbath songs out there, we would pick that one. I just knew the musicianship in Pantera. These guys were the most fucking talented band I’ve ever been around and talented group I’ve ever worked with in in my life. They could play anything. When they took an influence and made it their own, it was a special fucking thing man. I had to consider that shit, “Are we really going to put this song on there? Is this the right thing to do? Is this the wrong thing to do?” At the end of the day, I’m happy as shit with the tracking and how the record flows. Once again, that’s a strongpoint for me. I guess that was a first round knockout right there. I felt good about it then. I still feel good about it.

How did “Use My Third Arm” come together?

I know the middle breakdown part was Rex Brown’s riff. It was part of a song called “Piss” at one time. I did always like that riff because it had a certain Black Sabbath flavor to it. I think there were instances where Vinnie Paul would come up with drum patterns and we would all fall in accordingly. “Use My Third Arm” sort of reminds me of how a song like “Primal Concrete Sledge” started out. Here’s Vince playing this massive percussive part. Dimebag Darrell is looking at me, and I’m looking at him like, “Fuck man, let’s do something. This thing kicks ass. Where’s the riff?” [Laughs] Dimebag and Rex would fall in accordingly. We’d get to start shaping the song up and putting into a structure that made sense and was best for the song. It was really exciting adding Rex’s riff. There are several riffs on Far Beyond Driven that we’d had for a very long time. At the time of writing previous to the album, they weren’t right. Case in point would be the breakdown on “Slaughtered”. There’s a very syncopated riff on that song. Dimebag had that riff for five or six years. We tried it several fucking ways and not until this particular record did it really mesh and we found the correct groove to us. “Use My Third Arm” was one of those kinds of songs. The riffs we had were there, but they didn’t come to usable fruition until this album. Once again, it shows you where our minds were. We also got to use riffs that were there but not applied correctly, so to speak, until we did Far Beyond Driven.

Did you ever play “Throes of Rejection” live?

You know we may have done it a couple of times. One thing we always did was use the final riff of that particular song at the end of one of our other songs live because we know that riff was the money shot for sure. In a way, we’d use pieces of it. Normally, it was that outro riff on “Throes of Rejection”.

What song represents the record’s spirit the most for you?

There are two songs for me. One of them really sums up what Pantera was about. That would be “Becoming”. Darrell had found this new noisy ass fucking pedal, and he came up with this heaving monstrous fucking riff using this pedal. I loved it because it was screechy, fucked up, and original-sounding—and ugly at the same time. Also the drum beat and the kick drum patterns to that song are fucking outrageous. The riff is heavy and very Pantera to the max, and it also has the huge chorus. That song embodies the spirit of Pantera very well. Actually, a very interesting song is the first one we wrote for it. Strangely enough, that would be “25 Years”. That began with my infatuation with The Melvins and their interpretation of The Melvins—playing things drone-y, slower, and unpredictably. That song itself is so different for us in a way because of its elongated intro and almost a perfect Pantera piece. The verses are so signature fucking Pantera it’s ridiculous. I’m proud of both of those songs as far as sticking out. You can’t take anything from “Strength Beyond Strength” or “I’m Broken” either because they have their points of magic as well.

Were you working on Far Beyond Driven during those early Down demo sessions? Wasn’t it the same era?

It was, of course. We did the first Down demo in 1991. We did the second in 1992. Shortly after Far Beyond Driven, we released the full-length in 1995. I was in several bands at that time, but Down was really the second most important band in my life back then. I was doing both bands. To me, that’s apples and oranges though. Pantera had its own sound. Down had its own sound. I was doing different things with both bands to where I felt a more aggressive approach was more appropriate for Pantera. With Down, I felt I should sing a little bit more because of the style of it. Whether it be the Black Sabbath influence or the St. Vitus influence, there had to be some sort of melody there. With Pantera, don’t get me wrong, I had this way of screaming but still in its own strange key to where it did come up and, as a result ,was very hook-y and had its own oddball melody. I always made sure that was the case. Yeah, you’re correct. I was going back and forth. Make no mistake, Pantera was the priority in 1994.

—Rick Florino
04.07.14

Click here to read the article with the pictures and a link to listen to “Use My Third Arm” from the FBD 20th Anniversary bonus disc “Far Beyond Bootleg”.…

Thanks very much to the 6,048 fans who purchased it! Not too shabby for a record that is 20 years old & has already sold 1.5 million copies. If you haven’t picked it up yet, look to get a physical copy or download from this link: http://smarturl.it/panterafbd or here from iTunes: http://bit.ly/1dsc4nV…

By Bryce Segall for Revolt Magazine.

