NEW PANTERA ALBUM: CLASSIC METAL OR CRAP?
An exclusive Cut-Out Bin interview with Dimebag Darrel

	In the 80s, Pantera played a mighty breed of heavy, fast, guitar driven powermetal (to the
point that they had an album called Powermetal, if you can believe that...) that is definite
ear-candy if you can find any of the out-of-print albums.  Unfortunately, they dressed in spandex
and gave themselves a Poison-like image, leading the band to actively buy back copies of those
three early albums for destruction.
	While Coybows from Hell and Vulgar Display of Power remained in the vein of classic
metal, Pantera's last two studio albums, Far Beyond Driven and The Great Southern Trendkill
have changed the band's gears over to a noisy, brutal, new-genre, just plain Godawful sound.
Opening for Black Sabbath in early '99, Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo said (besides such eloquent
admonitions as, "Eat as much pussy as possible") that the next album would be in the vein of Iron
Maiden, old Metallica, Judas Priest, etc.
	Cut-Out Bin Editor-In-Chief T.J. Swoboda obviously couldn't decline an opportunity
to interview Pantera's guitarist, "Dimebag" Darrel Abbott, to give readers a view of the current
situation.

COB: So, Dimebag, what's the new album gonna sound like?
DD: Well, as you know Phil was promising a return to a classic metal sound when we opened
for Sabbath early last year.  But when that tour ended and we got to recording, Phil's
insecurities kicked in.  I mean, this guy can't sing the slow parts of "Cemetary Gates"
with a straight face for whatever reason, has to lay down when we cover "Planet Caravan,"
and slurs the hell out of the lyrics nine times out of ten.  We had melodic, progressive,
heavy shit written and ready to record, but suddenly he insisted on screaming everything
instead of using his phenomonal singing voice.
COB: An online friend of mine once joked that the next logical step for Phil would be
to actually puke into the microphone.
DD: (laughing) Oh fuck man, that's about it.  We should just shitcan the bastard, go back
to the guy we had on Projects in the Jungle and I Am the Night...shit, I can't even
remember his name...or get somebody else competent and make some real music, minus the
spandex (shuddering).  But since the early 90s fans have become more and more intollerant
of bands chaning singers; people calling themselves Black Sabbath fans spontaneously forgot
who Ronnie James Dio is around '96 or so.  If Pantera changed singers, we'd be cooked.
COB: What did you think of the interview with Phil in our rival Web-zine Infernal Combustion,
a few months ago?
DD: Where he said that the new album fuckin' blows? (sigh) That's where we're headed, I'm
afraid.

Pantera's problem himself.  Picture copyright 1992 whoever the hell took it for VDOP.
Pirated courtesty of The Cut Out Bin.

COB: Any chance of hearing a complete, kick-ass version of "Cemetary Gates" on the next tour?
DD: Not a chance in hell.  Unless of course we change singers, but we just covered that route.
COB: How are relations within the band in the midst of all of this?
DD: We get along all right.  I won't pull a Nigel Tufnel and claim to be soul mates with anyone,
but we aren't trying to kill each other.  Phil gets drunk and a little too...okay, way-too...
in-your-face a lot, but Rex, my brother Vinny and myself are able to put up with it.  I think
that's what Pantera is really all about when you get down to it, for the band and the fans
alike: Putting up with Phil.
COB: You said it all, Dimebag.

ACTUNG!: What you just read is BULLSHIT!!!  I made it up!  Muchas gracias, merci boku...