Phil No Show At Pantera Reunion

The Dime Bash, a huge party at LA's Key Club is happening tonight to honor the memory of Dimebag Darrell. Additionally, proceeds go to Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund. So basically, it's a great excuse to party hard. There are going to be all sorts of big names out there remembering Dime, covering classic Pantera tunes and downing some blacktooth grins. Recently, Kerry King was interviewed about the upcoming show and he may have left a big cat slip out of the bag:

"Rita's [Dime's girlfriend] busting my balls to do it, and I told her I would if she got me a real singer," Kerry said. "'Cause you never know who's gonna show up. So she goes, 'Phil Anselmo, Chuck Billy, Robb Flynn… Are those good enough?' And I'm, like, 'Fuck, I'll do it with any one of those guys.' But I'm gonna see her tonight. I haven't committed, but I guess she committed me. (laughs) Oh, Dave's doing it, for sure. But I'm pretty sure I'll do it."

Wow, this could be a really huge moment if Phil Anselmo and Vinnie Paul share the stage. We all know there was a huge rift between the two after Dime died, because Vinnie partially blames Phil for his brother's death after things Phil said in the media about Dime deserving to be hurt. But, that was honestly the old Phil Anselmo. He seemed to have cleaned up as of late and has been nothing but apologetic to Vinnie and Rita for the way he acted in the past.

I sure wish I was in LA tonight for this Dimebash, but with the advents of modern technology and Flip cams, I'm sure we'll be able to get in on the fun just a bit. Here is the entire scheduled lineup of artists for tonight's big show:

Emcee:

* Jose Mangin (Sirius XM)

DJ

* Twiggy Ramirez (MARILYN MANSON, NINE INCH NAILS, A PERFECT CIRCLE)

Drums

* Dave Grohl (FOO FIGHTERS, NIRVANA)
* Dave Lombardo (SLAYER, PHILM)
* Simon Wright (DIO, AC/DC)
* Joey Jordison (SLIPKNOT, MURDERDOLLS, ROB ZOMBIE)
* John Boecklin (DEVILDRIVER)

Guitar

* Paul Phillips (PUDDLE OF MUDD)
* Phil Demmel (MACHINE HEAD)
* Chris Howorth (IN THIS MOMENT)
* Kerry King (SLAYER)
* Robb Flynn (MACHINE HEAD)
* Zach Myers (SHINEDOWN)
* Nick Bowcott (Marshall Amplification)
* Jeff Kendrick (DEVILDRIVER)
* Shane Gibson (KORN)
* Gerry Nestler (PHILM)

Bass

* Chris Howorth (IN THIS MOMENT)
* Eric Bass (SHINEDOWN)
* Elliott Rubinson (Dean Guitars)
* Tony Campos (STATIC-X, ASESINO, MINISTRY)
* Joey Vera (ARMORED SAINT)
* Twiggy Ramirez (MARILYN MANSON, NINE INCH NAILS, A PERFECT CIRCLE)

Vocals

* Chuck Billy (TESTAMENT)
* Maria Brink (IN THIS MOMENT)
* Wes Scantlin (PUDDLE OF MUDD)
* Robb Flynn (MACHINE HEAD)
* Jose Mangin (Sirius XM)
* Brent Smith (SHINEDOWN)
* Steve Miller (KINDA MAJOR)
* Gerry Nestler (PHILM)

Rex Brown Says Old Pantera Is Not Glam

I conducted an interview with DOWN/ex-PANTERA bassist Rex Brown. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below. Rex didnt mind my weed smoke stinking up the room either.



Has all the material for the next DOWN record been written, and has anything been recorded in the studio yet?


Brown: Well, we have about three to six tracks, but what I think we are going to do is bundle these things together and record them. We will put like four tracks into a bundle, for $6.99 or something like that, and start putting those out and doing it all the time. That would be the ideal function of the band, instead of putting that one major record out that can be a painstaking process.


So, instead of going into a barn like you did with "Down II", writing and recording in 28 days, you're really taking your time and skipping a full release?


Brown: Well, we are still going into the barn to get that heaviness and get it as stripped down as possible. We will have to see when we get there. I really can't speculate now, because I know it's not going to be this year; probably next year before anything comes out. With this band (DOWN), it just takes time. We all have different lives and things going on outside of this band. We just did a three-year touring cycle, so we have to get away from it for just a little bit.


 Is DOWN no longer viewed as a side project, and is this where everyone would like to put their energy full time?

Brown: Once we all get into the mindset, that is when it's game on. We are getting close, but we are not there yet. We all still have something outside that has to be done.


The [PANTERA] "Cowboys From Hell" 20th-anniversary edition was recently released. Does it seem like only yesterday that you were in the studio and now looking back? Are you completely happy with your bass tracks on "Cowboys"?

Brown: Oh, absolutely. I wish that you could hear them (bass tracks) a little better. It was just hard, number one, to capture that guitar sound live on tape and, number two, getting into the flesh in the mixing with Vinnie's [Paul] drums. The bass is in there, but you really can't hear it. Dime and I played a lot of the riffs together, but I don't regret anything. "Cowboys From Hell" was a groundbreaking record, from a band out of Texas desperately trying to get out there and let our talents be shown.

