Steel within the ’90s was tough. Grunge got here alongside and killed the hair metallic scene, demise metallic was simply beginning to bubble up in a big approach, and thrash bands have been reducing their hair. So what stored metallic going all through the last decade? Nicely, just a few artists. However certainly one of ’em’ was positively Pantera, when you ask Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy.
Based on Portnoy in an interview with Consequence, Pantera‘s 1992 album Vulgar Show of Energy was the one that basically floored him and cemented his opinion on the survival of metallic all through that tough decade.
“Vulgar Show of Energy got here out across the similar time as [Dream Theater’s] Pictures and Phrases again in 1992. We have been truly labelmates on the time. So, we have been engaged on the identical label with the identical folks. And I keep in mind listening to this when it got here out, it simply floored me. I used to be already a fan from Cowboys from Hell that got here out a yr or two earlier, however this took their new sound and magnificence and elevated it to an entire new degree. To me, Pantera was the band that stored metallic alive within the ’90s.
“By the point I used to be arising with Dream Theater within the early ’90s, thrash was beginning to go away, grunge was killing all of us. We have been all preventing grunge, whether or not you have been metallic or prog or no matter, so Pantera to me was the band that carried the flag. When Metallica was going via their modifications and Anthrax have been going via their modifications, Pantera was carrying the metallic flag all through the ’90s. And I’ve to provide credit score to perhaps Machine Head and Sepultura, as nicely.
“Pantera, they took the heaviness of the thrash and pace metallic world, however they actually gave it a groove. I all the time appreciated that. They’d a Texas swing and so they had that swagger and so they had the riffs and the heaviness of all these heavy thrash and pace metallic bands, however that they had the swagger of Mötley Crüe or Guns N’ Roses, as bizarre as it’s to say. And that’s perhaps why they toured with Skid Row when this album got here out.
“Vinnie Paul performed with a swing and a groove that a variety of thrash and pace metallic drummers perhaps didn’t have. And I say that with all due respect, as a result of a variety of these drummers blow my thoughts and are extremely influential on me, however Vinnie, like a Mikkey Dee [King Diamond, Motörhead], had that swagger and that groove and actually made these riffs that Dimebag was enjoying simply actually swing and groove.”
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