Today it is eight years since the world lost one of its most innovative guitarists, “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott. He was aged 38 and killed whilst onstage with his band DAMAGEPLAN in Ohio, USA.
Dimebag formed PANTERA in 1981 with his brother Vinnie Paul and in 1990 the band had their first commercial success with the album “Cowboys From Hell.” The band went on to even bigger success with their distinctive sounding southern groove style metal offering “Vulgar Display Of Power” in 1992.
The brothers later went on to form DAMAGEPLAN after much tension within PANTERA. They released their debut album “New Found Power” in 2004 before Darrell was shot and killed while performing with the band onstage, along with three more people.
Dimebag left his mark and also a huge gap in the metal world, but the legacy of his music lives on. He was ranked 92 in Rolling Stone‘s “100 Greatest Guitarists” and number 1 in UK metal magazine Metal Hammer and frequently appeared in polls and guitar magazines, as well as writing his own column in Guitar World magazine. He endorsed Dean guitars and had co-designed his own signature guitar just months before his death called the Razorback.
PureGrainAudio‘s Mitch Lafon conducted an interview with Zakk Wylde (BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, OZZY OSBOURNE) on October 20 at Le Métropolis in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. You can now watch the chat below.
Asked about a hypothetical PANTERA reunion with him filling in for the late “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott on guitar, Zakk said, “I’m friends with all the [former PANTERA members]. Phil [Anselmo, former PANTERA singer] called me up when they did that ‘Metal Masters’ thing. [A guy] who does security with us, he came over and said, ‘Phil just wanted to say ‘Hey.’ He wanted to give you a call.’ So I said, ‘Yeah, tell Phil to call me whenever he wants.’ So I got on the phone with Phil and I was just shooting the shit with him. He goes, ‘Zakk, everyone thinks there’s a rift [between us].’ I said, ‘Phil, I get along with everybody.’ He said, ‘I wish I could talk with Vin [former PANTERA drummer and Dimebag‘s brother, Vinnie Paul Abbott]’ and this and that. So I said, ‘Dude, just pour your heart out and talk to him.'”
He added, “It’s up to the guys [if they ever want to play together again]. Put it this way: If they were, like, ‘We’re gonna do this and they asked me to play Dime‘s guitar parts, I’d be honored. I was a pallbearer for him, so he was my brother, man. And I know if he was on the side of the stage watching me play, he’d be laughing his balls off — that’s just a fact. He’d go, ‘Hey, jackass, you missed a couple of notes over here. You botched this one up,’ or whatever. He’d love every second of it. But, of course, I’d be beyond honored to do that; why wouldn’t I? But that’s a call the guys [have to] make.”
BLACK LABEL SOCIETY‘s long-talked-about “Unblackened” DVD, which was previously scheduled to be filmed in late August at The Mayan in Los Angeles, California, will now be shot in January. The set is expected to contain stripped-down versions of some of the band’s most popular cuts. “We’re gonna do the whole thing with a four-piece string section, a pedal steel guy, and I’m gonna have some of my musician buddies sit in on some of the songs and stuff like that,” Wylde said a few months ago. “We’re gonna have two solid weeks of rehearsal and then we’re gonna knock this thing out. [It will be an] acoustic/electric type of thing. Kinda like how the Christmas record is or like how we did ‘The Song Remains Not The Same’ where you’ve got an acoustic and then you can put a rippin’ solo something. So I’ll still have the Marshalls going with the acoustic stuff. It’d be almost kinda like if PINK FLOYD was doing an unplugged thing and they did ‘Comfortably Numb’ but Dave [Gilmour] will be sitting down but he’ll still rip that solo out. It’ll still be electric and then we’ll have the string section behind it and the whole band and it’ll be killer.”
BLACK LABEL SOCIETY‘s “The Song Remains Not The Same” sold around 12,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 41 on The Billboard 200 chart. Released on May 10, 2011 via Entertainment One Music, the offering featured unplugged versions of material from BLACK LABEL SOCIETY‘s latest album, “Order Of The Black”, as well as additional material recorded during the “Order Of The Black” sessions. “The Song Remains Not The Same” was conceived, created and compiled by Wylde himself and the title is, of course, a nod to one of Wylde‘s favorite bands, LED ZEPPELIN.
“Order Of The Black” was released in North America in August 2010 via E1 Music. The CD featured four unique covers designed by Zakk Wylde himself — one for each territory: North America, Europe, Asia and Australia/New Zealand.
According to Reuters, Jimi Hendrix was named the greatest guitar player in history by Rolling Stone magazine in a list compiled by a panel of music experts and top guitar players.
“Jimi Hendrix exploded our idea of what rock music could be: He manipulated the guitar, the whammy bar, the studio and the stage,” said RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE‘s Tom Morello in the magazine, citing Hendrix‘s “Purple Haze” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” as key tracks.
The panel of experts recruited to vote for their favorite guitar players included musicians such as Morello, METALLICA‘s Kirk Hammett, ALICE IN CHAINS‘ Jerry Cantrell, the SMASHING PUMPKINS‘ Billy Corgan, MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s Mick Mars, PEARL JAM‘s Mike McCready and MEGADETH‘s Dave Mustaine. McCready called Eddie Van Halen “a master of riffs” and Joe Perry praised Jimmy Page‘s “vision of how to transcend the stereotypes of what the guitar can do.”
Below is a list of some of the hard rockers in Rolling Stone‘s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”
01. Jimi Hendrix
03. Jimmy Page (LED ZEPPELIN)
08. Eddie Van Halen (VAN HALEN)
24. Angus Young (AC/DC)
25. Tony Iommi (BLACK SABBATH)
36. Randy Rhoads (OZZY OSBOURNE)
40. Tom Morello (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE)
65. Slash (GUNS N’ ROSES)
73. Kurt Cobain (NIRVANA)
87. James Hetfield (METALLICA)
92. “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott (PANTERA)
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s ASA unveil the long-overdue release of "Collective Failure" + first music video for title-track! Check it out and stay tuned for more news! Click image to watch the video
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Kimmo Kuusniemi's Ancient Streaming Assembly - 'Perpetuae Memoriae', ft. Tuomas Rounakari + Steve Di Giorgio - Click image to watch the video