The Far Beyond Driven Interview

That's Pantera's philosophy; a cranium-splitting, bone-breaking aural nightmare. Philip Anselmo's bag-of-broken-glass vocals grind against the grain of all who stand in his way. Dimebag brings high-n-tinded guitar technology down to the trenches of the hard-core audience. Every well-oiled machine has its drive chain. In Pantera, it is the drummer/percussionist/co-producer Vinnie Paul. From the low depths of bass comes the screaming agony inflicted by bassist Rex Brown. All together, the three wild hell- cowboys from Texas and a wild-card from New Orleans make the explosive combination called Pantera.

Success didn't happen immediately. According to Vinnie Paul, "We've worked very hard to achieve everything we have, and we haven't done it through a hit song on the radio or a video that gets played 24 hours a day. We've done it strictly through touring and playing for our fans. That's why we've had a number one record (Far Beyond Driven), because we devoted four years of non-stop touring for the previous two records (Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display of Power) and had one of the best fan bases out there. They went out and bought the record and made it number one. It's not anything that happened overnight. We've been working a long time at this."

Prior to Pantera, a hard-core metal band from Texas was as rare as a diamondback rattlesnake in the dead of winter. The self- proclaimed "cowboys from hell" crashed the party, and afterwards, nobody was ever the same. Vinnie Paul describes their moniker: "CowboysfromHell is basically about us. We come from Texas, and people don't expect to hear heavy, hard music from Texas. They expect ZZ Top and blues and all of that. We were kind of out of place, and that's how we came up with the term. We wanted people to be able to identify with that when we first came out."

Vinnie Paul picked up the drums early on in high school, and brother Dimebag naturally gravitated towards the guitar. The rock group Kiss represented a form and image in music to both of them that was both hard and inventive. Ace Frehley, the lead guitarist in Kiss, provided the early structure for what Dimebag would emulate and develop into his own distinctive style. In a Guitar World interview with Glenn Thrush, Dimebag confesses: "When I was 13, my dad said that for my birthday I could either get this killer BMX bike or a guitar. I chose the bike. But then I started getting into Kiss really heavy, and I wanted a Les Paul just like Ace Frehley. I knew that eventually I was gonna jam with it, but at the time I just wanted one so I could do Ace in the n-drror... Then I started fiddling around, and I asked my dad to show me some stuff. He showed me how to make a barre chord." Being from Texas did have some benefits in his guitar education. In Guitar World, Dimebag admits, "Yeah, I'm from Texas, dude. There are so many people who, overnight, claim they play bluesy, but I grew up down here watchin'dudes play with my dad. Like Bugs Henderson -- do you know him? He's an amazing, true Texas blues player."

Dimebag's guitar prowess won him every guitar competition in Texas. At the age of 16, he was banned from the contests simply because his skills created unfair competition for the others. Vinnie Paul and Dimebag, along with friend Rex Brown and New Orleans native Philip Anselmo, join forces and road-test their band, Pantera. This culminates with the recording of the album Power Metal . The album sells a respectable 35,000 units, and gives Pantera fan bases in the South/Central regions of the United States. ATCO/EastWest Records is impressed with what they see and hear of Pantera, and sign the band.

Now with a major label deal, well-known producers and recording studios are eager to work with the group. Instead, the band members decide they want to their album their way, and opt to record it not in Los Angeles or New York, but rather ion the familiar environs of Pantego Sound Studio in Texas, with Vinnie Paul and Terry Date (Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone) co-producing. Vinnie Paul explains his role in the studio: "The most important thing is that nobody knows the way Pantera sounds better than I do, and that's the way it should be. If I brought somebody in from the outside that didn't understand what we're all about, or somebody that wanted to change us, it wouldn't be Pantera anymore." Vinnie Paul talks about his studio relationship with Date, "The magic thing about working with Terry Date in co-production is that he's a listener and has worked with us from the start. He knows what we're capable of and what we're good at, so we work real good together."

Vinnie Paul's role as drummer and percussionist also heavily influences the sound. "IT's a very percussive sound, and everything has a lot of bite, a lot of attack. I guess that's relative to the Drums. I do have a unique drum sound that I go for, and Dime has a very different guitar sound. That's one of those things that set's us apart from a lot of other metal bands." In 1990, the result of the first Vinnie Paul/Terry Date studio collaboration is the explosive album that inspires tattoos and T-shirt sales across the U.S. -- Cowboys from Hell .

The lyrics from the song demonstrate the attitude:

Under the lights we stand tall
Nobody touches us at all
Showdown, shootout, spread for within,
Without
We're gonna take what's ours to have
Spread the word throughout the land
They say bad guys wear black
We're tagged and can't turn back"
 

("Cowboys From Hell", written by Pantera, Power Metal Music/ Cota Music. administered by Warner-Tamerlane Music Publishing 1990)

With "Cowboys From Hell" setting the mood, the rest of the album echos the harsh sentiments with songs such as "Primal Concrete Sledge", Psycho Holiday", "Shattered", "Clash With Reality" and "The art of Shredding." Phillip starts developing his style of controversial, personal lyrics and aggressive vocal style.

