by Brown, Rex
So, I was standing, watching, and suddenly this fucking DJ idiot put a microphone in my hand and asked me to say a few words to these five thousand or so people who were in attendance. Like I said, I didn’t know I was going to be asked to say anything and I certainly didn’t have a speech planned, so when I was up there I was desperately trying to find the words—any words—and in the end, all I could muster was “He loved you all. We’ll miss him badly.”
While this was happening, I was aware that this DJ idiot was pressurizing me all the time. “C’mon, Rex, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go,” is all I remember. Go where? Who the fuck knows, but after he said it, there were boos from the audience and in my numb state I wondered whether they were booing him or me. It was a really weird situation. In retrospect I think he was just trying to rush me off stage so they could get Vinnie up there. All I was trying to do was hold myself together that evening, and I wasn’t doing that very well.
The whole place was a huge clusterfuck of security that night, with all kinds of barricades in place to keep certain people in certain designated areas. In my dazed headspace I decided I wanted to go down front-of-house, and on the way down the stairs I literally fell into the arms of Snake Sabo and Terry Date, who somehow managed to prop me up. They chaperoned me to the area I wanted to be in and put me in a seat between our manager Kim Zide and Charlie Benante. By then I was an emotional wreck and all Charlie could do was hold me like a baby.
One person obviously absent that day was Philip, although by this time he had flown into town—despite Rita’s earlier warning—and was staying in a hotel, so I was phoning back and forth with him all day. I even went to see him for a while and kept him informed as to what was happening. I’m sure there was a part of him that wanted to be there—or at least be close to what was going on—but at the same time I’m certain he wanted to respect the family’s wishes. Either way, it was a tough position for him, and one that would offer no closure whatsoever. The concept of him showing up unannounced would not have been well received given Rita’s total insistence that he stay away. So, frustrated by being excluded from all the events surrounding Dime’s death, and cheated out of any closure on the death of one of his best friends and musical soul mates, Philip later wrote Vinnie a letter, but my suspicion is that it may not have been read or certainly not acknowledged in any way. It was suggested that Vinnie never even got it, but I’d bet that he did.
The days following the funeral were no less stressful. Every day my wife and me were harassed by reporters at our door—they even went through our trash and threw it all over the yard—trying to get any kind of comment from me about what had happened. I simply didn’t want to get involved in any of that discussion because what else was there to say? So I just had my wife say to them, “He’s not talking to anyone so you might as well fucking leave.”
I went to the cemetery a few days later, alone. I wanted to say my own goodbyes to Darrell, but the public wouldn’t even allow me this privacy with my friend, as I was continually harassed for comments and even autographs, all while I tried to spend a little private time at Dime’s graveside. I remember this as one of the worst days of my life.
From that day on, I went into the “why?” loop, and I’m still asking the question. Maybe I always will be. I live with a constant combination of anger at the fucker who did this to my dear friend, and complete shock that the existence of the band with whom I’d spent my entire adult life has been ended by a series of events that were far beyond anyone’s control. What you need to remember is that only four guys ever really knew what went on in Pantera, and one of us isn’t around anymore to tell his side of the story.
CHAPTER 1
HEADS UP
If you put your head up above the fence often enough, eventually some fucker is going to throw a rock at you.
But when they stop throwing rocks, that’s when you’ve really got a problem, because you’re obviously not important any more. I have no clue whose quote that one up there in bold was—it might even be a combination of things a few people have said, but the message in there is that fame and fortune is truly a fucked-up concept. I mean, obviously it changes the way you dress and the way you present yourself in front of people, that’s a given. But I found myself treating people differently, and not because of their personality or how they were to me. That didn’t matter at all.
No, the reason was because I was in a higher tax bracket. Fuck, I’d sit there and say stupid shit like, “Dude, I’ve got more money than God.” That must have sounded so arrogant and I’m embarrassed I ever said things like that. Sure, I liked the fame or, rather, aspects of the social acceptance that comes with it, but I liked the fortune better and I attribute that to having been brought up in a household where everything had been a struggle, particularly from a financial point of view. My conclusion, and I’m far from the first to say so, is that everything changes when money gets involved.
When you’ve been broke and solitary like I was as a teenager, barely cutting it, trying to make a two-hundred-buck-a-week salary cover the rent and still leave room to get a twelve-pack for the week or something like that, it’s no surprise things get a little screwed when the checks start flying in, and then all you can say is, “What the fuck am I going to do with all this?!”
Well, what we did with it was spend it—too freely at times—but because we toured so much and accepted every good offer that was thrown our way, there always seemed to be a healthy cash flow to keep it all going. It felt great to finally have some money when I’d been poor all my life, I can’t deny that. Do I wish I’d had a little more help at times, some wise and trustworthy financial advice? Of course I do, because I didn’t really know how to go out there and invest, although I did do bonds but wished I hadn’t once the stock market crashed on me. Eventually I learned how to save the money I was making, but there was a long learning curve.
