A brand new SLIPKNOT song called "Custer" can be streamed in the YouTube clip below. The track is taken from the band's fifth album, ".5: The Gray Chapter", which will arrive on October 21 via Roadrunner. The new CD is the first by SLIPKNOT since the 2010 death of bassist Paul Gray and the late 2013 firing of drummer Joey Jordison.
Speaking to the Q105.1 radio station in Fargo, North Dakota, SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor stated about the making of ".5: The Gray Chapter": "The great thing about this band is we've never put shackles on ourselves creatively. If we're feeling one way, we go that way. If we're not, then we tend to go in the opposite direction. It's one of the reasons why we took so long to actually start thinking about doing a new album, 'cause we weren't gonna do it until we were ready."
He continued: "As far as pressure, we've never had a lot of pressure, because we approach it that way. We're, like, 'We're gonna do what we want. If nobody listens to it, that's fine, but we've fulfilled something inside ourselves.' So it was more emotional than it was stressful, to be honest. Because filling in the shoes of Paul, especially, was heavy duty. He was such an integral part of the songwriting process and had such a great ear for it, we knew that we were all going to have to step in and fill those shoes in, and I thought we did a great job. Jim [Root, guitar] came up with some killer stuff, I brought in some stuff, Clown [percussionist Shawn Crahan] really, he brought in some really killer atmospheric stuff that we were able to build into some great music. I think we all really stepped up to the challenge, and I think it was because we wanted to. It wasn't because we felt we had to; we felt we wanted to, we wanted to be able to do that and really kind of make new music with this band again. So it wasn't so much stressful as it was powerful."
Taylor recently denied that the band's new song, "The Negative One", is about Jordison, telling Metal Hammer, "'The Negative One' is about me, and not just me, but everybody in the band. We all have so many different sides to ourselves, but especially with this band. When we get together, there's something about the music we make that really unleashes the crazy, dark shit inside of us. And that song in particular is about, basically, embracing it again, giving into it and letting it have its say. Because if you don't, then you sit on it and you repress and it blows up in really negative ways. So, that song is about freeing it."
Taylor told The Pulse Of Radio that the new disc is autobiographical. "The whole album is essentially the story of the band over the last four years, and part of that story is that we've had to reach a point of acceptance with everything," he said. "You know, the last four years have been really difficult for us."
Taylor told Metal Hammer that the album is laid out like a story, "from the moment Paul died to the moment we stepped out of the studio. So there are certain songs that deal with, not Joey in particular, but about the tension and trying to deal with the ugliness that we all have in us."
The identities of the band's new bassist and drummer have not yet been revealed, but the bassist is widely believed to be Alessandro "Vman" Venturella, while the new drummer is thought to be Jay Weinberg, son of longtime Bruce Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg.
MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine and his wife Pam held a press conference yesterday (Friday, October 10) at the Sheriff’s Department headquarters in San Diego to ask the public for help in finding his mother-in-law, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and has been missing for a week.
75-year-old Sally Estabrook was last seen at a campground near Julian, California on October 4. Her husband noticed she was gone when he returned from a shower and couldn't find her.
Said Dave Mustaine: "Sally Estabrook went missing Saturday at 4 p.m. up at the Pinezanita Campground up in Julian. She has Alzheimer's, severe, [and] she's not communicative. And we're just asking everybody right now, because of the search and how extensively that it's gone, we're looking outside of the camp area now. And we're just asking everybody that may have been up there to take a look in your sheds, in your garages, any of the thick brush around your house. A lot of times, people that wander that have Alzheimer's are found very close to their home. They just take shelter underneath bushes and stuff. So we're asking that you look there. Also, anybody that's working in the medical field, in the hospitals and shelters, any of the senior citizens, adult homes, stuff like that, look at your patients. Maybe there's somebody there that's not supposed to be there. We need your help. For any of you that are watching this right now, we're just asking that if you see Sally — we call her nana — she's probably not gonna answer to you, just call 911 and then we'll go from there."
