Zakk Wylde Confirms That Band He Plays for Isn’t Pantera, It’s “the Pantera Celebration”
Is the band that’s currently calling themselves Pantera a real reunion of Pantera, or merely a tribute band without the famed Abbott brothers? On the one side of the debate is bassist Rex Brown, who seems firm in his stance that the current iteration of the band is not a tribute band. On the opposite side of the debate is pretty much every other human on the planet, including some current “Pantera” touring members, who insist that it’s a tribute band at best.
In a recent interview with The Mistress Carrie Podcast (that was transcribed by Blabbermouth), current touring guitarist for the band that’s billing themselves as Pantera, Zakk Wylde, was asked what his reaction would have been if someone told him a few years ago that he would one day become the guitarist in Pantera, and Wylde was quick to correct his interviewer that the band he’s in is not Pantera:
“Well, [it’s] the PANTERA celebration. It’s not PANTERA. PANTERA is Dime, Vinnie, Phil and Rex. So that’s PANTERA. But no, it’s a beautiful thing honoring the guys every night. Everybody’s having a blast. Everyone that comes down to the shows either — you have the PANTERA faithful taking a trip down memory lane, and you’ve got all the younger, like Phil always calls it, the new blood. And it’s amazing every night how many… It’s just a testament to what the fellas created. Because we’ve got so many young people that have never seen PANTERA before.”
That squares with something that Wylde said two years ago, and again a little over a month ago. You’d think that all of the members of this band would want to stay on the same message over this issue, but apparently not.
I’ll repeat what I’ve said before which is that, as much as we love to say here at MetalSucks that “Everyone’s Replaceable,” they really aren’t. Which band members are replaceable and which ones aren’t varies from one band to the next. Some bands can replace most (Iron Maiden, Mushroomhead, Anthrax) or even all of their members (Asking Alexandria, GWAR, Opeth) and nobody bats an eye about it. Other bands have refused to move on under the same name after losing one key member (Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden).
There’s no rule of thumb as to how many members you can lose and still be seen as the same band; it all depends on which members fans think are irreplaceable. And, in the case of Pantera, everyone but Rex Brown seems to agree that, without the Abbott brothers, there is no Pantera.
That being said, if you want to catch the “Pantera celebration,” here’s the rest of their tour dates for the year:
Aug. 9 – Soldier Field – Chicago, IL (with Metallica)
Aug. 16 – US Bank Stadium – Minneapolis, MN (with Metallica)
Aug. 23 – Commonweath Stadium – Edmonton, AB (with Metallica)
Aug. 30 – Lumen Field – Seattle, WA (with Metallica)
Oct. 10 – Aftershock Festival – Sacramento, CA
