Pantera

:Not to be confused with Panthera, the Big Cat genus.

Name	Pantera
Landscape	yes
Background	group_or_band
Origin	Arlington, Texas, United States
Genre	Heavy MetalGroove metalThrash metalHard rock(early)Glam metal (early)
Years active	1981–2003
Label	Metal Magic, Atco, EastWest, Elektra
Associated acts	Damageplan, Hellyeah, Down
Url	www.officialpantera.com

Pantera was an American heavy metal band from Arlington, Texas. Formed by the Abbott brothers, Vinnie Paul (drums) and Dimebag Darrell (guitar) in 1981, bassist Rex Brown would join in late 1981 with vocalist Terry Glaze. In 1987 Phil Anselmo became the group's lead vocalist. In 2003, Pantera officially disbanded. Any hope of a reunion was lost in 2004, when Dimebag Darrell was shot and killed on-stage at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio on December 8 while performing with Damageplan.

History

Formation and early glam years (1981–1987)

The band was originally named Pantera's Metal Magic and consisted of Donnie Hart on vocals, Dimebag Darrell (then known as Diamond Darell) and Terry Glaze on guitar, Tommy Bradford on bass, and Vinnie Paul on drums. In 1982, the band was renamed Pantera in order to shorten the name and to settle an agreement between all band members. Hart left the band because he didn't agree with the bands' ethics and Glaze became the group's vocalist, leaving Darrell as the sole guitarist. Later that year Bradford also departed and was replaced by Rex Brown (then known as Rexx Rocker). Pantera became an underground favorite, though its regional tours in this era never took them beyond Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. The band began supporting fellow heavy metal acts such as Stryper, Dokken, and Quiet Riot, who in turn promoted Pantera's debut, Metal Magic. Metal Magic was released on the band's record label with the same name in 1983 and produced by the Abbott brothers' father, Jerry Abbott (referred to as "The Eldn"), at Pantego Studios.

After being turned down "28 times by every major label on the face of the Earth", Atco Records representative Mark Ross and Stevenson Eugenio was asked by his boss, Derek Shulman who was interested in signing them, to see the band perform after Hurricane Hugo stranded him in Texas. Ross was so impressed by the band's performance that he called his boss that night, suggesting that Pantera be signed to the label. Atco Records accepted, and at the close of 1989, the band recorded its major label debut at Pantego Studios.

Released on July 24, 1990, and produced by Terry Date and Pantera, Cowboys from Hell was another leap into heavier territory. Pantera showed a more extreme style on this outing, leaving behind its glam metal influences in favor of an amalgamation of thrash metal and groove metal dubbed "power groove" by the band. Although Anselmo still used Rob Halford-influenced falsetto vocals, he also adopted a more abrasive delivery. Darrell's more complex guitar solos and riffs, along with his brother's faster-paced drumwork were evidence of the band's extreme transformation. The album marked a critical juncture in the band's history. Most fans, as well as the band itself, consider it Pantera's "official" debut. Cowboys included the popular tracks "Cemetery Gates", a brooding seven-minute piece that focuses on death and religion, and the thrashing title track, which gave the band members their nickname and asserted their raucous personality and style.

So began the Cowboys from Hell tour alongside thrash acts Exodus and Suicidal Tendencies. In 1991, Rob Halford performed with the band onstage, which led Pantera to open for Judas Priest on its first show in Europe. The band eventually landed a billing for "Monsters in Moscow" with AC/DC and Metallica in September 1991, where they played to a crowd of over 500,000 in celebration of the new freedom of performing Western music in the former Soviet Union shortly before its collapse three months later. The band was often found at the Dallas club "the Basement", where the band shot the videos for "Cowboys from Hell" and "Psycho Holiday", the band's 2006 home video compilation, 3 Vulgar Videos from Hell, features performances of "Primal Concrete Sledge", "Cowboys from Hell", "Domination" and "Psycho Holiday" from the show in Moscow.