Added Pam Mustaine: "There's been some sightings in a couple of cities off the mountain, and I'm just wondering, even the fast-food restaurants, if she's with homeless people, travelling around, I don't know that they would know the situation right now, but that they'd be around the fast-food restaurants or taking shelter in places where they can get food. Just looking more into those areas. And again, she wouldn't know how to put two words together. And she may look like a homeless person at this point. But just keeping an eye out maybe in those areas also or even the freeway ramps or however she could be surviving right now on her own."
Search-and-rescue teams from four counties and the U.S. Border Patrol and more than 300 volunteers have taken part in the search for Sally Estabrook.
Estabrook is 5 feet 4 inches tall, about 145 pounds with shoulder-length, blond hair. She was last seen wearing a teal top and white, Capri pants.
Because Estabrook suffers from Alzheimer's, she isn't very communicative, but might respond to her name.
Anyone who sees Estabrook should call 911 or the sheriff's department at (858) 565-5200.
Mustaine revealed last year that a lot of the songwriting process for MEGADETH's 2013 album, "Super Collider", was affected by the fact that he had just found out his mother-in-law had Alzheimer's disease. He told Loudwire: "Until it happens to you, you really have no idea. And I think that when I saw how upset our family became and yet how we are able to provide the resources for her, it made me think about all the families going through this that don't have the resources to take care of a loved one. It also made me really appreciate our fans, because without them, I would not be able to take care of things the way I am. It really brings it all home. And then beyond that, I just did what any good artist does. I put my emotions into my music. That's the pain you hear in the music. It's real. People can say, 'We don’t want to hear this kind of shit,' but to me, this shit is important."
According to Mustaine, the "Super Collider" track "Forget To Remember" was written specifically about some experiences with memory and forgetting that have come very close to home.
"The sad thing about Alzheimer's disease is it's like watching an ice sculpture of somebody you love melt in front of your eyes; it's really, really painful," he told the "Shockwaves" podcast. "So the song has a double entendre where there's a guy and he talks to a girl in the song and it's kind of like the movie 'The Notebook' where the character in the movie, the female, comes in and out of Alzheimer's and she is present and she is back in La La Land again. So you don't really know in this song if it's a girl that is intentionally trying to forget a relationship with a guy or if it's somebody who has Alzheimer's disease, which, really, is what it's about. I worded it so that it could be either way."
SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph says that "people are cowards behind their computers," explaining that social media has made it possible for everyone to speak with virtually no accountability because they can hide behind false names and identities.
Asked by AndrewHaug.com, Australia's first-ever dedicated 24/7 rock and metal online radio station launched by Andrew Haug, the former host of Triple J Australia's "The Racket" radio show (originally "Full Metal Racket"; 2001-2011), what he thinks about people like former METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted opting out of social media and whether he feels that fans and artists are getting overwhelmed with information overload, Bostaph said: "Social media is interesting, because I'm just now trying to… I've been on and off social media, just because I'm kind of a private person. I see people posting pictures of what they eat for dinner, and I'm, like, that just doesn't appeal to me. Unless I feel it's something interesting, which… I look at my life as these are the things I do, and I can't manufacture something I think is interesting in my life. So it's kind of one of those things where I've just gotta get used to putting something out there that I feel comfortable with."
He continued: "Say, for instance, if social media was around in the '70s, which it wasn't, I would have loved to have seen what Alex Van Halen was doing today, you know what I mean?! But I never had the opportunity. And maybe the opportunity to, maybe, [if] one person gets a response back from that individual [that he or she admires], [like] if I would have had one of my favorite drummers of all time reach out to me and say, 'Hey, thanks for this compliment,' just one thing, [I would have been, like,] 'Oh, my God, this guy got back in touch with me.'"
