They’re Digging What They’re Seeing

Pantera‘s bassist Rex Brown recently reflected, during an interview with Sweetwater, about the emotional journey of touring with a reformed version of his legendary former band. Perhaps most surprisingly, Brown claimed to feel the presence of the band’s departed founders, Dimebag Darrell Abbott and Vinnie Paul Abbott, on more than one occasion. Describing a “cold feeling” during his last show, Brown recounted feeling a similar presence while recording with Charlie Benante before the band started playing live shows.

“The last show, man, I had a creepy, like a cold — something came by me. It felt like there was a cold feeling. And I’ve gotten this a couple of times before. When we were down recording with Charlie — me and Charlie just went down in late 2022, and put up eighty to a hundred hours of tape before Zakk started rehearsing with us. Zakk was still on the road. So we wanted to get the bass and the drum real tight, and we had this scratch guitar player. I felt that same chill,” Brown explained.

“And, to me, they’re angels. And I think you know who they are. Those guys, I think they’re looking down, or they’re looking around us, with us, and I think they’re digging what they’re seeing, man. I really do.” he added. “And that’s the only kind of way I can look at it, and get as close as we can with Charlie and Zakk. And God, it’s getting really, really good. And there’s so much more potential to get even tighter.”

Brown also touched upon the impact of Pantera‘s music on a whole generation of younger fans: “There’s a lot of memories in this band that are hard to put down. And losing the brothers, I just never in a million years thought that something like that would happen. Here we are 22 years later, and to see these new fans’ faces. You’ve got one kid sitting there, or man, woman, or child crying, and you have this other guy just going, ‘You did it right.’ It’s just amazing.”