Vulgar Display of Power and Far Beyond Driven (1992–1994)

Pantera's unique "groove" style came to fruition in its breakthrough album Vulgar Display of Power, released on February 25, 1992. On this album, the power metal falsetto vocals were replaced with a hardcore-influenced shouted delivery and heavier guitar sound. While some critics point to the rise of grunge as the downfall of glam metal, others cite Pantera, most notably Vulgar Display, as being the catalyst that overpowered popular 1980s metal. Among critics and fans, it is frequently cited as the band's best effort. The trial was delayed three times. In May 1995, he apologized in court and pleaded guilty to attempted assault and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Pantera continued their tour of the United Kingdom in 1994 and eventually ended it in the United States where the band was opened for by fellow groove metal band Prong.

Band tension and The Great Southern Trendkill (1994–1996)

According to the Abbott brothers, frontman Phil Anselmo began behaving strangely and distanced himself from the band when they returned to the road in 1995. The rest of the band members first thought that Pantera's fame had gotten to Anselmo, but Anselmo cited back pain from years of intense performances as the reason for his erratic behavior. Anselmo attempted to subdue his pain through alcohol, but this, as he admits, was affecting his performances and "putting some worry into the band." stating that he was drunk and that his remarks were a mistake.

In an episode of the short-lived Australian sex advice show "Sex Life", in a segment discussing what to make of a man's CD collection when first going back to his place, the host drew out a copy of The Great Southern Trendkill and referred to Pantera as "the loudest band in the world."

Overdose, Official Live: 101 Proof, and side projects (1996–2000)

On July 13, 1996, Anselmo overdosed on heroin an hour after a Texas homecoming gig. After his heart stopped beating for almost five minutes, paramedics gave Anselmo a shot of adrenaline and sent him to the hospital. After waking up in the hospital, the nurse working in his room said "Welcome back to life, oh and you have overdosed on heroin." Anselmo apologized to his bandmates the next night, and said he would quit using drugs. The revelation of heroin use came as a shock to Vinnie and Darrell who were embarrassed by Anselmo's actions, according to Rita Haney, the guitarist's girlfriend. Anselmo says he would relapse two more times and guilt overcame him. The band also received their second and third "Best Metal Performance" Grammy Nominations for Trendkill's "Suicide Note (Pt. I)" and Cowboys's "Cemetery Gates" in 1997 and 1998, respectively.

Also in 1997, Pantera played on the mainstage of Ozzfest alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Type O Negative, Fear Factory, Machine Head, and Powerman 5000. Additionally, the band played on the 1998 UK Ozzfest tour alongside Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Foo Fighters, Slayer, Soulfly, Fear Factory, and Therapy?

Around this time, Anselmo ventured into more side projects, such as playing guitars on Necrophagia's 1999 release Holocausto de la Morte, where he went as the alias "Anton Crowley", which combines the names of Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey and famous occultist Aleister Crowley. He also temporarily joined the black metal supergroup Eibon and contributed to that band's 2000 release. Another one of Anselmo's "Anton Crowley" projects was black metal band Viking Crown. The Abbott brothers and Rex Brown began their own heavy metal/country music crossover project, Rebel Meets Rebel with David Allen Coe, around the same time.

Fans of the NHL's Dallas Stars were treated to a raucous fight song penned by Pantera and dedicated to their favorite hockey team during the Stars 1999 Stanley Cup Championship run. Throughout the season members of the team befriended members of Pantera. During a Stanley Cup party hosted by drummer Vinnie Paul, the Stanley Cup was damaged when Guy Carbonneau attempted to throw the Cup from the roof of Vinnie Paul's house into his pool. The Cup landed short on the concrete deck and had to be repaired by NHL commissioned silversmiths.

Reinventing the Steel and break-up (2000–2003)

Pantera returned to the recording studio with Anselmo in 1999 and cut its last album, Reinventing the Steel, which was released on March 21, 2000. Steel debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 and included "Revolution Is My Name" and "Goddamn Electric", the latter of which featured a Kerry King outro solo recorded (backstage in one take) during Ozzfest in Dallas. "Revolution Is My Name" became the band's fourth nomination for Best Metal Performance in the 2001 Grammys.

In 2000, Pantera played on the mainstage of Ozzfest alongside Ozzy Osbourne, Godsmack, Static-X, Methods of Mayhem, Incubus, P.O.D., Black Label Society, Queens of the Stone Age, and Apartment 26. In November the band cancelled their planned tour after Anselmo broke his ribs after falling during his eighth annual House of Shock event.