Chosen to support Exodus and Suicidal Tendencies on a cross- country U.S. tour, Pantera suddenly found themselves out of the Dallas bar circuit and in front of a huge, thrash and hard- core audience. Initially fearing that they will be killed by the crowds, they are instead embraced by the fans and Cowboys From Hell goes on to achieve gold status. Pantera are on their way to the big league.

In September 1991, during the recording of their next album, Vulgar Display of Power,the band is offered the opening slot on the Monsters of Rock tour in Moscow, Russia. After years of slogging away in the bar circuit, Pantera realize they are performing on the same bill as mega- stars AC/DC, Metallica and the Black Crowes. They are awe-struck at the 500,000 screaming Russian kids. It is not only the vast number of kids that effect the band. Seeing an audience, so starved for music amidst a horrible economy and gray future, inspires Pantera to accelerate into overdrive.

The follow-up album is written in a two-and-a-half-week flurry of raw aggression, and early 1992 marks the release of Pantera's powerful musical metamorphosis Vulgar Display of Power. Recorded at Pantego Sound Studio, and again co- produced by Vinnie Paul and Terry Date, the band's full intention is to "kick the ass" of Cowboys From Hell. According to Dimebag around the time of the release of the album, "It's a tough job to do, but we'll take that jump off the Empire State Building. Vulgar Display of Power has no subconscious, no mercy; it just hammers." Vinnie Paul and Date worked to harness the angry music into a mode that will propel the band.

According to Vinnie Paul, "Vulgar Display of Power is exactly what the music was all about, you know. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't nice, it was very intense, it was very hard." Philip's lyrics continue to progress. The song titles hit like an uppercut to the jaw: "Mouth For War," "Fucking Hostile" and "Rise." Although brutal to the extreme, the words also include a degree of humanity and wish for positive balance in life, making the lyrics even more meaningful to the legion of fans. In the song "Mouth For War," Philip sings:

Revenge,
I'm screaming revenge again
wrong,
I've been wrong for far too long
been constantly so frustrated
I've moved mountains with less.
When I channel my hate to productive,
I don't find it hard to impress
Bones in traction
Hands break to bone.
Raw energy, bold and disastrous
my ears can't hear what you say to me
Hold your mouth for the war
Use it for what it's for
speak the truth about me...
TAKE COVER!


 

(Mouth For War, wriften by PantLra, Power Metal Music/Cota Music, BMI. Administered by Wamer- Tamerlane Publishingl992)

At the time of release, Philip explained "I get eaten up alive with things. I write from a straight-out, super angry point of view, yet I feel somewhat educated in what I'm talking about. This is where I guess I feel most comfortable with Pantera: angry." In an interview with Don Kaye, Philip speaks about "Vulgar Display of Power." "This album attacks from the front to the back. There's not a weak cut on the album. With this album, I want kids to understand what I'm saying--and it's plain as day, I'm not sittin' there making up cool metaphors and beatin'around the bush at all. It's straight"

During the Cowboys From Hell tour, Pantera gains the attention and admiration of Rob Halford of Judas Priest. Halford invites the band to open for Judas Priest in Europe. Pantera solidify their international fan base by performing 32 shows in 14 countries.

Touring becomes the way of life during Vulgar Display. The single, "Mouth For War," is the highest debuting metal single ever on metal radio, and stays at number one for eight weeks. A successful tour with Skid Row helps push Vulgar Display to platinum status.

The band is on the road touring a staggering 287 days. Philip's bull-neck and shaved head, his "strength" head tattoo and "unscarred" stomach tattoo boldly appear on the covers of magazines all around the world. Media and fans are fascinated by his bold, fearless image. The fascination actually leads to misconceptions that Pantera is right out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Clarifies Vinnie Paul, "If you know the dude (Philip), he's nothing like that. He's a very mellow, cool, kind of person to hang out with, but when it's time to get on stage, he turns into this beast, you know. And that's the way all of us are... we don't go around beating people up and stealing cars and trashing hotels, like people think. Sure, we have a little bit of fun once in a while, but I mean, I do interviews with people in Japan, and they're scared to death! They think they're fixin' to get beat up when they come into the room. We're not like that."

