Few musicians within the steel neighborhood command the reverence of late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell. Because the six-strings honcho whose guitar traces helped form the heavy steel panorama, writing about Dime‘s affect at this level is a idiot’s endeavor. However behind the crushing riffs and incendiary solos was a musician who sometimes doubted his personal brilliance. Such was the case along with his solo on Pantera‘s rendition of “Planet Caravan”, initially by Black Sabbath — a second that holds a particular place within the coronary heart of bassist Rex Brown.
Reflecting on this pivotal recording in Guitar World, Brown did not hesitate when requested about his favourite Dimebag guitar solo. His reply: the hauntingly evocative lead in “Planet Caravan”, a monitor featured on Pantera‘s 1994 album Far Past Pushed. Nevertheless, this iconic solo nearly did not see the sunshine of day.
For Brown, Dimebag‘s reluctance to embrace the solo underscored the guitarist’s humility and relentless pursuit of perfection: “Dimebag thought it sucked, and I advised him to depart it alone, so he comped it and stayed with that one. I used to be actually in tears.”
In a 2022 interview with Tone-Talk, Brown elaborated on the expertise of recording “Planet Caravan”. “We truly realized the track in about quarter-hour. I performed fretless bass on it and performed synthesizer on it. Vinnie performed the bongos.”
However the true magic got here from Dimebag‘s improvisational genius. “When he went to play that lead, the primary one, I needed to go away the room as a result of it was so fucking good,” Brown revealed. “And the best way he put these notes collectively, simply off the fly. You already know, he at all times got here in with one thing, however we minimize this so fast that, I feel we might gone out to dinner and he simply got here again and let it let that one have it.”
For Brown, the reminiscence of that recording session stays vivid, a reminder of each the expertise and the bond he shared with Dimebag: “It was like… I will not say Eruption, as a result of that modified fucking every thing for everybody. However I’ll say that it was a type of moments for me, of listening to that and being proper subsequent to my finest pal who simply performed it. So I preserve that in my coronary heart.”
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