Black Label Society frontman and current Pantera guitarist Zakk Wylde sat down with Talk Toomey podcast and discussed his part in Pantera.
The rocker was asked if there were any Pantera songs or parts that took him longer to figure out. Wylde responded while comparing the late Dimebag Darrell to other legendary musicians such as Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix:
“What I just found really awesome was Dime’s… I mean, the reason why we’re still talking about Dime’s greatness and everybody, and all the guys that we love, whether it’s King Edward [Eddie Van Halen], St. Rhoads [Randy Rhoads], Jimi Hendrix, I mean, all the guys, it’s what they wrote. Aside from Dime’s great technique and how amazing he was and how fast he could play and everything like that, it’s what he wrote, just like with Randy and Eddie and everybody.”
He then praised Dimebag’s chord choices and musical experience:
“I mean, all the guys that we love. But Dime’s writing, like his chord choices and everything like that, it’s just, like, ‘Oh, wow. That’s definitely really cool.’ So, a lot of unexpected pre-choruses and things like that. It’s, like, ‘Oh, wow. I wonder what made him go there,’ like really interesting chord choices. But, yeah, for sure.”
What Dime Was Going For With His Riffs And Solos
In the same interview, Wylde also discussed learning the songs and what Dimebag aimed to do while writing his guitar parts:
“Going through, learning the whole catalog and learning deeper cuts and everything like that, I was, like, ‘Wow. This one’s pretty cool. I mean, even the pre-chorus to ‘Walk’ or just the opening riff — a lot of a lot of the chord choices would end up becoming… They’re dissonant, where that’s obviously what Dime’s going for, is the dissonance, whereas opposed to something would be like if it was a more ear-pleasing chord choice, but it would sound routine, and you could just tell Dime was going for…”
He added saying that he went the opposite way of what everyone else expected him to do:
“‘No, that’s what everybody expects us to go. So, let’s go here. Everyone expects us to make a left turn. So, let’s make a right.’ So, it’s, like, oh, ‘Wow, that’s definitely interesting.’ So, yeah, that’s what I found, learning all the material and everything like that. So, for sure. So that, to me, is what puts Dime in that league with all the guys we love, whether it’s Jimi Hendrix, whether it’s Eddie and Randy. It’s his writing.”
You can see the interview down below.