BECOMING PANTERA

In one of my classes this past semester, we got assigned a group project in which we had to make a magazine. My group decided to make a magazine called Knowing Metal, providing all music enthusiasts a deep dive into a different metal band for each issue. Thus, Knowing Pantera was born. I’m hoping you’ll let me share one of the feature articles that I wrote for our project.

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Today, the metal scene knows Pantera as being one of the biggest bands of the 1990s, reigning alongside TOOL, Metallica, and Megadeth. The group initially started out as a hair metal cover band, with tributes to Motley Crue and KISS, and later grew to be the first pioneers of groove metal, which has spread to several other bands today. Though their climb to the top was fairly easy, Pantera still has a deep rooted history of passion and dedication.

It had been years of drumming and learning guitar, winning local talent competitions, and making a name for themselves. The Abbott brothers, Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell, grew up destined to be musicians. Their father, Jerry Abbott, was a successful songwriter and music producer. He never forced his children into music, but they were naturally drawn to it.

In 1981, Paul and Darrell, respectively 17 and 15, had their first jam session together. They played "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple for 12 hours straight. This was essentially the birth of the band Pantera. Shortly after, Terry Glaze, Donnie Hart, and Tommy Bradford, high school friends of Darrell and Paul, asked them to join forces, to which they eagerly accepted.

It wasn’t long before Hart and Bradford split, making them, for lack of a better word, irrelevant in the history of Pantera. Luckily, the group stumbled upon Rex Brown, who ripped effortless basslines. For the next two years, Pantera was selling out local venues as a cover band. They played any and every rock song they could, heavily inspired by Van Halen and KISS. The more demanding these gigs got, the less covers they would perform. By 1983, Pantera had started to throw a load of original music into their setlists.

By 1983, Pantera had found their way into Pantego Sound Studio, where they would record their first four albums on an independent label. After getting the basics of music production down, the band released their first album, Metal Magic, produced by Jerry Abbott. The next two years were spent cranking out records. Projects in the Jungle (1984), and I Am the Night (1985) mimicked the hair glam that was dominating the 80s music scene. Bands like Motley Crue and Poison had a large influence on the style of music that the founding band members created.

The next year, Terry Glaze went in a different direction and left Pantera. Phil Anselmo found his way to the band and the instant chemistry made him the perfect fit for a lead singer. Power Metal (1988) was the first Pantera release incorporating Anselmo on the vocals. He has convinced the band to integrate a more Judas Priest style of heavy metal, rather than the Van Halen style of glam rock and hair metal that they previously embodied.

Early on, Pantera found support from Quiet Riot, validating their dedication and talent, which was huge for the relatively small glam metal band coming from Texas. Their fifth studio album, Cowboys from Hell (1990), was the ultimate rise of Pantera. It emphasized a new beginning and ending for the band, as they used this record as an opportunity to introduce groove metal, but they would look forward to much heavier and darker music.

Their seventh studio album, Far Beyond Driven, was released in 1994 and reigned to be the band's first album to debut at number one. With the rise of the grunge scene at this time, everyone expected Pantera to mellow out on their following albums, but the band resisted.

In 2003, Pantera had officially broken up. With Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown both working on side projects, Darrell and Paul decided to start a new group as well, which they called DAMAGEPLAN.

In 2004, DAMAGEPLAN was scheduled to play a small venue in Ohio, as one of the release shows for their debut album. After only two songs into their set, a pent up fan ran to the stage, yelling, “You broke up Pantera”. He was armed with a handgun and shot Darrell, who was pronounced dead soon after. This travesty solidified that Pantera would never reunite, as many fans thought they would. In 2018, Vinnie would die too, leaving no Abbott brothers left. Fortunately, Pantera’s legacy will live on in the lives of metalheads.

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Thank you for reading! I hope that you enjoyed this but if you didn't, that's okay too!

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LOVE YOU ALL SEE YOU NEXT TIME! XOXO

Sophia <3

April 17th, 2023. By Sophia Cook