Official Truth, 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera (3 page)

What complicates things is that you’ve got money coming from so many different places: record royalties, tour money, merchandising, equipment endorsement deals . . . the list goes on, and all you can do is to trust somebody—in my case the company who was part of our business partnership—to pay all the bills and take care of all the taxes, so I really didn’t have to worry about anything. I could just call them and say, “I need some money here, I need some money there” or whatever, or I could call and say, “Just cut a check for this to so and so” and they’d do it so I didn’t have to. That left me to take care of the business I knew how to control: playing the music.

To have large amounts of cash at my disposal not only felt great, but it also balanced out all the sacrifices I’d made to get in this position: being on the road, being away from my family, and all the other difficulties that come from that kind of life.

Gradually though—and it doesn’t matter a shit how much money you once had—you realize that not only do you
not
have more money than God, but you actually don’t have nearly as much as you thought you did.

Then you panic and all you want to do is just
live.
I had gotten into the habit of living well—in a large house with every available comfort—and it was great for my kids to live in the type of environment where they can get anything they want, within reason. Being able to provide that meant a lot to me because it was the polar opposite to what it was like for me growing up. Remember, we were musicians, not accountants, and learning to look after your cash is something only learned after a lot of trial and error.

Meanwhile the other guys—Darrell and Vinnie most of all—were out spending a thousand dollars a night and then wondering where all the money went. I remember one day when Dime turned up at my front door out of the blue. I guess you could say I was like a father figure to him and he looked to me as some kind of source of wisdom. At least I think he did.

“Dude, I’m not sure but think I might be broke.” Even the way he said it sounded idiotic.

Of course I said, “You might be broke? What does that even mean? What the fuck are you talking about, dude?”

“Well, I got into this investment thing with tanning beds and the whole bit and it hasn’t worked out so well,” Dime explained. Darrell had set up his girlfriend Rita Haney (she was his wife in every way except they never actually got married) in a tanning salon venture in an Arlington strip mall, and business hadn’t been so good.

“Really? So aside from that, how much are you spending each night?” I asked him.

“I don’t know—maybe a thousand dollars.” (Trust me, that was the very least he would have been spending.)

“Okay, so if you’ve got three hundred grand in the bank, how many nights can you go out and spend that?” I said.

“Three thousand times?”

“Think again, buddy. Try three
hundred
times. No wonder you’re fuckin’ broke—you need to work on your math,” I told him.

The sad truth is that Dime and Vinnie were out of control with their partying, and with nobody to keep them in line as they paraded themselves around Arlington with a growing bunch of hangers-on, cash would always run dry fast.

AS FAME TOOK HOLD,
we couldn’t walk down the street without getting recognized by fans. I reverted to the quiet, unassuming approach that underpins my personality and started looking for little fuckin’ dive watering holes to hang out and drink in without being harassed, somewhere close to the house so that I could get totally fucked up and get home quickly afterwards. Flying under the radar, you could say.

Even in interviews—a process I didn’t really enjoy anyway—I just kept to myself. I’d show up of course but then I’d just sit there behind a pair of dark shades and not do a whole lot of anything. I wanted to try to keep my personal life separate from the band—which was impossible—and I also knew the other three guys would have plenty to say. I was always the quiet guy that nobody knew much about. I just liked to fucking jam, and that’s the plain truth. If I’d wanted attention I would have had, like Vinnie, five bodyguards following me around.

I hated being asked the same questions all the time. Other times the journalist would try to make something up, and I knew immediately when they were trying to do it. You could always tell if these people (a) didn’t know shit about you or (b) were trying to get you to say something off the wall so the extra little headline got them paid a bit more. The ones who were genuine were cool, though, but you’d run into those on maybe one out of ten occasions. I’d get irate with the bad ones sometimes, especially in Europe. They’d ask me a dumb question and I’d just say, “Eh, no” merely to piss them off. And then they’d get all irritated and ask, “Well, can you tell us
why
not?” To which I’d just say, “Then this interview is fuckin’ over with, how’s
that
?”

I remember one time in Paris this guy turned up in a motorcycle helmet and leathers to interview Dime and me for some fucking French metal magazine. He started getting all François with us, asking stupid questions like, “Well, why you don’t have two more guitar players in your band?” What kind of a dumb question is that? We always wanted to go for the one guitar player, Van Halen–type of vibe, everyone knew that.

“Have you heard this one dude? Have you heard this motherfucker right here?” I said, pointing at Dime. “That’s all
we
need.”

“Well…” he said.

“There’s no ‘well,’ dude. This is just the way it is. You want an interview or don’t you?”