"I think, to a certain degree, social media is… It's gonna be one of those things where… I think it's gonna go by the wayside, like everything else… I could be wrong. But I think people are just gonna get too much of it, or it's gonna grow into something else. But right now, it's one of those things…"
He went on to say: "I never thought of [social media] as a necessary evil. I think the way I'm looking at it is, now, for myself, if you've really got something you wanna share with people, then you do. I also think that there's a lot of bad things out there in terms of, not just social media but the Internet, because people have no accountability.
"When I grew up, if certain people said things about me on the streets where I grew up, if you said it to my face, certain things, you would have gotten a knuckle sandwich. That's how it was. You don't talk trash about people. If you've got something to say to me, you come up to my face. That's not the world we live in. People are cowards behind their computers. Or they're 'brave.' I'd say they're brave behind their computers, and that makes them a coward.
"Look, if you can't say something [to a] person [if he or she] was in the room, don't [go online and] say it. So I don't blame certain individuals for opting out of [social media], because after a while, you're, like, 'Man, what is this? It's just a bunch of crap anyway.' Other people utilize it. They say you have to have thick skin. So, it depends on how thick your skin is. If you have thick skin, you can deal with it. For other people, it becomes social drama.
"It's an interesting question. I don't know if there's one… There's not a right answer to it. Shoot, there's idiots driving cars out there, so I guess there can be idiots on the Internet."
Bostaph rejoined SLAYER last year following the band's latest split with its original drummer, Dave Lombardo.
Paul was SLAYER's drummer from 1992 until 2001 and recorded four albums with the band — the gold-certified "Divine Intervention" (1994), the 1996 punk covers album "Undisputed Attitude", "Diabolus In Musica" (1998), "God Hates Us All" (2001) that received a Grammy nomination for "Best Metal Performance", as well as the DVD "War At The Warfield" (2001), also certified gold. In addition to SLAYER, Bostaph has been a member of FORBIDDEN, EXODUS, SYSTEMATIC and TESTAMENT.
Finnish / Dutch / British symphonic metallers NIGHTWISH will embark on a 27-date North American headlining tour in the spring. The trek will launch in New York City on April 9, hit three Canadian cities plus Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, then close out in Silver Springs, Maryland on May 14. Support at all dates will come from Dutch symphonic metallers DELAIN.
Commented NIGHTWISH bassist/vocalist Marco Hietala: "Our work on the new album has been going with serious productive speed and comfortable ease at the same time. It's going to be great to get it out to you and play these pieces live. And with this announcement, it will obviously happen quite soon!
"Here are the dates for the North American shows. Come on over and we'll raise hell and kick some arses together!"
NIGHTWISH 2015 tour dates with DELAIN:
Apr. 09 - New York, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom
Apr. 10 - Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory
Apr. 11 - Worcester, MA - Palladium
Apr. 13 - Quebec City, QC - Capitole Theatre
Apr. 14 - Toronto - Phoenix Concert Theatre
Apr. 16 - Buffalo, NY - Town Ballroom
Apr. 17 - Cleveland, OH - Agora Theatre
Apr. 18 - Chicago, IL - Concorde Music Hall
Apr. 19 - Des Moines, IA - Val Air Ballroom
Apr. 21 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
Apr. 22 - Salt Lake City, UT - In The Venue
Apr. 24 - Spokane, WA - Knitting Factory
Apr. 25 - Vancouver, BC - Orpheum Theatre
Apr. 26 - Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
Apr. 28 - San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theatre
Apr. 30 - Las Vegas, NV - House Of Blues
May 01 - Los Angeles, CA - Greek theatre
May 02 - Phoenix, AZ - Marquee Theatre
May 03 - El Paso, TX - Tricky Falls
May 05 - Dallas, TX - Bomb Factory
May 06 - Houston, TX - Warehouse Live
May 08 - Orlando, FL - House Of Blues
May 09 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Revolution
May 11 - Nashville, TN - Marathon Music Work
May 12 - Louisville, KY - Expo Five
May 13 - Charlotte, NC - Filmore
May 14 - Silver Springs, MD - Filmore
Longtime NIGHTWISH drummer Jukka Nevalainen is sitting out the recording sessions for the group's new CD due to health issues; Kai Hahto (WINTERSUN, SWALLOW THE SUN, TREES OF ETERNITY) has replaced him.