A longstanding argument around the REVOLT office maintains it takes 20 years to declare any album a true classic, taking into account – time necessary to infiltrate culture, proof of lasting worth, and ultimately, influence. There are certainly exceptions however, records that feel classic long before those two decades pass, and Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven is most definitely one of them. Entering the Billboard charts at #1, the heaviest record ever to do so, it set a new precedent for what metal could be in the early 90s – a time when it was far from “cool” to to fly the flag of heavy, and a period in dire need of central identity for the genre.

Pantera not only took the challenge upon themselves and succeeded, but managed to redirect the mainstream if only for a moment, leaving their lasting imprint on metal forever, and a classic LP in their wake. In celebration of such a monumental accomplishment and legacy, we sat down with the only person who was there to witness it all first hand, the band’s producer and longtime friend, Terry Date, who worked with the group on four of their five albums, including Far Beyond Driven, and has no doubt left a mark of his own.

Bryce: When did you find out you’d be working on the record? Was it an ongoing conversation or was it a nice surprise?

Terry: It was an ongoing conversation, and bear with me because 20 years has gone by and that’s a lot of brain cells that have disappeared. But you know, once we did the first record – those guys are incredibly loyal guys, once you’re in with them, you have to really hurt em to get out. So we were in really close contact, even after the records, they really were like family. So it wasn’t – I don’t remember exactly the conversation that went down as far as ‘you’re gonna do the next record or not’, it was just an assumption I guess. It never was talked about as far as I remember but obviously I was thrilled.

B: What was the next step? Did they send you some demos? Were you already in the studio when you heard the songs for the first time?

T: Most of the songs, except for the Cowboys From Hell record, were written in the studio. There were riffs that – you know, Dime had hundreds of riffs. He’d stay up all night, basically every night, and after studio was done, or work was done for the day, he’d always lock himself into a room someplace, usually with a bunch of people and a bottle of some kind… and he would just write stuff, everything from stupid country western songs to really heavy riffs. And I can’t remember… these songs all blend together, but “Suicide Note Pt. 1”… was that on this record? Whatever, there’s a few songs I remember which record they’re on but most of them I don’t. That song in particular he wrote in his little closet there, late night, and he brought it in and said he liked the song and wanted to re-record it. It was just on a little cassette, and I listened to it and said there’s no point in re-recording it, just do some overdubs to what you’ve already got. And that’s where a lot of his really great ideas came from.

Now, on Far Beyond Driven, again, they wrote in the studio, most of the stuff – ideas came in with them, but the songs were constructed in the studio. And usually it’d start out with somebody had a riff of some kind and it would just build off of that you know, either Vinnie had a Drum Beat or Dime had a riff, or Rex – somebody had something. And because the studio was owned by their dad, and it was sort of a home studio, definitely a home studio, it basically was their rehearsal space that we actually recorded in, or that’s pretty much what it felt like. And the song “Becoming” which was on Far Beyond Driven, I remember that one really well because Dime had just got a new digitech wami pedal, the red one, and he was playing with it, and that’s where that riff for “Becoming” came from, was him just messing around with that pedal. So the song just started with Dime’s riff and Vinnie was with him and started doing a beat to it and everybody filled in the gaps after that.

B: Coming off Vulgar Display of Power and heading into the studio, would you say the band was at their peak at this point or had the chaos already sort of set in?

T: Well the chaos was there from day one, before I even showed up for the first record, that’s the way they were, they never changed. The difference was the world tours, and all the attention and a bigger audience I guess, but I would say that I never saw a peak with them, let me put it that way. I think after Cowboys they found their stride and they kept that. There were obviously more distractions, and they’re well documented – certain things, but that was the only thing that would slow things down at all. They reached a level and they just stayed there, there was no decline with them. There were the normal personnel frictions that happen when you’re on the road together for ten years or whatever, but as far as the creative flow and the flow with the band as far as making the music and performing the music, once they hit their stride – until drugs took their toll on Phil it pretty much stayed the same.

B: Listening to a now classic record like this, it just sounds, for lack of a better word, “Easy”, were there hard days or periods in the studio?

It’s never easy. There are some that are easier than others but on those records – for me, those guys were so much fun to be around that it was always mayhem, which was the only hard things about it. You’re trying to get stuff done and everybody had a good work ethic but they also had a good party ethic too. So sometimes it was hard to get focus and concentration going to keep things moving along…. But none of the songs were… they were all equally hard, let me put it that way.

B: What do you remember about the performances as they happened some of these things on here, Dime’s solos and what not that are legendary, what was that process?