The band once again returned to touring and visited the United States (where they were guest musicians on the show Spongebob Squarepants in the episode "Pre-Hibernation Week"), Canada, South Korea, Australia, and Europe. The tour in Europe was cut short, however, by the September 11, 2001 attacks which left the band stranded in Dublin, Ireland for 6 days as a result of all flights being cancelled. This would be the last time the members of Pantera performed together. Back home, the band planned to release its fourth home video in Summer 2002 and record another studio album later that year, but neither came about.

Anselmo again engaged in numerous side projects. In March 2002, Down released its second studio album, , which featured Rex Brown on bass following Todd Strange's departure in 1999. Brown remains Down's full-time bassist, having appeared on their . Also, in May of that year Anselmo's Superjoint Ritual released its debut, Use Once and Destroy. Vinnie Paul claims that Anselmo told him he would take a year off following the events of September 11, 2001, but Anselmo's touring and record output for both Superjoint Ritual and Down contradicted this. The Abbott brothers were frustrated, and held out for a time, assuming Anselmo would return. However, according to Anselmo, taking a break from Pantera was a "mutual thing" between each of the band members.

The band officially broke up in 2003, also the year when their was released (on September 23), when the Abbott brothers concluded that Anselmo had abandoned Pantera and would not return. The break-up of the band was not amicable and subsequently a war of words was waged between the former bandmates via the heavy metal and musical press. The Abbott brothers and Pantera crew members claimed that they tried numerous times to contact Anselmo over the phone to reorganize Pantera, but Anselmo maintains that they never called him. Caught up in the torrent was Rex Brown, who later said "It was a bunch of he said, she said nonsense that was going on, and I wasn't going to get in the middle of it."

Aftermath (2004-present)

When Anselmo called in the aftermath of the murders, Rita Haney, Darrell's girlfriend, answered one of Anselmo's calls and said she would "blow Anselmo's head off" if he attended Darrell's funeral. However, one year after the murder Vinnie stated in an interview that this reunion was never going to happen.

On May 11, 2006, the VH1 Behind the Music episode on Pantera premiered. While focusing heavily on Darrell's murder, the episode also detailed the band's glam metal beginnings, its rise in popularity after the change in musical direction, and the conflicts between Anselmo and the Abbott brothers in the band's later years that would tear them apart.

When asked by Crave Music in 2006 if there was any chance of reconciling with Phil Anselmo, Vinnie Paul answered "Absolutely not. That's it." The former Pantera drummer has since begun work on Hellyeah, a collaboration between him and members from Mudvayne and Nothingface. Both Anselmo and Brown have reunited with Down, and supported Heaven & Hell and Megadeth on their 2007 Canadian tour, as well as supporting Metallica on the first half of their World Magnetic Tour.

On March 30, 2010, Pantera released a greatest-hits collection, titled "1990-2000: A Decade of Domination". It was made available exclusively at Walmart stores and is made up of 10 tracks that were remastered.

Legacy and influences

Pantera have been influential to the development of nu metal. They have also been called one of the pioneers of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. Popmatters has claimed that, "Darrell Abbott's influence on the entire genre of heavy metal is massive; after Cowboys From Hell and Vulgar Display of Power, every notable young American metal band since has, in some way or another, copped their guitar style from those records: Tool, Korn, Deftones, Killswitch Engage, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Bullet for My Valentine, White Zombie, Slipknot, As I Lay Dying, Job for a Cowboy, Avenged Sevenfold, Hatebreed, Lamb of God, Shadows Fall, Mastodon, The Showdown... the list is endless."

Pantera has toured on Ozzfest as main stage acts twice; the band played at the second annual Ozzfest in 1997 and the fifth Ozzfest in 2000. Over the course of their career, Pantera's members became known for their excessive partying and debauchery, even acquiring an official drink called the "Black Tooth Grin". The "Black Tooth Grin" ("Black Tooth", "The Grin", or "BTG", alternatively), named after lyrics from Megadeth's "Sweating Bullets", is a mixture of Crown Royal or Seagram 7 whisky (or both) and Coca-Cola.

