Vodka is much easier on your system than dark whisky and stuff.
Vinnie Paul
To me, I always felt like drums have to be the support and the driving factor in a song, and there's places where the drummer has to show off and do things and get the spotlight, but not all the time. You've gotta pick and choose. And it's always gotta be about the song. That's really the bottom line.
They call it a reunion for a reason. It's called bringing the original members back to what it was. So there's a lot of these things that they call reunions that aren't really reunions. They've got one dude from the band floating around in them, you know. That's not a true reunion. With Pantera, it'll never be possible.
If you had an ex-wife, and it was a pretty bitter split, you might not ever want to talk to her again. Who cares if everybody in the family and your friends want you to say hello again? It's your choice whether you want to do it or not.
That's where I think a lot of these guys today are just, 'I'm the drummer, man. Check it out. Here's my lick. I just learned this new drum lick. I'm just gonna blast all over the place.' It's like, 'Man, you've got to let the song breathe.'
So many bands would say that they were alternative, or they were this or that... 'Heavy metal' was a pretty uncool word after about 1992; it was almost like, 'Stay away.' But it didn't bother us one bit. And our fans were the best ever.
I used to be a free-loving, free-caring person with no worries. We lived with no fear, you know?
I really felt like we were gonna be The Rolling Stones of heavy metal, and we could have been.
We did everything we could to hold Pantera together and fought for it until the very end, and now that it's gone we're 100% focused on Damageplan.
I did a lot of great things in the past, but I live for today and for the future.
I think there's a lot of death metal or doom metal dudes that somehow or another find a groove in it.
My life has been one gigantic comic book, and on the other hand, it's been one gigantic book of laurels and amazing accomplishments, and on the other hand, it's been a book full of horror stories. It's a big book.
I've been married to music my entire life. I've been dedicated to it. I know what it takes to do it. And ever since my brother has been taken from me, I feel like I have to live for both of us.
I drink almost a bottle of pickle juice every day, man, and it keeps me going great.
We knew Hellyeah had to be a lot of fun. We got into it for one reason: to have a lot of fun.
I had some proper training, but that was only on snare drum. Learning all the techniques in marching bands and realizing how important it is to play tight set a standard for me for when I did get into a band.
It's unfortunate that people go, 'Oh, wow, man, they can get Zakk Wylde to jump up there on stage, and it's Pantera again.' No, it's not, you know. It's not that simple.
When I was a little kid, I always wanted to be an oceanographer.
To me, a hockey player has to be every sport rolled into one: ice skater, baseball player, football player, etc. It's just incredible to watch!
'The Will To Survive' is a great track.
Dime knew the importance of every aspect of playing the guitar.
I am one hundred percent dedicated to Hellyeah. I love what I do in this band. I'm really proud of this band. Everybody in this band is such a special person, and the music that we make together, I really believe, is very special and the next level in my life.
If you live in the past, you've got no future.
Tommy Aldridge is the guy that made me wanna play double kick, man.
A lot of young drummers have a tendency to really overplay. Sometimes simple is better, and the notes that aren't played between the spaces are bigger than the notes that are.
Hellyeah have great fans.
Oh, man, the first concert I ever went to was Boston and Sammy Hagar, and it was absolutely incredible. I was just blown away by both bands, and, once again, it was my first concert, so that made it super, super special.
I like to live for today and what's coming up tomorrow, and I love what we're doing with Hellyeah. And that's my focus, and that's my goal, man.
I love cooking fajitas. I'm from Texas, and it's not a difficult thing to do, but a lot of people burn the chicken.
My drum parts are a song within the song; that's the way I look at writing my drum parts. They follow patterns, and they're written to interact with the rest of the band. There's quite a bit of thought that goes into it.
Jacques Cousteau was my hero.
I would give anything if it went back to analog age. I mean, music was so real, and you had to sing everything on a record; you had to play everything on a record. There was no cut-and-paste - you couldn't get the chorus right one time and then paste it every other time; you really had to be good at what you did.
Music is made to be heard, whether you hear it in concert, you hear it on the radio, or you hear it in your car. It's not for two people to sit in a closet and go, 'That's my band, the only band I've ever heard, and I'm the only person that's going to hear it.'
We played nightclubs for seven years solid before we got a record deal, and then 'Cowboys From Hell' and 'Vulgar Display Of Power,' we toured non-stop four years for those records, and we developed the most brutal, loyal fan base on the face of the earth.
In 1994, we had the first record by a true heavy metal band to ever hit the Billboard top No. 1 slot. We paved the way. And we always waved the heavy metal flag.
It's called the music business. We've all gone into it 'cause we love the music, and a lot of people end up with nothing at the end of the day, after they've done all of this great music, 'cause they never learned any of the business side.
The first time I heard Kiss, I knew that was the type of music I was attracted to.
We are firm believers that the first time somebody hears a brand new song from the band, it shouldn't be on a cell phone camera with the distortion or anything where you can't make it out. We want to present it right.
Nobody knows the pain I've been through.
With the last couple of Pantera records, we kept getting more and more narrow-minded because of Phil. He didn't want to experiment or take any chances, and it was like being in a tube that was getting to be so small you couldn't even breathe. Personally, I think the dude was afraid of success.
You don't get anything easy when you come from a big band and you go and start another one. You learn real fast that, 'Wow! I went from the top of the mountain to all the way back to the bottom, and I've gotta start over.'
I remember, in 1999, when we did the last Ozzfest that we were part of, and I think Disturbed was on it, Static-X, obviously Ozzy, us, and we were the only band on the tour that had a rider that had any alcohol. Nobody else had it.
With Damageplan, we had to endure the Pantera fans, because Pantera is what they really wanted. But with Hellyeah, at a show in Baltimore, the crowd knew all the words.
Alex Van Halen... I loved his playing because he had so much energy; he made those songs exciting, along with everything else that went with him.
When heavy metal was really big in the '80s, it was huge, and then it kind of waned down and kind of came back.
I can appreciate people for being able to go that fast with their left hand, man. But I just can't groove to that beat. I'm sorry. It's just like somebody sweeping the floor or something - tik tik tik tik tik. It just doesn't really jam to me.
I don't understand why somebody would wanna scratch their name in somebody's tombstone or anything. But fans are rabid, man; they do unheard-of things.
If you take the riff from the song 'Cowboys From Hell' and really break it down, it's almost a hillbilly guitar riff: dekka dekka dekka dekka dekka dekka dekka dek.
You have a natural groove inside of you, but the more you practise, the more comfortable you will be with your instrument.
My playing is always just a little on top of the beat. I can't lay down the kind of groove that Brad Wilk can. I'd really have to lay back to do that; it just doesn't feel natural to me.
