In the fall of 2008, I began an internship at mainstream metal behemoth Revolver Magazine. My first assignment: review every back issue and compile the best of Pantera drummer Vinnie Paulâs advice column.Initially, I was ready for this assignment to suck. It wasnât that I disliked Pantera; quite the opposite, I fucking loved Pantera, and I didnât even mind that Damageplan record that much. It was just that since Panteraâs dissolution and the tragic death of guitarist âDimebagâ Darrell Abbot, fans had fallen on either sideâeither you were in Camp Phil or Camp Vinnie. I was hard Camp Phil.
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Panteraâs appeal is two-pronged. On the one side is total classic metal worship, all leather and steer skulls and fist-pumping choruses--which is rad, but also kind of lame and stereotypical. On the other side is the troubled American dirtbag psyche, seething with topics like drug use, mental illness, observational social commentary, and a vague sense of seething, uncontrollable rage that can be awakened at the first sign of disrespect--which is killer, but also pretty silly and humorless.Vinnie Paul and vocalist Phil Anselmo embodied those two poles within Pantera. Vinnie was all about Van Halen and Kiss, and courted a whiskey-lovinâ stripper-tippinâ good olâ boy image. Phil was the dark weirdo in the Venom shirt who felt misunderstood and dwelt in a haze of weed, pills, and obscure death metal.And between Philâs harsh reality and Vinnieâs idealized Metal Heaven was Darrell, Vinnieâs brother and unhinged guitar virtuosos, who became a perfect amalgamation of those two aesthetics (Rex played bass). As Pantera grew into the dark, nuanced groove metal sound that fully emerged on 1992âs Vulgar Display of Power and peaked with 1996âs The Great Southern Trendkill , Darrellâs nickname changed from âDiamondâ to âDimebagâ and his guitar sound mutated from a chug to a roar, but he always maintained a carefree sense of humor that he shared with his brother.Then, some years after the band split up due to creative differences and the Abbott brothers were touring with their new band Damageplan, Darrell was senselessly murdered onstage. And with the possibility of a Pantera reunion gone, and the embodiment of Panteraâs perfect middle ground taken from them, fans began to quantify why they listened to Pantera.
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These camps werenât even actual sides, because it felt small and awful to take sides after such a tragedy; these were just about your reasons for liking Panteraâs music. Camp Vinnie fans explained that they never really cared for the bleak lyrics, and really just enjoyed the band for their heaviness and power. Camp Phil fans made it very clear that they thought the sleazy classic metal posturing of Pantera was immature bullshit, but they loved the roiling turmoil at the heart of albums like Trendkill.These days, Panteraâs legacy is bittersweet and fucked, in part because of the attitudes of both of these figures. Phil threw the âHeilâ and screamed, âWHITE POWER!â on camera at a concert honoring Dimebagâs legacy, thus validating a long history of mumbled racism claims and making âCamp Philâ the most undesired allegiance in metal. And Vinnie Paul, for his part, came out against his merch company no longer selling Pantera merch with the Confederate flag on it. Panteraâs history as an ultra-genuine modern metal band has become mired in the Southâs ugly past and a new generation of metalheads who arenât interested in humoring that sort of racist bullshit anymore.But in 2008, I was totally uninterested in Camp Vinnie, because I had always been the dark outsider. I was all about listening to the ugliest, weirdest shit I could find, and was obsessed with metal outcasts like Dave Wyndorf and Will Rahmer. In my mind, the biggest arena bands and the smallest underground acts were operating on the same level, and to choose one over the other based on the size of their fanbase was as false as it got (I still remember my open-mouthed outrage when a Revolver editor once said to me, âYeah, but who gives a shit about what Nifelheim thinks?â)
