by Brown, Rex
Thankfully the bus driver on our bus also liked to gamble. Phil didn’t care because he was always wasted in the back, so me, the bus driver, and Phil’s assistant decided to go into all the Native American casinos along our route to try and win the twenty grand back. The tour was due to end up in Seattle, so I figured we had almost the entire West Coast from San Diego northwards to get lucky.
So the bus driver mapped everything out, got all the places located and in conference with everyone who was going to play, I said, “Look, here’s the plan. Everybody walks in with three hundred bucks. If you want me to bankroll you, I’ll bankroll you, but you have to pay me back the three hundred when we’re done.” Then I added, “We have one hour to play with three hundred bucks. If you lose it, you’re out.”
So after every show for a week and a half, we’d mosey out of whatever town we happened to be in, and go to one of these pre-identified casinos to put the plan into action. We were playing straight blackjack, strictly by the rules. We’d gotten ourselves a book that told you what to hit on, depending on what the banker is showing and what to do about it. It was basically a cheat-sheet of how to play the game strategically.
I set up the table like something out of Ocean’s Eleven. Every person had a specific job to do. I had a guy on first base, another guy on fourth, and I played the two middle slots. That way I figured we had all the options covered. To be as sharp as possible I eased back on the drinking too—only one drink an hour—so that way I was able to stay focused on making the system work. I also have to say that I might have enjoyed myself more.
Some nights we would lose, other nights I’d win big and on the odd occasion that we’d made enough in a session, we’d get up and walk before the hour was done. That’s called disciplined, scientific blackjack. So at the end of the trip having hit all these casinos, I ended up with twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred dollars. Enough to cover the Vegas marker and enough for me to go out and buy myself a Yz250 Yamaha dirt bike.
THE SABBATH TOUR signified the beginning of the end for our head of security, Big Val. While he was always good at what he was employed by us to do, he started thinking that he was a rock god himself, as did quite a few of the crew by this point. We were always very close with the crew, like one big family most of the time, and when that’s the case it’s not unusual to have people take advantage of you and rip you off because they start to think they’re entitled to what you have.
Vinnie created a lot of these problems because he never did anything about anything. He’d just let things happen. Creating that kind of monster and hating confrontation like he did was a bad combination, particularly when it was obvious that someone had taken things too far like Big Val had. The breaking point came when we found out that he was making his own Pantera t-shirts with our fucking logo on them and planned to sell them front of house at shows. He wasn’t a celebrity, he was a fucking security guard, but I guess it’s inevitable and halfway acceptable to think you’re a star when you’re in a position like he was. But the line is crossed when a security guy starts using our name for his own monetary gain.
“What the fuck are we going to do about this?” Darrell asked me.
“What fucking choice do we have?” I asked him. “Make up your mind and do whatever you want to do.”
So Dime fired him. At least he finally saw sense and made the right call.
CHAPTER 16
SWAN SONG
By the time we went back into Dime’s studio to record Reinventing the Steel after the Sabbath reunion tour, everyone was pretty well burned out. The excess takes its toll on you and we were all really feeling it. Phil wasn’t happy, none of us were actually, and when someone walks in the door with a shit expression on their face it just takes the whole room down. What we really needed was a long time away from each other. Not just a few days or weeks, but a long time. You can only work and live that hard for so long before you start to feel it, but everyone else expects you to just put out a happy-go-lucky, good time record. That’s not the way it works. Every fucking band runs into that problem, especially the great ones, but ultimately we were four stubborn fuckers, man.
TERRY DATE
I tried to mix Trendkill at Dime’s place and it just wasn’t working, so I had to take it to L.A. to a bigger board to mix it. I was very stressed out. Four records with those guys—almost ten years, that’s hard. It’s a lot to keep up with. I got to a point where I felt “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” Vinnie knew the technology inside out, so it was becoming more a matter of who would make decisions, kind of like a referee. I needed a break at the very least and that’s really all there was to it. I got calls all the time throughout the last record because they were still friends and I wanted them to make the best record they could.
We all agreed on one thing though, which was that the best way forward for the band would be to create sort of an amalgam of all the best stuff we’d done up until that point and make a record that captured all those best elements. In some ways we wanted to go backwards, but in other ways we didn’t.
We wanted to rediscover the creative energy and unity we shared in, let’s say, ’93 or ’94, but we didn’t want the record to sound as if it belonged there. We wanted it to be fresh and have new energy, and for that reason the finished product sounds a lot different from the previous ones while still being unmistakably Pantera. We were also aware that you can’t have the same audience forever. We were all getting wiser and we knew that people grow out of that style of music. So we factored in the fact that our crowd was getting a little older—getting a little bit younger at the other end, too, and tailored our sound to accommodate that. One thing we never did was give in to any trend that may have been out there at the time, and I genuinely believe that’s why we had such an insanely loyal fan base. We always stayed true to ourselves and our fans respected that, and instead of getting softer as the money came in we stayed heavy all the way through. I can’t think of any other metal bands that were successful with that kind of manifesto.