NIGHTWISH keyboardist and main composer Tuomas Holopainen recently spent two and half weeks in Hattula, Finland with the band's producer/crew member Tero "TeeCee" Kinnunen recording a demo of the songs that will appear on NIGHTWISH's next studio album, the first to feature Dutch singer Floor Jansen.
Asked in a recent interview with Sweden's Metalshrine what Floor Jansen will bring to the next NIGHTWISH album, Tuomas said: "She [will] bring a lot of interpretations, some arrangements and positive energy for sure, but she [will] not [be] included in the songwriting process. She told me that the first time around, she has [her side project] REVAMP and Marco [Hietala, bass/vocals] and I will do just fine for now."
Speaking to Germany's EMP Rock Invasion at the end of last year, Floor stated about the songwriting process for the next NIGHTWISH album: "I think it's more like it's always been. So Tuomas is gonna start writing. And how it's gonna evolve later on, we'll see. But I don't feel the necessity of me being an active songwriting member, because the music is so good. It's about the songs and the music that goes first and not about my ego wanting to join like that. But if I can participate or add something with my creative input, of course I would love that. Of course, I have creative energy in me that needs to come out one way or another, but that's where REVAMP comes in."
Regarding whether she has any fears that, due to the band's troubled history with lead vocalists, her time with NIGHTWISH will not last very long, Floor told Finland's Radio Rock: "No. And whether this is in NIGHTWISH or in anything with anyone in everyone's lives, what guarantees do you have? So it's just about what you make of it and with the chemistry that you believe in. And I believe in the chemistry that we have today, 'cause it's been very strong since the beginning and grew to be better throughout the months. It's still a very recent thing. But what feels good now, that's where you should go from, and that's what I do."
Jansen made her live debut as the frontwoman of NIGHTWISH on October 1, 2012 at Showbox Sodo in Seattle, Washington following the abrupt departure of the band's lead singer of five years, Anette Olzon.
SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor has denied that the band's new track "The Negative One" was written about the group's former drummer Joey Jordison, claiming that the song's lyrics deal with "the ugliness that we all have in us."
The first new tune released by SLIPKNOT in six years, "The Negative One" is taken from the group's upcoming fifth album, titled ".5: The Gray Chapter", which is due out on October 21. The disc follows up 2008's "All Hope Is Gone" and is the band's first without Jordison, who was let go late last year, and founding bassist Paul Gray, who died in 2010.
With lyrics like "The Lord Of Lies / You Had To Be Set Free / Opposing Sides / Your Choices Are The Negative One And Me," fans have speculated that "The Negative One" was written about Jordison, who was assigned "1" as his numbered alias shortly after the band's formation.
"I didn't even put that together! That's just how fucking crazy people are!" Taylor told UK's Metal Hammer magazine.
After it was pointed out to Corey that "The Negative One" apparently contains all the letters that spell out "Joey Jordison," the singer replied, "Oh my fucking God! People need to fucking unplug every now and again. I did hear some shit about the video for it, like it's supposed to be Joey, but it's so fucking funny."
Asked if the song is about anyone in particular, Corey said: "Here's the thing. The album is a story — not in a certain order; it jumps around — but it's a story of this band for the last four years, from the moment Paul died to the moment we stepped out of the studio. So there are certain songs that deal with, not Joey in particular, but about the tension and trying to deal with the ugliness that we all have in us.
"'The Negative One' was about me, not about Joey, and that's why the song says, 'Your choices are the negative one and me,' which is the two kinda colliding together. 'The Devil In I' is the same, which you'd think would be fucking apparent.
