In a recent interview with Brazilian music journalist Igor Miranda, Zakk Wylde was asked about Charlie Benante‘s comment regarding discussions about the current PANTERA lineup releasing a live album.
“Yeah, whatever the fellas wanna do, we knock it out,” Zakk responded. “Let’s be real — it’s a live album every night. People with their phones and everything are recording it anyway, so it doesn’t [matter] to me. You go up there and you play to win every night.”
Regarding the possibility of new songs from the current PANTERA lineup, Zakk said: “No, we haven’t sat and talked about, like, ‘Oh, guys, let’s get together and write songs,’ or whatnot; there hasn’t been anything like that. I mean, the only discussions we’ll have is just what other new songs we wanna put in the setlist. Like when we put ‘Floods’ in and then we got together at rehearsals, got together over at Phil‘s house, we just rehearsed everything. But no, nothing like… We haven’t been sitting around writing riffs and things like that.”
During an interview with AndrewHaug.com at Knotfest Australia in Melbourne this past March, PANTERA bassist Rex Brown 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.”
PANTERA, consisting of Phil Anselmo on vocals, Rex Brown on bass, Zakk Wylde on guitar, and Charlie Benante on drums, is headlining 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.
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.
