During a chat on Drag the Waters, Megadeth bassist David Ellefson talked about Pantera and Dimebag Darrell.
Here’s what Ellefson said:
“The first time that I remember meeting Pantera, I was dating a girl named Charlie and she was from the Fort Worth area… She took me down to meet her parents – and this was in 1988.
“She knew the Pantera guys of course I knew of them; I’d seen them in the magazines and I knew ‘Diamond’ Darrell as he was called. This was pre-Dimebag Darrell, he was a budding guitar star.
“I mean, he was everywhere; and so I got to meet the guys. We went out drinking one night and they can drink, I can tell you that much… I had a great time hanging with them.
“[Singer] Phil Anselmo had just joined the band. In fact, the record that was out then was the [1988] ‘Power Metal’ record, which if you listen to that was probably a bit of a combination of Van Halen meets Metallica.
“I would go the next night to go see him play. They invited me up and we played [Megadeth‘s 1986 classic] ‘Peace Sells’ together.
“And again, boy, those guys could drink and f*cking play their a*ses off. And they played great. I mean… we at Megadeth didn’t sound that good when we drank that much. You know, I admired how much they could hold their liquor.
“But yeah, I remember Dime. You know, the night before, when we were just hanging out, he came up to me at the end of the night, right as I was walking to the car – he comes up he goes, ‘Man, the ‘Peace Sells’ album changed my life.’
“So for his name to come up and now managing Pantera, you could really feel that Pantera was making this step up into the big leagues, you know, they were there, and then they’re on Atco. And so they’re making the big major label stuff.’
“Two years later, they were opening for us when we launched the [1992] ‘Countdown to Extinction’ record and for them was ‘Vulgar Display of Power.’ Dave and Phil were on the cover of a lot of magazines.” […]
Also, here you can see a post by Dave Mustaine on his Twitter page, remembering an old photo of him and Phil Anselmo:
Look how young we were! Phil Anselmo is a legend! https://t.co/AyuvoAxACG
— Dave Mustaine (@DaveMustaine) January 25, 2016