What's your favorite memory from those sessions, or that era, and did you realize how groundbreaking "Cowboys From Hell" was at that time?


Brown: We knew from a band's sense and that the four of us where trying to make a great record. We didn't know what it would do. Looking back now, production-wise, it was a heavy record that still has the hooks. We just pushed it to the limit and that was every record PANTERA ever did.


Why was the decision made to jump ship on everything prior to "Cowboys From Hell", and any regrets during the glam days?


Brown: Well, we weren't glam. We looked weird with our hair, but we always wrote heavy music. That was just the style of the day. If you grew up in that time, you either had some kind of weight kicking or you were just some band that would play in a garage. We did not want to play in a garage. We wanted to play in front of people.


Many PANTERA fans have been calling for a sort of reunion. What are your thoughts on that?

Brown: I just don't see it happening. It would be great in one factor, that we would play with Vinnie again and that it would be all sorted out. But, I think it would be... I just don't think it would be right without Dime. It was only the four of us, and I don't know anybody that can play like him.


In other words, PANTERA was four core members and four original members only.


Brown: That's it. I don't think you could replace one and just get up there and do it.


I want to talk with you about [Rex's side project] ARMS OF THE SUN. You guys are doing a couple of dates in Texas, and I haven't seen any dates elsewhere. Will you be planning a full tour?


Brown: Yeah! I'm shopping it to management as we speak! Everything is done on it (the album). We have twelve tracks recorded, sequenced, mastered, the whole bit, and we put it on our own dime. It's something that is a real passion for me. Usually when I do a record, I just turn everything off and do something else, but I have been coming back to this music. It's heartfelt and really good. We should have that out by the first of the year, and hopefully tour; doing radio events around the country and stuff like that. We would also like to go to England and break this thing wide open.


What's the reaction been like down in Texas from the people lucky enough to see ARMS OF THE SUN?


Brown: Amazing! We have people screaming for it. We are probably going to play a couple of more gigs here. We're not trying to make it into a big scene or anything like that, but the live shows have just been wild.

Down Presents New DVD October 5th

"Diary of a Mad Band' will be a three-disc affair - two CDs and one DVD -- clocking in at 130 minutes of viewing pleasure. It'll be on the shelf of your local retailers on Oct. 5. It is indeed a diary of Down on the road, as the audio discs collect the band's live performance in London. The DVD portion is a documentation of the band's offstage antics, additionally covering their 2006 resurrection, their practice room and the shenanigans that took place on their first European tour.



The bonus behind-the-scenes featurette is entitled 'Tyrades and Shananigans,' and it's unfiltered and brilliant. Collectors will also be happy to know
 that a 180-gram triple vinyl version with a bonus DVD will be available on October 26!
 
The DVD has everything a Down fan could want, especially that sneak peak into a day in the life of Down. "It's pretty close to that," guitarist Pepper Keenan, also formerly of that other essential metal band Corrosion of Conformity, told Noisecreep. "We're a bunch of kids who grew up together, playing music and eventually getting to bigger venues. We started out in the garage and we'll end up back in the garage, and the DVD hits everything in between."

The DVD was scheduled to come out in the Spring via eOne, but it was temporarily shelved. Keenan took us through the arduous process of the DVD, saying, "It was the first European tour and we had been through hell and back with death of Dimebag and Hurricane Katrina, so everything was piling up on us. We decided to go to Europe, play some shows. We had never been there. We started figuring out it'd do well, bring a film crew and capture the good, bad and ugly s---."

He continued, "Once we got back, finished it, filming the entire tour, where we played a city in each country, we put it together in order of the tour and the set list is in order of how we played, so it had a mathematical element. I can't tell you how many hours of sleep we foregone. I wanted to try and do it that way where it was not one particular city, but Europe in general. We had it done, we got home, had a new record and were reinvigorated to get back in the game and focus our energies, so the movie sat on the wayside.

"Once we pieced it together, two years later, looking at the footage, Warner Bros. passed on it and told us we could release it with someone else, in a nutshell. So we did that and found another label to put it out. But when the label saw it, they changed their minds. They wanted a piece of the pie after they saw it was not some homemade video bulls---. It was a bigger deal than it was before, and timing is everything in this stupid business."

Keenan cited the footage of Download/Donington in England as the "craziest" on 'Diary of a Mad Band,' which was a "secret" show for Down. "No one knew we were playing," Keenan recounted. "It was 11 in the morning, and as soon as they dropped the Down banner, people were jumping over fences, going ape s---. So that was a big deal, so you can see how many people are there. We played and as the credits roll, you can see everyone leaving in droves. That was a special moment, besides the drunk bulls---."

The crowd's reaction to the band's set was crucial to Down's future. "That was the pinnacle to convince Down we need to continue," Keenan admitted. "We'd be fools not to, so big thank you to Europe; [for helping] us get our s--- back together."