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In short, I was a twenty-something headbanger who felt like he needed to prove himself, and having, grown up reading Revolverâhey, they covered Emperor and OpethâI knew what I was in for with Vinnie Paulâs column: good-timey country boy bullshit with too many exclamation points and a lot of talk about getting laid. So I wasnât all that psyched about this assignment.For two weeks, I pored over every issue of Revolver and read every âAsk Vinnie Paulâ column in existence.And I loved it. I laughed my fucking ass off. I pumped my fist.It wasnât that Vinnie Paulâs advice was great, which it usually wasnât, or that he was unpredictably poetic, which, boy, was he not. Itâs that I identified with the flippant, goofy voice that Vinnie took in responding to the trials and tribulations of typical metalheads going through typical things. When a reader asked Vinnie what to do with the huge boner he got whenever Pantera went onstage, and Vinnie replied, âSHOW IT TO THE CROWD!!!â, I thought, That is the greatest piece of advice anyone has ever been given.None of this surprised me, because as a metalhead writer, I had Vinnieâs biography pretty well memorized. In real life, Vinnie Paul wasnât entirely a stereotypeâyou have to imagine a guy who kept playing music after his brother was killed in front of him is more than just a cowboy hatâthough he did a good job of playing one. He owned and managed several thriving Texan strip clubs, which made him one of the few big-name metal stars who made a lot of his money offstage. Vinnie also became one of metalâs most public faces, hamming it up for awards show promos and guest-starring in Pantera parodies. All the while, his final band, Hellyeah! (which was comprised of him and former members of nu-metal heavyweights like Nothingface and Mudvayne), toured relentlessly, churning out toned-down groove metal that sounded, unsurprisingly, like Pantera without a dark side.
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So, while reading Vinnie Paulâs advice column, I certainly wanted to roll my eyes in contemptâand occasionally, I did, because Vinnieâs answers never meant anything. Even when Vinnie gave the occasional piece of constructive advice on cheating significant others or brutal hangovers, his responses were exactly the type of working-for-the-weekend party metal throwaway lines that I was expecting.But what I discovered is that secretly, some part of me related to that. It was as though Vinnie Paul could read my mind I was a drink and a half deep at the bar and had nothing going on the next day. I missed that moment when religion and politics are momentarily put to rest, âIâm The Oneâ comes on the jukebox, and some huge dude with stylized sideburns sidles up next to me, shouting, âWeâre doing shots! You want a shot?âTo a lot of metalheads, that was Vinnie Paul. He was more than just a drummer, he was a fun-loving elder statesman, like Fezziwig, Scroogeâs rambunctious boss from A Christmas Carol. Vinnie represented the kind of dude who was there when all you wanted to do was leave your baggage at the door, get a little fucked up, and crack some dirty jokes. He represented the side of all of us thatâs sometimes weary of the fight, and just wants to cut loose, talk shit, and have fun. He was a living avatar for every time the dudes from Immortal sang ABBA at a karaoke bar.As metalheads, that part of ourselves gets harder to connect with every day, and for good reasons. Given the climate of the world, and especially modern America, the fight should be a priority, because the stakes are so high. The Confederate flag has a fucked-up legacy, and glossing over that in the name of selling merch isnât cool no matter how many ways you slice it. We have to acknowledge that even the most awesome of the metal gods can be backward, outdated, or just plain wrong. Without progress, there would be no thrash, no grindcore, no doom. If it doesnât get better, metal will die on the vine.But at the same time, thereâs something to be said for the hilarious release thatâs always been a part of heavy metal. For metal to be interesting and enjoyable, it needs that positive catharsis. Hell, Pantera needed it: without Vinnie, Pantera wouldâve been an endless bummer, all grunting and grinding and lamenting over pills, just like it wouldâve been all spandex and airbrushed van art without Philâs darkness. Instead, Pantera occupied that brilliant middle ground where you could give the world the finger, but do so with a smile on your face instead of a scowl.With Vinnie Paulâs death Friday night, the metal community was reminded that all parties are gonna end. But it also reminded us to momentarily let down our guard, rally those we love around the campfires of our lives, and pass the bottle. The war will be there in the morning, and itâll be worse than ever, but for now, we can have a little fun. Because if we canât do that, what are we fighting for?Chris Krovatin is crying into his Black Tooth Grins on Instagram .