Terry Glaze, the former singer of PANTERA and frontman in their glam years during the 80s, recently spoke to Eonmusic about his impressions on the band’s current comeback. He lauded it as an excellent way for fans to pay tribute and celebrate the music from this legendary Texas outfit.
On connecting and forming a band with late Abbott brothers Vinnie Paul and “Dimebag” Darrell, Terry said: “We wanted to play with the best drummer we could find, and the best drummer in our school was Vince Abbott. So we got together and jammed, and we tried to get him to play with us. The agreement was that we would take his little brother Darrell who was in middle school. We weren’t really interested in a young kid in middle school, but we reluctantly agreed, thank goodness. We were lucky enough to do that.”
Continuing on to express his wishes for the band’s earlier album releases — 1983’s Metal Magic, 1984’s Projects In The Jungle and 1985’s I Am The Night — to be reissued, he said: “I think that it would be a great thing for everybody to get to hear more Darrell, and so that’s where I stand with it. It would be amazing. You could do a big box with everything, and it would just be cool.”
“You see them all over the planet. I bought copies of CDs that that are pressed out that are that are not legal — bootlegs — but, you know, that’s the only way to get copies of all this stuff now.”
PANTERA bassist Rex Brown previously said that the brothers were “dead against” any re-release of their early albums. When questioned about this statement, Terry responded: “As far as what the band with the brothers, how they felt, that comes up even to this day, doesn’t it? So, you know, people change their minds, and business opportunities happen and what are you going to do?”
When questioned about his opinion on PANTERA‘s current comeback tour, featuring Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown – alongside guitarist Zakk Wylde and drummer Charlie Benante – Terry had this to say: “I just feel kind of the same way I feel about VAN HALEN; it would be difficult for me to think that that was VAN HALEN without Eddie Van Halen, and Alex is still alive. Imagine if Eddie and Alex are gone, and then it was VAN HALEN. It’s just hard for us old people.”
“But you know, man, more power to everybody to get to celebrate the music and get together and have fellowship,” he continued. “I especially think about all the young people who never got to see them, now they get to finally go out and celebrate those songs. That means so much to them and that music means so much to a lot of people around the whole planet. So more power to them to celebrate music. Anything that gets people out, live together for rock and roll, that’s a good thing.”
As previously reported, PANTERA surviving members, Philip Anselmo and Rex Brown, reformed the band with Zakk Wylde on guitar (from OZZY OSBOURNE and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY) and Charlie Benante on drums (from ANTHRAX). They will be playing at festivals all over North America, South America, Europe as well their own headline concerts.
According to Billboard, the lineup has been given a green light by the estates of the band’s founders, drummer Vincent “Vinnie Paul” Abbott and guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, as well as Brown, who last year said Wylde wouldn’t tour with PANTERA if a reunion were to happen. It’s unclear what changed his mind.
