PANTERA‘s bassist Rex Brown discussed the choice to embark on a tour with a reformed version of the band.
PANTERA, consisting of Phil Anselmo on vocals, Rex Brown on bass, Zakk Wylde on guitar, and Charlie Benante on drums, is set to headline major festivals in North America, South America, and Europe. Additionally, they will be performing their own headline concerts and supporting METALLICA on a massive stadium tour in 2024. This marks a significant moment for PANTERA fans, as it is the first time the band’s surviving members have come together for live performances in over two decades.
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 previously said Wylde wouldn’t tour with PANTERA if a reunion were to happen. It’s unclear what changed his mind.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone Australia, Rex said: “Two of our beloved brothers that just aren’t here anymore man, that’s life, you know? They’re just not with us man. That’s just fate; it’s the way the ball rolls, dude.”
“This is no tribute band — Philip and I get to play these songs of ours that we haven’t played in 23 years,” he continued. “And to be able to do that and connect with the enormity of what’s happened is just extraordinarily f**king insane, you know?”
“We knew who would fit and who wouldn’t,” Rex added. “We knew what the obstacles were in front of us, and we knew after… I’ll put it this way — Charlie and I came down in September [2022] before we played that [first] show in December [2022], and we have probably one hundred hours of tape of us playing every f**king PANTERA song that I could remember. And so, you know, me and Charlie lockin’ in like that… the drummer and the bass player, that’s your foundation. So when Zakk came in, there were certain things we had to go over and over and over, to get tight. And today, this band is about as tight and about as badass as I f**king want. You know what I mean, and that’s all I’m gonna say on that.”
“But, man, this band is on f**kin’ fire, and I couldn’t be happier, man. I just can’t explain that as much as I need to, I could not be happier.”
During a recent interview with AndrewHaug.com at Knotfest Australia in Melbourne, Rex was asked if he would be open to collaborate on new music with the reunited iteration of the band.
“Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I could tell you more but I’m not going to,” he responded.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Brown discussed the experience of performing as PANTERA for an entirely new generation of fans.
“You can’t see it on the YouTube. You can’t feel that vibe until you actually come to the show,” he said. “And we haven’t been doing interviews just for the fact we want people just to come to the show. It’s not about anything prior past or present that I wanna talk about today — just the show tonight.
“We’re pinching ourselves over these new fans that have never seen this before, and it’s a whole another generation that we either didn’t know a) that were out there, b) that were still listening to us, and the turnout has just been unbelievable. Of course, at first you had the naysayers and all that stuff, and as we played gig by gig, it’s made us tighter. And I’ve been trying to rehearse this band as much as I can within schedules, and we’ll just go down for no f**king reason and just jam. That’s what makes a band tight.”
