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It has now been confirmed that ANTHRAX drummer Charlie Benante will join PANTERA’s surviving members on a reunion tour.
Zakk Wylde and Benante, along with original member’s 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.
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.
Benante’s relationship with Pantera dates back to the mid-1980s, prior to Anselmo joining the group. Benante joined Anthrax in 1983, prior to the release of their debut album Fistful of Metal, and has been the band’s drummer ever since. He’s also a member of crossover thrash band Stormtroopers of Death.
This is unbelievable news for multiple reasons. I will outline the series of events which lead to most people not believing this day would happen even though, when Vinnie Paul was still alive, most fans hoped that guitarist and longtime friend of the band Zakk Wylde (Ozzy, BLS) but Vinnie said due to words spoken by singer Phil Anselmo, Pantera would NEVER happen.
Pantera played their last show in Yokohama, Japan at the “Beast Feast” festival on August 28, 2001. Anselmo engaged in numerous side projects, the first of which was called Down. In March 2002, Down released its second studio album, and featured Pantera Bassist Rex Brown, Brown remained Down’s full-time bassist until 2011. Due to the events of September 11th 2001 Phil Anselmo said he wanted to take a year off and then return to Pantera. Anselmo refused to get back in communication with brothers Dimebag and Vinnie Paul so by November 2003 The Abbott brothers officially disbanded Pantera. They concluded that Phil Anselmo had abandoned them and would not return – the disbandment of the band launched a slurry of negative words in the media between Phil and The Abbott brothers further creating bad blood.
It was clear that Dimebag and Vinnie wanted to have Pantera continue and it seemed like the split was between the bothers and the Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown camp. Vinnie Paul and Dimebag formed the band Damageplan releasing their first and only studio album, New Found Power, on February 10, 2004 and by December 8, 2004, less than a minute into the first song of a Damageplan show at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, Dimebag was viciously assassinated onstage. It was believed the killer was mentally unstable and upset that Pantera broke up and many fans believed the unrelenting war of words of Phil Anselmo’s was the indirect cause of Dimebag’s death. The idea of a Pantera reunion never entered the mind of Vinnie Paul. During a 2012 appearance on That Metal Show, when asked about the possibility of a Pantera reunion, Vinnie Paul said that it would be possible if Dimebag Darrell were still alive. Despite being proud of his Pantera years, he indicated that there were no plans for a reunion, adding that “some stones are better left unturned.”
Sadly, Vinnie Paul passed away June 22, 2018, at the age of 54 due to dilated cardiomyopathy and coronary artery disease further pushing the fans dream of a Pantera reunion even further into obscurity.
The fans have spoken; on January 28, 2020, Pantera surpassed one billion streams across most major streaming music services (Amazon, Apple Music, Deezer, Google, and Spotify), reissues of CD’s are charting and now it feels like the best time for a reunion.
The addition of Zakk Wylde makes complete sense as he performed as a guest guitarist onstage with Pantera numerous times, adding Charlie Benante finishes out the line up in the most possible perfect way. This tour is going to be the hot tour of the year at the very least.
Artist Group International will book Pantera’s North American dates, with Dennis Arfa and Peter Pappalardo as the responsible agents. The band is managed by Scott McGhee of 1 Degree Music Entertainment.
