Hey everyone, I'm curious if you guys think there'd be any interest in very early Pantera? The guy that owns the studio I work at is the father of Dime Bag and Vinny Paul and now tat they've broken up I've been bothering him to re-release the early Pantera stuff from the mid to late 80's. He doubts there would be any interest but I told him to dig out the tapes (he produced and recorded them) and sell them online. I know it's horrible stuff (they had yet to ID their sound) but they have such a strong following I think the fans would want it. What do you guys think?
Give it to the fans on the cheap. Something in the vein of Metallica's Garage Days. Yes, on their website would be perfect...
Are they talking about the first 2 Pantera albums that are long out of print or like early garage demos? Do they have the rights to release those tapes. Can Pantera sue? I think there would be great interest in those if they are allowed to release them.
The only owners are the two boys and their dad (my boss). I think there are four or five albums before they hit it big. We listened to the tapes yesterday. He was going to use a DAT copy (complete with drop outs every 10 seconds) but I convinced him to get the original 1/4" analog tapes and do a proper transfer.
Yeah, they'd sell. Definitely. They've been so hard to find, esp. since the demise of Napster, and people want to hear them, good or bad. There's almost as much interest from people who don't like Pantera as do, I would guess, unless I was misinterpreting that website which "blew their cover" as a glam-metal band, tabloid style. Wouldn't sell enough for Elektra, but certainly would do alright for a small label if the word was gotten out to Pantera-lovers and haters!
Are Darrell and Vinnie finally admitting to the EXISTENCE of those albums? For year, they've been in denial that they even made those records and claiming that "Cowboys from Hell" was their debut album. Kind of like how Tori Amos treated "Y Kant Tori Read" for awhile. -Matt
Well, they're still trying to be convinced to release this stuff. I think the money is going to be the deciding factor (isn't it always?) Projects in the Jungle, I Am the Night and Power Metal are the albums we were transferring yesterday.
I heard a couple of the early albums years ago on a bootleg cd that my local dealer had gotten his hands on. At first I couldn't believe it was them because it was more glam-rock than heavy metal. I'd still be interested in those albums though.
When I was living in Arlington Texas in 1992 my neighbor was Darrell and Vinnie's Mom. I had a kegger party for my daughter's 13th birthday (go figure). Well my music got kind of loud and she came over and asked me if her boys could come over and hang out with me and my friends. At that time I didn't know anything about Pantera, but when they came over to drink a few of my friends recognized them as being Pantera members. Well one thing led to another (basically we all got kind of drunk) and we talked them into getting their instruments and playing a few songs. Of course they we're glad to do it so they made a couple of phone calls to get their instruments delivered. They ended up playing for about 2 hours at my apartment that night. That is the true story of how Pantera played at my daughter's 13th birthday party.
I think there's only one album with Phil. Jerry, their dad, mentioned only the last album he did was with Phil, who was the reason he stopped working with them.
A sad story, a few years ago, maybe three years, she was diagnosed with cancer and given six weeks which was all she lasted. It was the main reason Jerry and his sons started talking again. Now his sons call all the time.
I have 3 of the 4 (or maybe all 4, I don't remember) at home. The fourth one was legitimately released on CD! I have that one on CD and LP. I another one on LP have a boot of the rest. The last of them featured Phil Anselmo on vocals and is very reminiscent of Judas Priest, but certainly not the heavy-duty sound of "Cowboys From Hell." The other three feature a different singer, who went on to sing in a band called Lord Tracy, that put a record out on MCA around 1989 or so. Those were a little more glammy sounding.
Phil+ Satan himself according to Jerry. We have Pantera gold and platinum records around the studio and Jerry covered up Phil's face wherever it's showing. Same with the poster in his office. Even the boys couldn't get along with him which is the reason for the split. I guess he hurt his back and had to take so many pain pills it made him even worse.
I met the band on the Cowboys tour and Phil was a little strange. He cut IDs for my old college radio show in the voices of King Diamond, Pepper Keenan from COC (long before people really knew who he was) and a couple others (I have no idea where the tape is anymore). He then asked my friend - who is an African-American - "hey man, are you into white power?" My friend responded, "uh, no." Phil then said, "me neither." Nothing serious, just really strange. On the Vulgar tour, I was at a rock club wearing a Pantera shirt and Darrell and Rex walked in and saw the shirt and started talking to me. I actually didn't even realize it was Rex when he said, "hey, nice shirt." They were in town to play the following night. They seemed like pretty nice guys. When Phil ODed on heroin, he made it a point to announce to the whole world that it happened and that he didn't even miss a date on tour. It just seemed like he announced it for the attention in case anyone hadn't heard about it. On the last Down record he sounds drunk and I heard him interviewed on the radio during Ozzfest and I seriously thought he was a member of the audience he was so wrecked (I think on herion). I guess his people had to carry him away after the interview according to the DJs. Such a shame because he is easily one of the best singers in the metal world with a great range and he is just a mess.
I heard that interview too. What a mess. I also remember this controversy: "Pantera, possibly one of the biggest and longest-running heavy metal bands in America got into trouble when singer Phil Anselmo sported a T-shirt emblazoned with the three-pronged symbol of the South African Afrikaner Resistance Movement during an MTV interview. Mr. Anselmo also went on a couple of racial tirades from stage while on tour, but with a lot of back peddling he was able to save his career."
Oh, great...what a waste. A junkie racist... Glad to hear that Vinny and Darrell are good guys, though. We don't hear enough about rock n roll stars gone good (at least, not without contrivance from publicists, record labels, etc.)
I met them back stage a few weeks after Vulgar was released (12+ years ago). Being a guitarist I loved Darrell's tone. I spent 30-45 minutes talking to Vinny and Darrell about sound/recording and how they used eq/effects. Phil came up and asked why they were talking to some kid (I was 15). Vinny told me to ignore him and we kept talking. I would pay for some of their old stuff. Their first 2 "official" albums are my favorite anyway. Maybe they're earlier stuff is good too.
Maybe that's why the last Down record sounds mostly like a bunch of COC stuff with Phil singing...not nearly as good as the first one. The first one was awesome. My fave Pantera album is Far Beyond Driven, FWIW.
I thought the bite was taken out of Darrell's tone on that record. Cowboys and Vulgar just have MONSTER guitar tones. The last one they did, outside of the single, I thought was pretty mediocre. The production was done by Vinnie and I didn't care for that aspect of it either.
A friend also heard him say some strange things about AIDS from the stage one night as well. I honestly don't recall what it was, but it was a bit less than politically correct.