T: He was such a natural, I don’t know what he did to prepare himself, but Dime is the kinda guy where, when it was time to do a solo, you go in and ya do it. During that record, and I believe part of Vulgar, and definitely Great Southern Trendkill, but that record for sure, when it came time to do solos, Vinnie and Dime would work together a lot on those, because their communication level was so refined. Dime could play something and Vinnie would just look at him and go – do that Randy Rhodes thing there, and I have no idea which Randy Rhodes thing he’s talking about but – you know, they’re brothers. So it was very efficient for those two to do solos together. But what we would do is I would set it all up and we would get all the sounds together and back then we’re using tape so we have basically three channels to record solos onto, and he would record on those 3 tracks, and then go over one that he didn’t like, and once he got piece together, we’d bounce the best pieces of those three solos together onto one track. So it would all be combine sort like that, but mainly when it came time for those solos, I would just let Vinnie go with him and let those two communicate together and it was really effective and really comfortable to work that way.

B: And when you say bounce you’re talking solo and muting because this is pre-Protools right?

Yeah, you’ve got three solos running at the same time, and you listen and pick the best beginning lets say, and maybe that’s on track one, and then you record that onto another channel – you’re constructing a solo onto a fourth channel is what you’re doing. And so you take your favorite pieces out of the three solos he has, and creating a new one out of the best of those three and the fourth channel becomes the solo.

B: Phil said this was the first time the band kinda left him alone to do the lyrics how he wanted, what was his headspace like during that time? It’s obviously both sonically and thematically a fairly heavy record.

T: The difference with this record from the previous record, is – Vinnie and Dime’s dad had moved the studio from Arlington to Nashville. So we all traveled to Nashville and stayed in a hotel, Phil included. And on previous records, the band kinda worked on the music themselves and then Phil would come in and kinda give his opinion on how the riffs worked with the lyrics he had in mind, but on that record he was there from the very beginning, so he was sitting in on all the stuff that went on and the dynamic changed a little bit as far as opinions about riffs early on, but I don’t really remember a lot about doing vocals on that one. I believe most of the vocals were done when we moved the project back to Dallas and went into a corporate studio. But Phil at that point pretty much was like, I got this, I’m gonna do what I wanna do here.

B: Rex was quoted as saying he thought they drove you crazy with a bunch of takes and experimenting and it was that it was their most expensive album. How much truth is there to that and was there any interference from the label or did they just kind of let you do your thing?

The label always – I mean I personally never got any comments from the label about budget, I don’t even know what the budget was. But it did take a while to do that record, a lot of it was, the band tends to be very much perfectionists. I remember one instance, I believe we were in Dallas at the Dallas song labs. Once again, when you fade a song out, this isn’t Protools, you can’t just automate it or draw a fade in, this was all done by hand with a fader, you fade it as the song is going out. And I remember spending the good part of a day fading one of the songs, I cant remember which right now, but we ended up doing probably 200 different fades on that song to get it exactly right. And I had Vinnie and Dime over each shoulder every time I did it – they didn’t drive me crazy or anything, it started getting kind of funny after a while, but we probably got over 200 different versions of a fade, on one song.

B: Is there anything you were particularly proud to capture or wished you had captured from those sessions?


T: Nothing comes to my mind, because the process was always – they were so good, the guys were so good, that there was never anything – I mean things would stand out as far as performances, and the performance on ”Becoming”, both Vinnie and Dime – Vinnie’s drummer pattern just to this day, I talked to him about it and he goes ‘oh it’s easy, this is how I do it with my feet”, and it looks really simple, but it’s crazy what he does and it was just such a great combination of everybody on that song, form Dime’s crazy riff to what Rex was doing and… there were four great musicians in that band, and it just so rarely happens that you have four people that are at that level of ability. That’s really what I take away from that record and every record with those guys.

B: Was there ever any clue the album would go to number one? Was that even a possibility?

T: You know, I don’t remember anybody talking about that. There was no talk about it, nobody thought about it, I mean we knew the momentum was right for them to come out and enter high on the charts, but I don’t remember anybody talking about that kind of stuff you know?

As I recall it was like, ‘well that’s really great’ but I was in the studio and they were on the road, and there were other distractions, and everybody was excited but it was just excitement for a few minutes and then head down and move on to the next thing.

B: In retrospect has it sunk in what that meant for the genre?

T: I hear that comment, how much it meant [to metal], and it’s really hard to tell. I think more than being #1, I think what the band did, is they were so different and so good at what they did, that you know, just them being who they are, as the years go by, you realize what an influence that was on that style of music, and what a big mark they left.

B: Do you remember anything about the original cover art?

