At the rate that the tit for tat wars between the former band members is escalating to school yard levels, things are looking more and more unlikely that the former southern metallers will reform.
As the 10 year anniversary of the death of guitarist Dimebag Darrell approaches in December next year, rumblings and the ‘reunion’ word has been mentioned in the same sentence as Pantera quite a bit lately. None of it good.
Drummer Vinnie Paul has repeatedly said ‘not gonna happen’, vocalist Phil Anselmo, won’t even consider it unless Paul sits with him so they can bury their past issues. Now throw in bassist’s Rex Brown’s new tell all book, Official Truth, 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera and it looks like this could be the final nail in the coffin.
Brown, recently confirming on former RIP magazine’s Lonn Friend’s podcast, ‘Energise with Lonn Friend’ that Paul, the older brother of Dimebag, is none to impressed with Brown and his memoir. The light shines the least flattering on the older Abbott brother and Brown’s candid claims that Paul was the grumpiest of them, is more than likely not going to do the campaign to reunite any favours.
Brown, who sent copies of the book to both his former band mates, has yet to hear directly from Anselmo on how he feels about the book but he hasn’t heard anything negative either, he claims during the podcast.
In the 9 years since the brutal murder of Dimebag, the talk of reunion has been broached more so in the last month than ever before and one could easily argue that the negativity surrounding it is some form of publicity stunt to garner hype. A sudden turnaround would cause cheers from the metal globe as fans want nothing more than to see the former best friends all on stage together paying tribute to their endearing guitarist.
Time will tell as the lead up to that dreadful day in December 2004 nears a decade.
