Revolver Magazine recruited some notorious Heavy Music musicians, in order to pay tribute to the pink beard in the sky!
Why was Dimebag important to Heavy Music?
Zakk Wylde: When people ask me, “What was Dime’s guitar playing like?” I say, “With Dime, it wasn’t just what he brought to the table, with the blues-y feel and the beyond-fucking-heavy riffs.” When you really think about it, he actually inspired a genre, like how [Black Sabbath guitarist] Tony Iommi inspired a genre of music. Not just Dime’s ripping solos and all that bullshit, I’m talking about like the actual style of the fucking music.
Where were you when you heard Dime had died?
Rob Halford: I was in my house in Phoenix. I think somebody texted me or somebody called me, and my legs went from underneath me. I just hit the deck. This can’t be real. I put the TV on, and it was actually on CNN. I just sat there in disbelief. And then I balled like a baby, like you should do. I just cried my eyes out. And you just don’t know what to do. You’re full of confusion, you’re full of anger, you want to fucking smash things to pieces. You want to play the music; you want to call Phil. All of these things are going on in your head. And obviously, Pat [Lachman] was singing for Damageplan at the time. I wanted to call Pat. Do you call, do you not call? What the fuck’s going on? Just a bazillion things are going around your head at the same time. But it was just terrible. It’s just seems inconceivable. I don’t think, now, that’s never happened to anybody else, has it? I mean, we lost people through self-induced things, like booze and drugs. We’ve lost people like Ronnie [James Dio] with the kinds of illnesses. But to be fucking brutally murdered is just insane. Absolutely insane. John Lennon is the only other person, isn’t it? They’re both in good company, as far as what they mean and how they’ve lived on in our lives. How Dimebag will always live on. That’s the only bit of solace you’ve got. It’s that the work that they made will live forever. That’s the blessing.
Frankie Bello (Anthrax): “We had a lot of good times. That Anthrax-Pantera tour [in 1997], that was a scary tour. The shows were great. But on that tour, I brought a parasite home with me from Mexico in my stomach. So I couldn’t hold anything in my stomach including liquor. Now imagine being on a Pantera tour without drinking liquor. At one point, it was so bad because everything I put in my body, it was like a funnel–it came right out of my body. So I would have to run from these guys and hide. Because Dime’s chasing me with this Black Tooth [Grin, Dime’s signature drink, which was a shot of Crown Royal or Seagrams 7 with a splash of Coke]. He’d be yelling, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!’ So I’m shooting this thing with a beer right after it.
“Dude, I swear to God, as soon as it went in my system, I was right on the bowl. So I laugh at that now, because I remember Dime laughing at me. As soon as I shot the Black Tooth, he’d go, ‘You’ve gotta go now, right?’ And he’d laugh. It was a great time. Of course it was painful for me, but it was a great thing for Dimebag. Those are the things you remember. It’s a time in your life I’ll never forget. I love them and I miss them. Only the good die young.”
Dimebag had a reputation for being a prankster. Did he ever get you good with a prank?
Sean Yseult (White Zombie): He did this one he loved so much that he did it twice. I used to wear these engineer boots all the time. And he got like a hundred dollars worth of pennies, and he sent a roadie to run out in the middle of our show and pour the pennies into my engineer boots so that they wedged all around my feet and ankles, and they felt like they weighed a hundred pounds. It was just so heavy I could hardly move. And I’d come off stage, and he’d say, “Junior,” he called me Junior, “did you feel weighed down?” He was just fucking with me.
He did so many things. He used to do this horrible character where he put on this old man mask and a cape. He had this huge plastic dildo thing. And he would whip open the cape, and somehow he filled it with dish liquid or something. And somehow that large projecting thing would just start squirting all over everywhere. [Laughs] And he would do that right in the middle of our show.
He did so many pranks constantly. He did the one million and one Super Balls, I think it was St. Louis. Another time, at the end of the tour, they got a snow machine. And they made it snow on us for like an entire song. And all this fake snow was in our gear and fucking up everything. It would just never stop. It was onstage, offstage. He put a big inflatable shark on top of our bus. Everything had some significance and meaning to him, but I don’t remember what that could’ve meant.
Did you ever get him back?
Oh yeah, there’s a photo in my book. He was always talking about his stomach being “clubbed up “when he felt fat. So I had this back brace, because I’d broken a rib on tour, and I made it Darrell’s “club holder,” and I labeled it and slapped it on him. Another time, I think this was actually in a Pantera video, on our first tour with them, Dimebag always used to wear this Nine Inch Nails shirt. So I got this roadie to go on his bus and get his clothes out for me, and then a hat, and then his guitar. I had a little troll doll that had hot pink hair, it looked just like Darrell’s beard, and I taped it on my chin and kind of just mimicked him for a song or two. That was pretty funny, But yeah, whatever we could do, we were just trying to entertain each other all the time. The other thing was he always said “three” when somebody stuck a finger in their ear. Me and my friend in Tokyo made these huge fingers with the number three on them and we were jabbing him in the ears onstage.
In behalf of Horns Up Rocks: Dimebag Darrell united the Heavy Music world both during life and after his tragic death. It is our mission to keep your legacy rising forever! Wherever you are, your family, friends, and fans miss you dearly. We love you brother DIME!
This Saturday, December 10th, Horns Up Rocks proudly presents "A Holiday Tribute Show For Dimebag Darrell"! Here are all the details.
Related links:
Pantera
Damageplan
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