What complicates things is that you’ve got money coming from so many different places: record royalties, tour money, merchandising, equipment endorsement deals . . . the list goes on, and all you can do is to trust somebody—in my case the company who was part of our business partnership—to pay all the bills and take care of all the taxes, so I really didn’t have to worry about anything. I could just call them and say, “I need some money here, I need some money there” or whatever, or I could call and say, “Just cut a check for this to so and so” and they’d do it so I didn’t have to. That left me to take care of the business I knew how to control: playing the music.
To have large amounts of cash at my disposal not only felt great, but it also balanced out all the sacrifices I’d made to get in this position: being on the road, being away from my family, and all the other difficulties that come from that kind of life.
Gradually though—and it doesn’t matter a shit how much money you once had—you realize that not only do you not have more money than God, but you actually don’t have nearly as much as you thought you did.
Then you panic and all you want to do is just live. I had gotten into the habit of living well—in a large house with every available comfort—and it was great for my kids to live in the type of environment where they can get anything they want, within reason. Being able to provide that meant a lot to me because it was the polar opposite to what it was like for me growing up. Remember, we were musicians, not accountants, and learning to look after your cash is something only learned after a lot of trial and error.
Meanwhile the other guys—Darrell and Vinnie most of all—were out spending a thousand dollars a night and then wondering where all the money went. I remember one day when Dime turned up at my front door out of the blue. I guess you could say I was like a father figure to him and he looked to me as some kind of source of wisdom. At least I think he did.
“Dude, I’m not sure but think I might be broke.” Even the way he said it sounded idiotic.
Of course I said, “You might be broke? What does that even mean? What the fuck are you talkin
g about, dude?”
“Well, I got into this investment thing with tanning beds and the whole bit and it hasn’t worked out so well,” Dime explained. Darrell had set up his girlfriend Rita Haney (she was his wife in every way except they never actually got married) in a tanning salon venture in an Arlington strip mall, and business hadn’t been so good.
“Really? So aside from that, how much are you spending each night?” I asked him.
“I don’t know—maybe a thousand dollars.” (Trust me, that was the very least he would have been spending.)
“Okay, so if you’ve got three hundred grand in the bank, how many nights can you go out and spend that?” I said.
“Three thousand times?”
“Think again, buddy. Try three hundred times. No wonder you’re fuckin’ broke—you need to work on your math,” I told him.
The sad truth is that Dime and Vinnie were out of control with their partying, and with nobody to keep them in line as they paraded themselves around Arlington with a growing bunch of hangers-on, cash would always run dry fast.
AS FAME TOOK HOLD, we couldn’t walk down the street without getting recognized by fans. I reverted to the quiet, unassuming approach that underpins my personality and started looking for little fuckin’ dive watering holes to hang out and drink in without being harassed, somewhere close to the house so that I could get totally fucked up and get home quickly afterwards. Flying under the radar, you could say.
Even in interviews—a process I didn’t really enjoy anyway—I just kept to myself. I’d show up of course but then I’d just sit there behind a pair of dark shades and not do a whole lot of anything. I wanted to try to keep my personal life separate from the band—which was impossible—and I also knew the other three guys would have plenty to say. I was always the quiet guy that nobody knew much about. I just liked to fucking jam, and that’s the plain truth. If I’d wanted attention I would have had, like Vinnie, five bodyguards following me around.
I hated being asked the same questions all the time. Other times the journalist would try to make something up, and I knew immediately when they were trying to do it. You could always tell if these people (a) didn’t know shit about you or (b) were trying to get you to say something off the wall so the extra little headline got them paid a bit more. The ones who were genuine were cool, though, but you’d run into those on maybe one out of ten occasions. I’d get irate with the bad ones sometimes, especially in Europe. They’d ask me a dumb question and I’d just say, “Eh, no” merely to piss them off. And then they’d get all irritated and ask, “Well, can you tell us why not?” To which I’d just say, “Then this interview is fuckin’ over with, how’s that?”
I remember one time in Paris this guy turned up in a motorcycle helmet and leathers to interview Dime and me for some fucking French metal magazine. He started getting all François with us, asking stupid questions like, “Well, why you don’t have two more guitar players in your band?” What kind of a dumb question is that? We always wanted to go for the one guitar player, Van Halen–type of vibe, everyone knew that.
“Have you heard this one dude? Have you heard this motherfucker right here?” I said, pointing at Dime. “That’s all we need.”
“Well…” he said.
“There’s no ‘well,’ dude. This is just the way it is. You want an interview or don’t you?”
“I am just asking the questions because blah blah blah…”
“You know what, you’re fucking out of here, dude.” And with that I took his helmet, threw it down the fucking stairs, and then I decided to throw his leather jacket, too—while he was still wearing it. There’s a pivotal point right there at the back of the collar, and another lower down near the bottom of the back, so you can grab it there and with a swing backwards, then forwards, you’re good to go!