Pantera also adopted a self-described "take no shit" attitude, epitomized in its popular song "5 Minutes Alone" from the album Far Beyond Driven. According to Vinnie Paul, the song originated when, during a show in San Diego, California, Anselmo was annoyed by a heckler and encouraged the crowd to "jump [his] ass and beat the shit out of him on the spot." Consequently, the band was sued; the man's father took action and called Pantera's manager, saying, "You just give me five minutes alone with that Phil Anselmo guy and I'll show him who's big daddy around here", to which Anselmo responded, "You just give me five minutes alone with that cat's dad and I'll whoop his ass."

Similarly, the die-hard attitude of "We'll Grind That Axe For a Long Time" (from Reinventing the Steel) is, according to Anselmo, "in a way, our motto."

Aside from their post-glam thrash metal influences, the band members cite heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath as one of their favorite bands. As a tribute, Pantera has recorded three different covers of Black Sabbath songs (all from the Ozzy Osbourne era). The first was "Planet Caravan", a slower, quieter song planned for the first Sabbath tribute album, Nativity in Black, that eventually became the final track on Far Beyond Driven. The band performed Sabbath's "Electric Funeral" on the second Nativity in Black. A previously unreleased cover of Sabbath's "Hole in the Sky" was included on the band's 2003 compilation album, The Best of Pantera: Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys' Vulgar Hits! Pantera's affinity for Black Sabbath is also shown through the lyrics, "Your trust is in whiskey and weed and Black Sabbath", in "Goddamn Electric". The same song also mentions Slayer, one of the band's thrash metal influences.

Pantera has come under some criticism within the fringes of the heavy metal world in relation to New Orleans thrash metal band Exhorder. Some fans have accused Pantera of stealing from Exhorder the groove metal sound for which they became famous. While Pantera's style change on Cowboys from Hell was released before Exhorder's debut, Slaughter in the Vatican, Exhorder self-released two demos in the late 1980s (around the time that Pantera was still playing glam metal) that a number of fans believe to be the real birth of the musical style Pantera popularized.

Allmusic points to several elements of Exhorder's debut that could potentially explain its lack of success in relation to Pantera. In disagreement with the opinion that Exhorder is "Pantera minus the good songs", AMG's review of Slaughter in the Vatican expresses that "perhaps a more accurate billing would be to call them Pantera without the major label backing." They also point to the fact that the title of Exhorder's debut, along with the unsubtle album cover, "certainly didn't help [its] cause any."

However, some fans and critics dispute any notion that Pantera "stole" Exhorder's sound. Brian Davis, a contributor to Internet radio station KNAC, addresses the issue as follows:

Exhorder's main "claim to fame" is the common opinion that they're the band that Pantera stole their sound from. That's total bullshit. There are minor similarities in guitar style, and on occasion, vocalist Kyle Thomas spits out a line or scream that will bring Pantera to mind, but to go so far as to say that Pantera is an Exhorder clone is ludicrous.

Despite originally decrying Pantera as a rip-off to their sound, lead vocalist of Exhorder, Kyle Thomas, has stated that he does not care about any of the criticism and is sick of seeing Exhorder's name tied to Pantera's. He also stated that he and the members of Pantera were great friends who used to tour together, and that he mourns the loss of Dimebag Darrell. Recently, Thomas suggested that while it is possible Pantera may have been influenced by his band, the members of Pantera "work[ed] a ... lot harder than [we] did."

Band members

;Final lineup

Phil Anselmo – lead vocals (1987–2003)

Rex Brown – bass, backing vocals (1982–2003)

Dimebag Darrell – guitar, backing vocals (1981–2003)

Vinnie Paul – drums (1981–2003)

;Previous members

Terry Glaze – rhythm guitar (1981–1982), lead vocals (1982–1986)

Discography

;Studio albums

Metal Magic (1983)

Projects in the Jungle (1984)

I Am the Night (1985)

Power Metal (1988)

Cowboys from Hell (1990)

Vulgar Display of Power (1992)

Far Beyond Driven (1994)

The Great Southern Trendkill (1996)

Reinventing the Steel (2000)

References

External links

Official website

Category:Pantera Category:Groove metal musical groups Category:Heavy metal musical groups from Texas Category:American thrash metal musical groups Category:Glam metal musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 1981 Category:Musical groups disestablished in 2003 Category:1980s music groups Category:1990s music groups Category:2000s music groups Category:Musical quartets