"I love the fact that our fans are that passionate, but 'Judas Priest', get out of the fucking basement once in a while! Log off of the fucking Twitter and go smell a flower, and just let yourself get back to a point where you go, 'Y'know what? That's a little crazy.'"
He continued: "'The Negative One' is about me, and not just me, but everybody in the band.
"We all have so many different sides to ourselves, but especially with this band. When we get together, there's something about the music we make that really unleashes the crazy, dark shit inside of us. And that song in particular is about, basically, embracing it again, giving into it and letting it have its say. Because if you don't, then you sit on it and you repress and it blows up in really negative ways. So, that song is about freeing it."
"The Negative One" lyrics:
Fire And Caffeine
A Lot Of Nicotine
I'm Going To Burn So I Better Tell You Everything
The Competition
The Superstition
Never Mind 'Cause You're Never Going To Give In
It's A Crisis, Just How You Like It
The Same Drama In A Different Disguise
I'm Bound To Walk With A Target On My Back
At Least I'm Ready For Another Attack
The Lord Of Lies
The Morning Star
You Had To Be Set Free
Opposing Sides
Your Choices Are
The Negative One And Me
Svengali
Why Are We The Enemies?
I Never Follow And I Never Make Apologies
Your Dementias Are Gonna Getcha
Because Your Walls Can't Support Each Other
Settle For The Cynical
You're So Political
You're Getting Ready 'Cause The First Move Is Critical
Reciprocity
Somebody's Listening
What Did We Learn From Our Time In Captivity?
The Lord Of Lies
The Morning Star
You Had To Be Set Free
Opposing Sides
Your Choices Are
The Negative One And Me
The Negative One And Me
I Hope You Live
To See The Day
When Your World Goes Up In Flames
And As You Die
You See My Face
You're The Only One To Blame
The Prescient
The Nascent
The Quotient (They All Will Fall)
The Cystic
Symbolic
Condition (Systemic)
Egregious
Replete With
These Lesions (Contaminate)
Succumb To
The Selfish
Creation (Your Failure)
No Accountability
Divisibility
I Point A Finger But It's Always Looking Back At Me
The Centipede's Pulling On The Mechanism
Unearthing Scars Of The Cataclysm
When The Innocent
Begin To Circumvent
The Color Fades But The Picture Is Vibrant
What Do You Believe?
Does It Matter Now?
Turn Away
The Killer Is Disavowed
The Lord Of Lies
The Morning Star
You Had To Be Set Free
Opposing Sides
Your Choices Are
The Negative One And Me
The Negative One And Me
I Hope You Live
To See The Day
When Your World Goes Up In Flames
And As You Die
You See My Face
You're The Only One To Blame
The Lord Of Lies
The Morning Star
You Had To Be Set Free
Opposing Sides
Your Choices Are
The Negative One
The Negative One
The Negative One
The Negative One And Me [End of lyrics]
SLIPKNOT announced in December 2013 that it had parted ways with Jordison, one of the band's founding members and key songwriters. Taylor told Metal Hammer that firing Jordison after 18 years was "one of the hardest decisions" the group ever made, adding that Jordison is "in a place in his life" which is "not where we are."
Taylor said he could not get into specifics for legal reasons, but admitted, "It's when a relationship hits that T-section and one person's going one way and you're going the other. And try as you might to either get them to go your way or try and go their way, at some point you've got to go in the direction that works for you. This is me speaking in the broadest terms, with respect to Joey. I guess to sum it up, it was one of the hardest decisions we ever made."
Taylor said that the band is "happy right now and we hope that he is . . . he's just in a place in his life, right now, that's not where we are."
The singer would not answer whether drug use played a role in Jordison's dismissal, and confessed that he had not been in touch with his former bandmate. Taylor said, "I haven't talked to Joey in a while, to be honest. That's how different we are. It's not because I don't love him and I don't miss him. And it is painful; we talk about him all the time, but at the same time, do we miss him or do we miss the old him? That's what it really comes down to."
