Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante have opened up about their participation in the upcoming PANTERA tour in a new guest appearance on iriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk.”
As previously reported, ANTHRAX drummer Charlie Benante and OZZY OSBOURNE guitarist Zakk Wylde will join PANTERA‘s surviving members on a reunion tour.
Wylde and Benante, along with singer Philip Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown, will tour as PANTERA, headlining a number of major festivals across North America and Europe and staging some of their own headline concerts.
Zakk now said: “It’s gonna be awesome. The fellows have always… When Vinnie was still with us, it was always rolling around that, ‘Zakk, would you honor Dime and all of us get together and do this thing?’ And I said, ‘Fellows, whenever you wanna do this thing, I’ll be over here waiting in the dugout and in the bullpen. And just call me when you need me and I’ll learn everything and we’ll go do this.’
“Throughout the years, there’s always been rumblings about it, so it wasn’t until, obviously, now… I was speaking on the phone with Phil — we might have been all on a group call — but Phil was just, like, ‘Zakk, would you honor Dime and would you play?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, Phil. Of course. I’ve always said I would. Of course.’ I said, ‘If you guys wanna go do it, then let’s do it.'”
As for what his approach is going to be to playing the parts originally written and recorded by Darrell, Zakk added: “You approach it the same way as you do when I’m playing with Ozzy. Obviously I’ve gotta learn [Randy] Rhoads‘s stuff and I’ve gotta learn Jake‘s [E. Lee] stuff, and when I was doing the [BLACK] SABBATH stuff, you learn it and do it as faithful as you can. Charlie‘s gotta learn all of Vinnie‘s parts. You approach it as if you’re in a cover band. When we do the ZAKK SABBATH stuff. I don’t start changing lyrics midway through ‘War Pigs.’ You learn the songs — so that’s what you do.”
Benante continued: “I can’t go do this as the drummer from ANTHRAX because it would be a different sound completely. So the way I’m gonna do that is if you close your eyes, it’s gonna sound like it’s Vinnie, basically. And that’s how it’s gonna be… The sound is gonna sound exactly like him.”
On when he was first approached to do PANTERA tour, Benante said: “Oh, man. December [of last year]. End of December. I was talking to Philip, and then he just mentioned this. And I said, ‘Oh, yeah, sure. Whatever.’ And then it became real about January [or] February… To this day, if it happens, if there’s one show that’s played, great.”