They come off the road to record "Far Beyond Driven", with the winning production team of Vinnie Paul and Date remaining at the helm. The band strives to recreate the exhilaration and energy of the live show. Explains Vinnie Paul, "A recording studio is a very sterile, dull environment and you're trying to create the excitement of playing in front of 10,000 people with all the lights and everything going. You just want to get in there and get out as fast as you can, and you try to capture the excitement when you're in there." Date and Vinnie Paul knew how to best capture Philip's bone-chilling vocals on the album, by keeping everything live. "He's (Philip) the rawest one out of all of us. He comes in and almost everything he does is first take and he leaves it. He wants it to be natural. He doesn't want it to be like somebody sat there and fucked with him for two hours saying 'Dude, that note's off pitch, you can do it better, you can get on pitch. He wants it to be like live--good and raw."

Far Beyond Driven personifies the band's philosophy. According to Vinnie Paul, "That's exactly our approach to everything. We drove each other to new levels on the record. We wanted to make sure everything was extreme, and that nothing was very common. That's how we came up with the title, "Far Beyond Driven."

Philip continues to captivate the audiences in the U.S. and overseas. According to Vinnie Paul, "I think they (the fans) see a lot of themselves in him, a young person that's been through some things, but he's also very positive and they see a lot of energy and fire that the guy has. I guess they can relate to that." The songs on the album, such as "5 minutes Alone," "Shedding Skin," "I'm Broken" and "Strength Beyond Strength" demonstrate a growth in Philip's lyrics. Literate and painful, Philip doesn't sacrifice any of the earlier rawness; he communicates his thoughts clearly and in a way in which fans will again, look deeply into themselves as they read and listen. Vinnie Paul feels that the fans relate to the reality in the songs. "It's basically about personal experiences that Philip has been through or that the four of us collectively have been through, and a lot of people can relate to that. There's been someone else out there experiencing it. It's not like hypothetical situations or dungeons and dragons and that kind of bullshit. It's about things that really happen to people."

As in the lyrics to "5 Minutes Alone":

You've waged a war of nerves
But you can't crush the kingdom
Can't be what our idols are.
Can't leave the scar.
You cry for compensation.
I ask you please just give us...
5 minutes alone.

 

("5 minutes alone" Coda Music, BMI adm. by Warner-Tamberlane Music 1993)

 

Pantera unleashes Far Beyond Driven in 1994, and watches the album enter the Billboard top 100 albums at number one. Never stopping for a moment to relax and enjoy the success, they do two videos for the songs "Five minutes alone" and "I'm Broken." The band commences on more live dates, flying to England in June for the prestigious Donington rock festival. At Donington, they perform on the same stage with Aerosmith, Extreme, Sepultura, Therapy? and Biohazard. 72,000 fans jam the outdoor site in 38 degree weather to see the Cowboys From Hell. Not such a foreign concept for the Brits, after all.

Now, at a time in the band's career when staying together becomes the most critical, Pantera has no problems. They recognize each others strengths and weaknesses, and work to retain their professional and personal relationships. Explains Vinnie Paul, "We all listen hard and take a lot of advice from each other. I think that's why when you buy a Pantera record, there are 12 great songs on there, and there are 12 songs that are special because you have 4 people putting every bit of their effort into each song to make it the best song. In a lot of other bands, one guy writes all the songs, it's his vision, his song, his way, and you know, you don't get a lot of creativity there. It's just 1 person's aspect. In Pantera it's all four."

Just as Pantera has strength as a whole, each member lends a unique element, personality and professionalism to the band. As Phillip relates in a recent Kerrang magazine interview with Stephan Chirazi: "If I walk out on that goddamn stage, all I know is we've got songs! I know some of the crowds are the to see Diamond's (Dimebag) leads, what Rex does, Vinnie's drumming, some to check me out and see what kind of crazy thing I'm gonna do tonight."

Vinnie Paul elaborates out the role of each band member: "Rex, he plays the bass. He holds down the low end. He helps me take care of the business, and he's probably the most level headed guy of all of us right now."

"Phillip is definitely the focus point. He's the front man, and as with any band, the front man is that one that people identify with the most. He's the total attitude, the total fire in the band. You know, when you look on stage, that's what he does."

"Dime is definitely the creator. He creates a lot of things and he also dibbles and dabbles in a lot of things such as our videos. That's his department. He just likes to videotape things, and he's into trippy things -- anything that's a trip to watch, or to do -- and he has a lot more fun with the video camera than most people would ever imagine. And the merchandise, he handles most of that."

"Me, I'm the backbone of the whole thing. I'm the drummer, I take care of business. I do 99 percent of the press. So, it takes all four of us to make it run. We toured 287 days last year, and because we've been together for so much time we learn to give and take. It's like with any relationship, except it's like having 3 girlfriends instead of 1. You gotta know...when not to mess with them, and everyone's really good about staying out of each others teeth."

Pantera credits their fans for the lion's share of their success. Says Vinnie Paul, "The best part about touring is performing live, and the best part about performing live is the audience's reaction and knowing that you made 10,000 people's day that one night that you played in their town. That's the most important thing."

Credits for this interview go to Karren Goodman and Norman DuFont