T: The original idea was more comedy and the newer idea was definitely more serious and more appropriate, I don’t really… [laughs] I think I know who’s idea it was, but I’m not sure. But yeah the original idea was shut down, and I think improved on.

B: When was the last time you listened to the record? How does it hold up in your opinion?

T: I don’t usually go back and listen to records, just because I’ve heard it a thousand times before it’s released and when I listen back to it sometimes, you know I’m hearing things I wish I’d done differently… so it usually takes about 10 years before I listen to something again. So it’s been a while, you know, I listen to bits and pieces of it, just to reference myself to things I might have done back then when I’m working on something currently but… It’s a classic record, just like all their records. I always look back on those and go, I wish I’d mixed them a little different, I wish this sound was a little different, and you know, what I would do if I could fix it again right now, and when I mention that to people they go…’well, why would you wanna do that? That’s the record that was made in that time period and it wouldn’t be the same record if it was mixed differently now’. Two years ago when Vulgar was re-released for it’s 20th anniversary, it was re-mastered and I happened to be in Los Angeles when it was being re-mastered, and I kinda sat around with them while they were doing it. And you know, you listen to the original, and then you listen to the re-master, and the re-mastered version, I dunno, might be better? But you’re constantly trying to match the original so it’s like why mess with it.

B: Is there anything we wouldn’t know to ask about that stands out from the original sessions, maybe a funny or cool story?

Well it’s not really a funny story, but it’s a good one. We were in Nashville staying in this big Holliday Inn high rise plaza or something, a big high rise hotel, and Dime liked to change rooms kinda often, and I remember one day, he came in the studio and said ‘Yeah, I gotta change my room so I just packed all my stuff up and someone from the hotel’s gonna move it into a new one for me’.

And the next day he comes in and he goes, ‘I lost a DAT tape”, which I don’t know if you remember DAT tapes, but he would record his – late at night he’d get a riff idea and he’d just record it onto this tape, and he had a tape with 250 riffs on it, that just ended up missing. Probably left it under a bed or something, whatever, never showed up.

So for that record, that was the early stages of the record too, when they were writing songs, so for that record he had over 250 riffs on there, that he was gonna draw from, to use for the record – and he just lost em. So there’s 250 Dimebag riffs out there someplace, and here’s Dime, you know, lost all of his riffs that he prepared, and he says, ‘eh I’ll just write some new ones’.

So he just wrote new ones for the record, just on the spot, that’s just how amazing that guy was. But yeah, so there’s a DAT tape out there someplace with 250 riffs from Far Beyond Driven that never got used.

B: And in the interest of not dwelling completely in the past tell us what you’ve been up to lately.

T: Well, Bring Me The Horizon was about a year ago. I just finished Miss May I’s record – heavy band out of Cincinnati, basically. And that record is coming out any day now, that was a great project, we did that up here in Seattle. Great guys, really great band, great live show, excited about that. I’ve been pretty focused on getting my studio built, so I’ve been dealing with that, and doing single song mixes around the edges. In December I have one project that’s not confirmed so I can’t say who it is up here in Seattle, and then there’s a number of mixing projects I’m gonna start on in late April, early May. There’s 3 or 4 projects lined up this year but they’re not confirmed yet, but a lot of it is about getting the studio together.

B: How do you take work these days? Through management? Your website?

T: I get a lot of emails from the website (http://www.terrydaterecording.com/), and I’m always looking for stuff, fun finds – good bands that are unsigned, or signed bands too, but usually those guys go through my management. But I’m always looking for, especially, stuff nobody’s heard before. I’m looking for bands that haven’t had the opportunity, or the ability to be heard yet.

By Bryce Segall for Revolt Magazine.

Click here to see the original interview.…

From Rolling Stone: Two decades ago this week, metal torchbearers Pantera released their heavy-hitting seventh album Far Beyond Driven, and, implausibly, it made it to Number One on the Billboard 200. Even when compared to other metal albums by Metallica and Slipknot that have achieved the same distinction, it remains notable for doing so at the height of grunge, a commercial nadir for metal. Pantera were proud to be alternatives to alternative. “We called ourselves heavy metal at a time when the term ‘heavy metal’ was extremely uncool,” drummer Vinnie Paul, who now plays with the metal group Hellyeah, tells Rolling Stone. “People would do anything to call their band something else – ‘alternative’ or whatever – just so it wouldn’t get forced into that heavy-metal category and we carried the flag. That record was very extreme at the time compared to anything else that was out there.”

Read the rest of the article and stream the live “Strength Beyond Strength” on rollingstone.com by clicking here.…