That wasn’t the only time this kind of thing happened. Occasionally I snapped when somebody asked me stupid questions. In the end, instead of banging heads with the press, I tried to run from the media attention, and when you’ve got a load of money, escape is that much easier. The press likes to build you up and then blow you down like a fucking tower. A similar thought occurred to me the other day when I heard that they were blowing up the Texas Stadium where the Dallas Cowboys played for years. There were some great memories within that place—some great games and the whole bit—but all these people turned up just to watch the place fall to the ground. I thought, “Haven’t you got something better to do with your day than being there to watch that?” They had some chick over there with a Kleenex box, crying, and I just thought it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The press likes to do the same thing with musicians, build them up and then tear them down. Even worse, many people like to read about it.
Thank fuck TMZ wasn’t around back in those days, because I would have probably done myself in. I couldn’t have coped with that level of privacy invasion. I sure as hell didn’t get into all this to get my face on the cover of People magazine, and Philip certainly didn’t either. If fame came our way, then let it come when we were up on stage. But with Vinnie and, to a lesser extent, Darrell, things were different: it’s like they actually wanted all that attention.
The self-promotion and narcissism got so bad, especially by Vinnie. He would get our tour manager Guy Sykes to call from our bus into the strip club that we’re sitting outside of, so that we’d get in for free, sit at a VIP table, and the whole bit. As we’d walk in it would be Vinnie and Val, our head of security, and then someone would announce in a melodramatic fashion, “Hey everyone, it’s Vinnie Paaaaauuul from Pantera!”
Dime and I would be in the back, looking at Vinnie, and thinking, “Oh no, not again.” Then we’d stare at each other and say, “Who the fuck is this dude anyway? Where does this shit come from? This guy wouldn’t be anything if it wasn’t for us,” but Vinnie just had to bask in the spotlight.
The irony is that it didn’t matter what these titty bars were like—and remember we hit every single one in every city we went to over a period of ten years. Some of them were so shitty that the girls had to put twenty-five cents in the jukebox themselves to play their favorite song before they got up onstage. Just to piss Vinnie off we used to say, “What the fuck have you got security rolling with you for anyway?” as if to question that he was important enough to even need security. As a band we were against that kind of crap. There were certain situations where we had to have it, in-store signings and shit like that, but we never had bodyguards just to look like rock stars. Vinnie, on the other hand, wanted stardom so badly he wanted to look like one, too.
THE ROCK STAR LIFESTYLE became extremely hard for all of us in the later era, particularly for me, partly because my kids were so young and I was torn between home life and life on the road, and also because the way I was living seemed a million miles away from the tough upbringing I had known. At the peak of our career in the mid-’90s we were selling tens of thousands of records every week and selling out amphitheaters wherever we went: at home and in Europe, South America, Japan, Australia, the whole world . . . We conquered them all and so we were all very wealthy dudes who were recognized wherever we went. We were always a fan’s band, right from the very beginning when we relied on the Texas club crowd to literally put clothes on our back, and they did it just because they were totally into the music we were playing, which is something I’ve never forgotten. But when the public attention reached its peak toward the end of the ’90s and more so still after Darrell’s death, it felt like we were victims of our fan-friendly approach and it was definitely tough knowing how to respond.
Imagine being in a bar having a quiet drink and knowing immediately that the guy walking in the door recognizes you as Rex from Pantera. I could tell if that was the case from fifty fucking paces. A lot of times the person might have met you at a show somewhere or at an in-store, but what they forget is that I’ve seen thousands of faces over the years. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind friendly fans and a few
photos and the whole bit, because God knows we wouldn’t stop signing after shows until every single kid was happy. But it becomes an issue when people start wanting something more from you because of who you are. That kind of pressure just made me want to isolate myself further.
I’M SOMEBODY WHO has dedicated his entire life to rock ’n’ roll, and I survived. I came out the other end of my own dark avenue, shaken for sure, but having endured occupational hazards of this business like alcohol and drugs. Not only did I survive, but I also pride myself in having been a stand-up type of guy all the way down the line.
I’ve had a lot of help from upstairs, you know. That’s the way I like to put it. I don’t care what anyone else believes or doesn’t believe. That’s their deal, but for me, I believe in God although I don’t subscribe to any particular organized religion.
I like to simplify it and say that I know the Ten Commandments—what to do and what not to—but I also believe that something higher and much greater than me has helped me get through the more traumatic side of a life in rock ’n’ roll. I’ve always believed that you have to fight for what you want in life, and God knows I did, but you also have to have the good graces of something spiritually bigger than you to give you that little extra assistance. I didn’t really realize all this until more recently, and occasionally I will get down on my knees and pray. Or I might just shut my eyes and take two minutes to take in the day; that achieves the same thing.
Despite how difficult life became, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that playing music and my unbreakable desire to do so is what put me where I am. I have always viewed my life as a musical journey, and while there are good and bad aspects in everything I have been through to date, I never would have had any of it without the upbringing that I had. So if my story is going to start anywhere, then it would have to be in Texas.