“I am just asking the questions because blah blah blah…”

“You know what, you’re fucking out of here, dude.” And with that I took his helmet, threw it down the fucking stairs, and then I decided to throw his leather jacket, too—
while
he was still wearing it. There’s a pivotal point right there at the back of the collar, and another lower down near the bottom of the back, so you can grab it there and with a swing backwards, then forwards, you’re good to go!

That wasn’t the only time this kind of thing happened. Occasionally I snapped when somebody asked me stupid questions. In the end, instead of banging heads with the press, I tried to run from the media attention, and when you’ve got a load of money, escape is that much easier. The press likes to build you up and then blow you down like a fucking tower. A similar thought occurred to me the other day when I heard that they were blowing up the Texas Stadium where the Dallas Cowboys played for years. There were some great memories within that place—some great games and the whole bit—but all these people turned up just to watch the place fall to the ground. I thought, “Haven’t you got something better to do with your day than being there to watch that?” They had some chick over there with a Kleenex box, crying, and I just thought it was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The press likes to do the same thing with musicians, build them up and then tear them down. Even worse, many people like to read about it.

Thank fuck
TMZ
wasn’t around back in those days, because I would have probably done myself in. I couldn’t have coped with that level of privacy invasion. I sure as hell didn’t get into all this to get my face on the cover of
People
magazine, and Philip certainly didn’t either. If fame came our way, then let it come when we were up on stage. But with Vinnie and, to a lesser extent, Darrell, things were different: it’s like they actually
wanted
all that attention.

The self-promotion and narcissism got so bad, especially by Vinnie. He would get our tour manager Guy Sykes to call from our bus into the strip club that we’re sitting
outside
of, so that we’d get in for free, sit at a VIP table, and the whole bit. As we’d walk in it would be Vinnie and Val, our head of security, and then someone would announce in a melodramatic fashion, “Hey everyone, it’s Vinnie Paaaaauuul from Pantera!”

Dime and I would be in the back, looking at Vinnie, and thinking, “Oh no, not again.” Then we’d stare at each other and say, “Who the fuck
is
this dude anyway? Where does this shit come from? This guy wouldn’t be anything if it wasn’t for us,” but Vinnie just had to bask in the spotlight.

The irony is that it didn’t matter what these titty bars were like—and remember we hit every single one in every city we went to over a period of ten years. Some of them were so shitty that the girls had to put twenty-five cents in the jukebox themselves to play their favorite song before they got up onstage. Just to piss Vinnie off we used to say, “What the fuck have you got security rolling with you for anyway?” as if to question that he was important enough to even need security. As a band we were against that kind of crap. There were certain situations where we had to have it, in-store signings and shit like that, but we never had bodyguards just to look like rock stars. Vinnie, on the other hand, wanted stardom so badly he wanted to look like one, too.

THE ROCK STAR LIFESTYLE
became extremely hard for all of us in the later era, particularly for me, partly because my kids were so young and I was torn between home life and life on the road, and also because the way I was living seemed a million miles away from the tough upbringing I had known. At the peak of our career in the mid-’90s we were selling tens of thousands of records every week and selling out amphitheaters wherever we went: at home and in Europe, South America, Japan, Australia, the whole world . . . We conquered them all and so we were all very wealthy dudes who were recognized wherever we went. We were always a fan’s band, right from the very beginning when we relied on the Texas club crowd to literally put clothes on our back, and they did it just because they were totally into the music we were playing, which is something I’ve never forgotten. But when the public attention reached its peak toward the end of the ’90s and more so still after Darrell’s death, it felt like we were victims of our fan-friendly approach and it was definitely tough knowing how to respond.

Imagine being in a bar having a quiet drink and knowing
immediately
that the guy walking in the door recognizes you as Rex from Pantera. I could tell if that was the case from fifty fucking paces. A lot of times the person might have met you at a show somewhere or at an in-store, but what they forget is that I’ve seen thousands of faces over the years. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind friendly fans and a few photos and the whole bit, because God knows we wouldn’t stop signing after shows until every single kid was happy. But it becomes an issue when people start
wanting
something more from you because of who you are. That kind of pressure just made me want to isolate myself further.

I’M SOMEBODY WHO
has dedicated his entire life to rock ’n’ roll, and I
survived
. I came out the other end of my own dark avenue, shaken for sure, but having endured occupational hazards of this business like alcohol and drugs. Not only did I survive, but I also pride myself in having been a stand-up type of guy all the way down the line.

I’ve had a lot of help from upstairs, you know. That’s the way I like to put it. I don’t care what anyone else believes or doesn’t believe. That’s their deal, but for me, I believe in God although I don’t subscribe to any particular organized religion.