The identities of the band's new bassist and drummer have not been officially revealed, but both appeared — disguised in the same newly designed mask — in the video for "The Devil In I", the first single from the new album.
Nonetheless, it is widely believed that the new bassist is Alessandro "Vman" Venturella, who sports the exact same tattoo on his hand that was spotted on the hand of the new bassist in the video.
SLIPKNOT's new drummer is widely believed to be Jay Weinberg, son of longtime Bruce Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg.
SLAYER has returned to the studio to resume recording its new album for a tentative early 2015 release. Helming the sessions is Terry Date, who previously worked with the band on the song "Implode", which was made available as a free download as a "thank you" to the band's fans for their continued support following SLAYER's surprise performance at this past April's Revolver Golden Gods awards in Los Angeles.
Joining guitarist Kerry King and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya in the studio for SLAYER's new album are returning drummer Paul Bostaph, who replaced Dave Lombardo last year, and guitarist Gary Holt (also of EXODUS), who has been filling in for Jeff Hanneman on tour for the past four and a half years.
Speaking to Jose Mangin, SiriusXM director of programming and on-air host (Liquid Metal, Ozzy's Boneyard, Octane), Araya stated about the progress of the recording sessions for the new CD: "We're just getting started, man. We're laying down drum tracks at the moment, but yeah, we're just getting started. I'd say we're two weeks into doing stuff."
Regarding the direction of the new SLAYER material, Araya said: "There's stuff that Kerry has been working on for the past almost two years, two and a half years.
"We started this whole process of writing a new album several years ago — three or four years ago — so it's been a long process; it's something that we've been doing for a while. So a lot of these songs have been around for a bit and now we're just trying to figure them out and make them good."
Araya also talked about SLAYER's collaboration with Date, saying, "He's awesome, dude. He's really, really good.
"We actually finished up a song that we're doing for somebody and we put that together in five days, and we went in and recorded it, we did all our parts, and then Terry mixed it and we presented it and it fuckin' sounds really heavy, man. [It] sounds awesome, sounds real fuckin' heavy."
SLAYER's next CD will be released on Nuclear Blast Records through the band's own label imprint, closing out a 28-year relationship with Rick Rubin and American Recordings. It will also be SLAYER's first album without the group's co-founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who passed away in May 2013 from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver. He is credited for writing many of SLAYER's classic songs, including "Angel Of Death" and "South Of Heaven".
"I never go online and see what people are talking about because people are ten foot tall behind a computer screen, you know?!" King told ARTE Concert at last month's Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany. "But, you know, a lot of [the reaction to 'Implode'] was positive, a lot of people said, 'For anybody that was worried about what SLAYER was gonna sound like post-Hanneman, don't worry about it.'"
He continued: "I know people are gonna think that [we can't make another quality album], people are gonna expect us to fail because it's the first record without Jeff; I get it. But I'm also very proud of what of we've done so far towards new material. It's fast, the slow stuff's heavy. I mean, it's… Everything that people liked SLAYER for in the past is on this record."
Bostaph was SLAYER's drummer from 1992 until 2001 and recorded four albums with the band — the gold-certified "Divine Intervention" (1994), the 1996 punk covers album "Undisputed Attitude", "Diabolus In Musica" (1998), "God Hates Us All" (2001) that received a Grammy nomination for "Best Metal Performance", as well as the DVD "War At The Warfield" (2001), also certified gold. In addition to SLAYER, Bostaph has been a member of FORBIDDEN, EXODUS, SYSTEMATIC and TESTAMENT.
Original SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo was effectively fired from SLAYER after sitting out the band's Australian tour in February/March 2013 due to a contract dispute with the other members of the group. Filling in for him was Jon Dette (TESTAMENT, ANTHRAX).
Former PANTERA drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott says that he has "found peace" 10 years after witnessing the murder of his brother while they were both playing at a club in Ohio.
