Pantera

In the Pit with Pantera's Beat Man, Vinnie Paul
By Troy Schmidt

You’re a golfer. What’s your score?
The other day, I think it was a 95. Usually I can get low 90s, upper 80s.
Do you have a favorite course?
There’s one by my house in Texas- Riverside- I know real well. Play it real well.
Have you played any of the professional sites?
Oh yeah. You have the fringe benefit of promoters getting connections at golf courses.
What about other sports?
Hockey. Hockey. Dallas Stars. That’s my favorite team, when they won the Stanley Cup. They had it in my house. I’m a close personal friend of a lot of guys on the team. Wrote the theme song for the Dallas Stars. Big hockey fan. Dig football too.
Three of you guys in the band are Texas boys. Happy you have a President in the White House?
Doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters if he can manage to get my income tax lowered from 40 percent to 32 percent then it will make a **** to me.
I put the word "Pantera" into the electronic dictionary, but no word came up, but "panthera" does. It means, "lions; leopards; snow leopards; jaguars; tigers; cheetahs; saber-toothed tigers."
"Pantera" means "panther" in Spanish. The name was suggested to us by a friend and it had a ring to it. Whenever we said the name "Pantera" people would never forget it. For me it means four guys who play an extremely brutal form of music. When we play South America and Spain, the name is special to them.
Are they expecting four Spanish guys, like Menudo?
They know exactly who we are and what we are. That’s the beautiful thing about Pantera…we are truly an international band- everywhere in the world. After this tour, we’re going to Alaska, Korea, New Zealand, Australia again. Then we’re doing the summertime tour, which is called the "Extreme Steel Tour," the biggest, baddest heavy metal tour: Pantera, Slayer, Static-X, a new band called Skrape and Morbid Angel.
Somebody’s going to get hurt…What about Pantera has changed over 20 years?
It hasn’t been 20 years yet. We started it in 1983. We got a record deal in 90. The songwriting, to us, has gotten better. We know exactly what we can expect from ourselves and from the audience. The relationship of the players has gotten better. We’ve always been a band about touring. We tour all the time, because you’re not able to see us on MTV, radio and all that. It’s a special thing when Pantera comes to town. Our fans are always there. Visibility is not as high- the profile- as some other (bands). A lot of people think of Pantera as an underground band. We’ve sold 13 million records around the world. That ain’t very underground.
What would you do differently starting out as a band?
Nothing. I’m one of those people that believes that things happen for a reason. We played nightclubs for seven years, playing cover tunes and honing our skills, so to speak. Got turned down by every record company 22 times. We were fortunate enough to get our record deal because of this thing called Hurricane Hugo that hit down near here. An A&R guy had a layover in Dallas, going to see this band called Tangeer that they just signed to Atlantic Records. The hurricane hit and he got stranded in Dallas, so he calls his boss in New York and says, "Hey are there any bands you want me to see while I’m here? I’m stuck and I can’t get home." So he says, "There’s this band called Pantera that’s been mailing me stuff for three or four years. I don’t know if I want to sign them. Why don’t you check them out and tell me how they are live." Dude showed up. Actually he called me and we had a gig booked at a Mexican disco that night, a birthday party for this dude. I said, "Dude, if you want to see us, that’s where we’re playing." He walked in the door, stayed for four songs, then he left. We were all like, "That son of a bitch, just didn’t get it or something." So we’re just getting ripped and having a good time and the next thing you know he comes back in for the last three songs. When as we finished he comes up to us and says, "Guess what?" I said, "You left. What was the deal?" "I went to the car to call Derrick (his boss) and tell him we’re signing you guys. You’re the most amazing live band I’ve ever seen."…Fate.
So if everything happens for a reason, then Hurricane Hugo happened because of you.
It helped us. Might of screwed two or three million people but it helped us, man!
I want to look at some of your songs. "Psycho Holiday" talks about setting your demons free. What do you do to set your demons free?
Play music. It’s that simple. Get on the drum set every night. Sweat comes out of it. It’s almost as good as having sex. You let it all hang out. You see those people’s faces. You see them singing all the words. The passion and energy they give us. It’s a continuous circle of energy.
The other song that struck me was "Cemetery Gates," which seems very personal. Was that written because of the death of somebody?
I think Philip just had a vision. The song is basically about when you pass the cemetery gates, you have to find strength to move past it. That song has meant a lot to tons of people. And my mom passed away this past year, so that song has a whole new feeling when we started doing it again. It’s a strong song and a lot of people really gravitate to that.
Many of your songs like "I’m Broken," "Death Rattle," "Suicide Note," address death. Is this a preoccupation with people? Are you trying to prepare people for it?
I think they’re just emotions. Even if you’re on top of the world, you feel low sometimes. He’s not saying go out and do it. It’s just how I felt on this particular day. Plus, with the music that we play, you can’t be singing about the flowers and roses, stuff like that. The two just don’t fit together. Most of the songs are lessons in a way. A song like "Walk," even though it’s a negative song, it has a positive message.
Many of your songs like "Hard Line," "Sunken Cheeks," "Throes of Rejection" and "Slaughtered," address God and religion. What is your philosophy on that?
Everybody’s different. The reason I personally don’t want to be involved in religion in because it’s something people are pushing on you. It’s a very contradicting kind of thing. If there is a God I feel he wants us to have a good time. That means taking advantage of all the things that are around you. I’m pretty much a firm believer in the things that you can touch, taste, feel and see. Things that are real. It’s like space. You don’t know what’s out there. Could be aliens. I think there are aliens.
Why don’t you write songs about aliens?
I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to Phil about that. Maybe we’ll write a song about aliens. I think Megadeth did that with "Hangar 18."
You are such an intense band. What do you do in your quieter moments?
People think from seeing us on stage that we’re like that all the time. We’re not…it’s too intense. We need nights off. We’ve been doing this for two and a half months. Tonight it’ll be nice to get off the stage and say we can chill out. I love to go to hockey games, play golf, bass fishing. I’m a big fishing fan. When I get home, I think I’ll rent a cabin in Lake Fort and dry out for a couple days.
We have a motto at Hard Rock— "Love all, serve all." What does that mean to you?
We love all our fans. We serve all our fans. They’re the best.