When it came to producing the record, we’d decided that we were going to do it ourselves without Terry Date. Vinnie had already done the two new studio tracks for the live record, so we knew we could do it. We could probably have been doing it for years, but we always felt as if we needed a safe pair of ears like Terry’s to capture us on tape and to keep us grounded and focused on getting the process done.
So as well as it being time for a change of personnel, the fact that we wouldn’t have to pay four and a half points and a hundred thousand dollars to the producer was also appealing. Trust me, since we were kids we knew how to make records, so after Trendkill it was time to fly the coop because we knew how to capture the sound we made on tape.
We got an astronomical advance to do Reinventing the Steel, I can’t even remember how much it was, but basically it was all free because we were using our own studio and our own time. You see, record labels are like banks except you don’t pay interest. They’re contractually obliged to give you half the money up front and the rest when the record is delivered, so we just split it all four ways and did what the fuck we wanted with it. Took the money and ran.
This time we were working with a different type of gear and the whole bit. Had the bass up in the mix a lot more and we just went for a totally different tone. No Terry Date, just Vinnie and Sterling Winfield, the engineer, behind the board, and the sonic results were as streamlined as the payroll.
So we’d get down there with a very focused vision about what we wanted the record to sound like and I know we achieved that. You could say Reinventing the Steel was a literal reinvention of sorts because it retained our stamp, and was also a return to the sharper hooks of the past, but it did take a fucking long time to finish.
We’d get three songs done and then we’d take a couple of months off. I’d just had kids and, looking back on it now, that made things a little harder because of the whole light switch deal. I wanted to be in two places at once and that o
bviously creates conflict, although at that time it wasn’t impacting my family life. Not yet, but that was coming.
WALTER O’BRIEN
Trendkill had sold well, yeah, but not as well as the previous two. At the start of Reinventing, I wasn’t happy either because I was really bummed that the band had been doing this since they were fifteen and now they were in this state of meltdown. I said to them a million times, “Guys, I can always go and get another job. You guys are Pantera. You got your shot and you’ve got the brass ring, don’t throw it away. You were that one in a hundred thousand bands that made it.” I felt that there was a possibility that they could be throwing it all away. The reason Reinventing the Steel took so long was because Phil wouldn’t go to Texas to record. And then it got worse and worse until Phil didn’t want to talk to Dime and then Dime got pissed at Phil; then everybody got pissed at everybody else while Kim and I were desperately trying to get them to communicate. Literally we’d call Phil and tell him what Vinnie said and then we’d call Vinnie and tell him what Phil said and so on. We were just trying to get the thing made.
Gradually we got the record done, although it dragged on for months because of the disjointed nature of the sessions. Darrell was partying hard as usual, hanging out with everyone he could, whenever he could, all kinds of people, and one of them was the country singer David Allen Coe.
He was from Nashville, Tennessee, too, and they were two of the same even though I’m sure he didn’t know what to make of us Texas boys playing heavy metal. Whatever. He must have liked us because he eventually got us to play on one of his own records that came out sometime in 2006.
Darrell called me up one night and said, “Dude, you gotta come and meet this guy.” I went over to where they were and he’s got his shirt off and stinks like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. I felt like saying “Dude, take a shower. Deodorant, anything.”
He’s also covered head to toe in ink, so I stupidly said, “I like that ink man, looks really cool” and no sooner had I said that, he dropped his trousers to reveal the word Danger tattooed on his cock, vertically I think, although I didn’t look for too long.
Fucking hell…
I’m all for ink, got a load of it myself, but who the fuck tattoos their dick?
I thought, “I didn’t need to see that. That’s waaaaaay too much.” But Dime thought this guy was the baddest dude ever and they were just perfect for each other, completely over the top, crazy motherfuckers. In fact I used to think that Dime would have turned out just like him if he was still alive. They were just so similar.
There were lots of other people coming out of the woodwork by now, too—most of them assholes who hung around Dime. They had tattoos of him and the whole bit. They’d come up to me and say, “You don’t remember me?” To fuck with them. I’d sometimes just say, “Am I supposed to? Did we have a child together?”
“Well, I was on the bus back in …” (fill in the place/time).
“Don’t you think there were other people on the bus, too?” I’d ask.
Dime and Vinnie seemed to just love having trashy-ass people around them after shows, and I got to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore.
RITA HANEY
As their career moved forward and they became more successful, I wouldn’t say that they changed as people, but the people who hung around them definitely changed. Some of their best friends had the mentality that said, “Okay, you’ve made it. You’re rich, so that means that you pay for dinner every night and buy all the drinks.” I don’t think they even realized they were doing it. But if one of the band guys refused for some reason, all of a sudden they are the dick! At first, everybody was happy-go-lucky and they were going places, but that changed as the people around them changed.
As far as dealing with fans at shows was concerned, I’d always sign all the autographs that I possibly could, and depending on what mood Phil was in, I’d get him to do the same. It was really important to me that I made myself available.