Dimebag was shot dead on December 8, 2004 while performing with his band DAMAGEPLAN at Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio. The shooting that night claimed three other lives and seven more were injured as the mad gunman opened fire on the crowd at the small club north of downtown Columbus.
One of heavy metal's most influential and beloved figures, Dimebag was a larger-than-life guitarist and a genuine, amusing human being who was rarely spotted without his favorite drink, the "black tooth grin" — a splash of Coca-Cola and two shots of whisky.
During a recent chat with WWE wrestling superstar and FOZZY singer Chris Jericho for the "Talk Is Jericho" podcast, Vinnie spoke about how he feels that Dimebag's spirit and energy is always with him and inspires him to be the best that he can be.
"The funniest thing that's ever happened to me… I turned 50 this year, and it was the best birthday party I ever had in my entire life. It was absolutely incredible," Vinnie said.
"I still feel like a 19-year-old kid, man. Everything I do, I approach the same way. I'm not married. I don't have any kids. I've been married to music my entire life. I've been dedicated to it. I know what it takes to do it. And ever since my brother has been taken from me, I feel like I have to live for both of us. And I bring it everywhere I go, everything I do, and I think he's here with us, watching us and enjoying everything that's going on, man."
Vinnie also talked about how his brother cherished being a rock star, was always "on," and lived to have a raucous good time. And he always made sure everyone around him was as pumped up, comfortable and/or inebriated as he was.
"The thing that turned him on the most in this world was putting a smile on other people's faces," Vinnie said. "It didn't matter where it was, when it was, how it was, whether it was playing his guitar, whether it was shaking a hand, signing an autograph, giving him a pick, just saying hi. That was the most important thing in his life — making other people smile."
He continued: "I remember the last show we ever played together with DAMAGEPLAN, we played in Buffalo, New York, and I wanted to… Actually, we wanted to go to the casino in Niagara Falls and he was really smoked. We had two more shows left. We were gonna do Mancow's show in Chicago the next day. And I said, 'Dime, man, let's go to the casino, man.' And he was, like, 'Man, Vinnie, I'm really, really tired. I wanna kill these last two shows. I'm gonna go home and make the next DAMAGEPLAN record. I wanna kill this.' He goes, 'You go have a good time, man. I'll see you in a little bit.' So me and Mayhem, our security guy that got killed that night [in Columbus], went with me, and we went to the casino and we had a great time. And the bus pulled up about 3 o'clock in the morning to get us, and I came on the bus, and there was a full party going on in the front lounge. And I'm, like, 'What is going on in here?' It was Dime and there was, like, 12 people I'd never seen in my life. And I said, 'Dime, I thought you were [tired].' And he goes, 'Dude, I couldn't let these people down, man. They wanted to party tonight, man.' And that's how my brother was. He just would not let people down."
Asked if he always shared his brother's fun-loving approach to life, Vinnie replied: "I always had that attitude, he always had that attitude. That American Express commercial, 'You can't take it with you,' was always special, but it never was real until that happened."
He continued; "Me and [Dimebag] used to joke with each other all the time. We'd be on a plane and [we'd say], 'Hey, man, if we're going down, we're going down in a plane crash together.' It was always, 'We're gonna do this together.' 'Cause we did everything together. And we didn't get to do that together [that night in Columbus]. And… when I say 'we didn't get to,' I don't mean to say that.
"It was a really hardcore, tragic event, and the guy [Nathan Gale] wanted to kill me too. And somehow or another, I was lucky enough to escape that, and I'm still here, and I will do everything and anything I can to carry on the legacy and the tradition that my brother always had."
Even though it's been a decade since his brother's murder, Vinnie still gets flashbacks of the day's events "every night." He says: "I don't wanna remember it, I don't wanna think about it, I don't want anybody saying, 'Hey, man…' You know…
"It's hard. It's hard. But I've found peace.
"I'm really happy with what I do with [my current band HELLYEAH], and I'm glad that we're moving forward and things are really good, man. Really good."
