Discussing the ongoing relevance of PANTERA with Revolver Magazine's Jon Wiederhorn

It has been five years since the tragic passing of Pantera guitarist and chief songwriter Darrell Abbott AKA Dimebag Darrell. Every year since his death, metal and guitar-centric magazines pay tribute to his life and accomplishments with old interview clips, new interviews with surviving members of Pantera, and even anecdotes from fans.

This year, however, Revolver Magazine has taken things a step further and devoted an entire section of its latest issue to discussing the magical, perfect storm that went into the creation of Pantera’s 1992 breakthrough album, Vulgar Display of Power. Spearheaded by senior writer Jon Wiederhorn (whose additional credits include talent coordinator and panelist for AOL Noisecreep's "Creep Show' Podcast, Noisecreep writer, freelancer for Inked and Guitar World, former editor in chief of MTV's Headbanger's Ball Blog, and ex- associate editor at Rolling Stone), the magazine painstakingly compiled new interviews with everyone imaginable who had anything to do with the inception of the album to paint a living memorial to one of heavy metal’s iconic guitar personalities.

Read on as we sit down with Wiederhorn and discuss what it was that made Dimebag and Pantera such revolutionary entities. [Feature can be found here!]

RIGOR MORTIS Is Setting In! Texas' Beloved Thrash Metal Band Is Back!!!

As excited as I was to do the Iron Maiden interview, I was even more stoked to sit down with three of the four founding members of Texas' Rigor Mortis. As an adolescent, I thought the band was among the better thrash bands of the era, largely because of guitarist Mike Scaccia's unique picking technique. Unfortunately, the masses didn't really pick up on it until he left the band to join Ministry.

But regardless of all that, I had a great time with Casey Orr, Bruce Corbitt, and Harden Harrison.

Here's a taste of all the formaldehyde-y goodness:

Is Scaccia still as fast as he used to be? How did his guitar style develop? Was it originally an accident, a joke, or was it something that he really worked at? I don’t think the term “speed metal” has any relevancy without Scaccia’s work on those Rigor Mortis albums.

CASEY: Mike’s a mother***er, ain’t he? Yeah, I’d say he’s every bit as fast as he ever was. He’s a freak of nature. He doesn’t play the guitar; it just bends to his will! I used to say that trying to keep up with him felt like running down a steep set of stairs too fast, knowing you’re going to trip and end up at the bottom in a broken heap!

BRUCE: I met him when he was 16 and he was already able to do that unique picking style at that time. He told me back then that after he first started playing guitar, that for some reason he was just always able to do that. So it was just something he tried, and it came natural for him. People have said his picking style is sort of like a bumble bee. He is just as fast as he used to be, maybe just a slight adjustment with how he does it as he gets older.

HARDEN: Yeah, he’s fast as ever. It’s an inborn nervous twitch type of thing, but he also worked very hard at mastering the guitar and practiced more than anyone I’ve ever known...or even heard of.

Read the whole massive monstrosity here!