I’d go into his dressing room to get him and he’d say, “Man, did you sign everybody and stuff?,” hoping that I’d done enough that he didn’t have to.
I’d say, “Dude, that’s part of the gig. You know we’ve got to do it.”
“All right, let’s go and do it,” he’d eventually say, and we’d go outside and sign all the kid’s shit. That was one way that he and I motivated each other. Even if it was raining outside, you’d have kids who sat there a long time, all day long sometimes, waiting to get a glimpse, so the least we could do was get some kind of idea about what they were doing. See us from their perspective. It felt like the least I could do. It might be twenty fucking degrees out there and you still had some kid in a t-shirt waiting to get something signed. “Please buddy, put a jacket on, you’re going to get sick tomorrow,” I’d tell them. “It’s not worth that just to meet us.”
I’d put a towel over my head and just get out there even in the pouring down rain. Of course sometimes Phil just didn’t feel like going out. His back hurt too much or he wasn’t looking good enough to go out there—hungover or too drugged out—so I’d sometimes make the decision for him. But all in all, he at least understood how much it meant to the kids and we’d both sign until there were no more kids waiting. We carried that mentality we’d had in the club scene in Dallas in the early days around with us because we always tried to hang out with our fans. We’d just sit out in the parking lot, drinking beer and doing stupid shit with the kids as if we were one of them. Another reason for being there for our fans was that we saw a lot of bands over the years that didn’t do that.
Obviously it got much harder when things got going on a bigger scale, but our record was getting twenty-five hundred people signed in an hour and a half, and it was our duty to be personable to every last one of them, “Hey man, what’s going on? Sorry I can’t sit and jam with you but we have to move down the line.” I always felt that I had to respect the fans to some degree because they were the ones paying my fucking bills, but it doesn’t come down to that completely.
To me the music—or rather their appreciation of it—came first and foremost. Currency—whether it was fifteen or twenty bucks to see the show—was just a piece of paper that said, “I’m here to see the band jam. To live the experience.” That’s how I viewed the fans, rather than just as someone paying my electric bill. So it was most important to me that we put on a killer show for them.
AROUND THIS TIME, and while we stopped back home on a break, my wife and I moved out of the house that was beside Vinnie, into a bigger house on the golf course at Rolling Hills Country Club. I used the place for socializing with the guys I’d always played golf with over the years. I’d assembled a group of friends, guys who belonged to different associations in town but who all liked to play golf, hang out at the country club, have a few drinks, and the whole bit. What I liked best about this group of guys was that they all saw me as just a normal person.
The money was still really good, so I could still afford to buy things like this big fucking house and a huge grill from Barbecue Galore to sit in an outside kitchen, a big eight-foot-long fucker. I’d buy meat in bulk and keep it in the freezer. When I knew I had a bunch of people coming over, I’d pull one out to defrost on the morning prior. We were always throwing cocktail parties, and I was well known for my secret method of grilling rump roast, kind of a variation on prime rib.
I had a pretty set routine in those days. I’d get up at around ten thirty in the morning, have a couple of bourbons, and then hit the links for the day. I’d grab my golf cart and I was gone. This was my hobby and I played golf religiously, in order to jam the light switch into the off position.
Golf was my getaway, my escape. I just did not want to be around anything to do with the band unless I absolutely had to. Twenty of us played all day long, then it’d be happy hour at Rex’s house.
I met some folks who were members at Colonial Country Club, which was the Augusta National of Texas in terms of presti
ge, and was also the place that my dad and I used to sit and watch on TV, back on the couch in De Leon. My dad never got to play the course but I did. It’s an unbelievable golf course—one of the peaches of the South—and I got invited maybe ten times to play in the pro-am at the annual PGA tour event.
ONE OF THE MANY DAYS I was playing at Rolling Hills, I got to the eleventh green and suddenly had a strange sense of spiritual awareness. I just felt something. We were fixin’ to stop playing for the day anyway, so I said to the guys, “Look, I have to go.” I drove the golf cart in, told my wife, “I’m going to the hospital real quick.” I knew something was up. I didn’t change clothes, just jumped in my car, and went where I knew I needed to go.
Darrell and Vinnie’s mom Carolyn had been diagnosed with lung cancer only a few weeks earlier—which was a shock in itself—and she was being treated in the local hospital in Arlington. She had been like a second mother to me in my teens, and her condition seemed pretty bad. In fact, it was worse than it looked. She passed away ten minutes after I got there. Something or somebody told me that I had to get off the golf course and go down there. Was it God? Who knows, but a voice definitely said, “Get down there and say your goodbyes. She’s going.”
Obviously the brothers did not take it at all well—they were very close to their mother. Her death really affected them for a long time, long after Reinventing the Steel, which finally came out in March 2000 and landed at number 4 on the charts. We liked the album for sure and dedicated it to our fans, but we had no idea it would be our swan song.