Today has been a day of remembrance in the heavy metal community as we collectively mourned the loss of Dimebag Darrell Abbott, who died 10 years ago on this day. A lot of tributes have been posted all across the web and we did our best to chronicle the highlights here on this page. Note that for the most part, these quotes are just excerpts from larger tributes, so make sure to click the via's for each link to read the full tribute…
Vinne Paul (via):
“The most important thing is to say, he gave everything he had. Every performance, whether it was playing live onstage or just shaking hands with people. He made people feel special. It never was a job to him, it’s just him. That’s how he was. The music will live on forever. I think his legacy is pretty well known throughout the metal world and even the regular music world.”
M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold (via):
“We never got to know Dimebag. But if he’s anything like his brother, we would have loved him.” The vocalist says that to this day it’s not uncommon for Pantera to come up on his iPod when he’s shuffling it around and he definitely likes to listen to them when he’s at the gym. When Dime comes on, you know it’s him playing guitar. It’s the most killer tone and no one can emulate that. That’s the greatest thing I can say about him. He’s an innovator, he was the best at guitar. He was one of my biggest influences, I know he was Synyster Gates‘ No. 1 influence. No matter how hard you try, no one ever is going to be as good as that guy. It’s just sad that we never got any more music from him.”
Max Cavalera (via):
“He’s a very special person and he’s really missed in the metal world and the rock world. He was one of a kind. There’s only a few of those people who kind of exist. He’s very talented, an amazing musician and a humble and cool guy — not a rock star a–hole. It was a really big loss that tragedy happened to him. It sucked.”
Rob Halford on his first time hearing Pantera (via):
“It was just so raw and primitive and real and so aggressive and new and this guy Dimebag was playing the guitar like nobody had played it before. And Phil and Rex and Vinnie, they were just going nuts.”
Alex Skolnick of Testament (via):
He was very passionate about the instrument. He was one of these artists that I think he was always a fan. He never stopped being a fan. He would get excited meeting his favorite guitar players and guitar players he admired.
It also was a time where [guitarists were] trying to be more and more outrageous, get more attention. Dimebag never seemed caught up in that. Technically he was a good guitar player, especially where guitar went in the '90s, as the interest in technique in guitar seemed to wane in hard rock. He would obviously stand out as somebody with really good technique, but he was never over the top and never tried to prove his technique. I think he never lost [the vibe of] the bar band, it's Saturday night in Houston, and he's having a great time.
GWAR's Pustulus Maximus (via MetalSucks)
Dime was an incredibly unique player as well, and hard to duplicate. I have heard many players flawlessly pull off plenty of Pantera material, but it’s still different in a way. There’s a feel to the way he’s bending notes and just blistering through the frets on the guitar that instantly tells you it’s him. That signature sound paved the way for many aspiring guitar players to want to stand out and develop their own style. The influence there is limitless, and Dime was, and is, one of the most important icons in heavy metal history.
Wovenwar's Nick Hipa (via MetalSucks)
Dime’s legacy is a musical catalogue I revisit constantly. The more I listen to it, the more I am reminded of how there is no one even remotely like him. What he communicated through his playing is hard to plainly define, yet so many of us love and revere it. I imagine those that truly knew the man would only affirm who we heard was simply who he was. A concept easy to believe, as his music communicates more than words could ever, in the language of what is within us. Darrell Abbott speaks to me, in a way I find profound, and am truly grateful for.
Exodus' Steve “Zetro” Souza (via MetalSucks)
I want to share this: my favorite Dime memory would be when they opened for us on their very first tour, after putting out Cowboys from Hell. It was Exodus and Suicidal Tendencies co-headlining and Pantera opening. They were the first ones to really bring video cameras out and videotape everything, and I thought that was kind of cool. It was different than what we did — we had always brought out a guy to videotape the shows, but not necessarily to film what we did when we were hanging out backstage. If you look at their very first video from the Cowboys from Hell tour, I think Exodus is even in there. We kind of jammed with them when we took over a bar one night (we did that a lot of nights on that tour). There are a lot of personal times that I’ll never forget on that tour — and I’ll never forget Dimebag Darrell!!!!
Abysmal Dawn's Charles Elliot (via MetalSucks)
I actually met Dimebag at some point when I was a young’un at a signing at a NAMM convention. Being the punk kid I was at the time, I thought it would be funny to do my Phil Anselmo impression for him (which absolutely killed with my friends, of course). It was basically me reciting lines from 101 Proof in my best Phil-like drawl. [..] So I get to the front of the line, he signs my poster and I say, “Hey man, you mind if I do my Phil impression for you?” He says, “Sure go ahead, man,” and I went ahead with his blessing. I launch into the whole bit: “We got the goddamn cameras on yah… fucking Dime, fucking Vince… our hit? This IS our hit… can’t you see, you ready? 1,2,3,” etc. He just looked at me with this big grin on his face and told me “Do it again man, intp the camera.” He filmed everything back then, so I did it again with his camera guy laughing as he filmed. In the end he said, “I don’t know what you want me to say man, I’ve never seen anything like it.” He honestly seemed more than amused about it. I asked him how the new Pantera album was coming along and he said, “We’re working on stuff.” I got my poster signed, thanked him, and left with the memory of a really cool and humble musician that put up with a smartass kid like myself.
Anthrax and John Tempesta shared this video:
Some tweets:
https://twitter.com/TriviumPaolo/status/542068071482261504
10 years ago i was in corpus christi. Bury Your Dead, Scars of Tomorrow, TAS tour. Got an actual phone call alerting me of Dimebag's death.
— vincent bennett: filthy casual (@xDIAMONDCUTx) December 8, 2014
