Pantera's official videographer, Daryl “Bobby Tongs” Arnberger, said in a new interview with the “Landry.audio” podcast that late Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott wanted to “go back to Pantera” in the weeks before his death in December 2004.
Arnberger — who last saw Abbott a month before the guitarist was shot to death while performing with Damageplan in Columbus, Ohio — said, “He was pretty much done with what (Damageplan) were doing at that point. He wanted to move on and go back to Pantera.”
Pantera broke up in 2003 due to tensions between singer Philip Anselmo and the Abbott brothers, Darrell and Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul. Darrell and Vinnie formed Damageplan in the wake of Pantera's disbanding. Darrell was murdered onstage by a crazed gunman while performing on December 8th, 2004 in Columbus.
Arnberger explained, “Oh, yeah, (Darrell) would have (reunited Pantera). The last time I saw him was in November of 2004 . . . I was just talking to him briefly about everything. He was, like, ‘We’re gonna go out and do this (Damageplan) tour through December, and I’ll see you for Christmas and everything. After that, we’re gonna have some new s**t going on. And it’s not gonna be this. Whatever it takes, we’re gonna get these guys back together and do it right.'”
The rift between Anselmo and Vinnie Paul, who partially blamed public comments by Anselmo about Darrell for inciting the gunman that took his brother's life, never healed. Vinnie himself died of heart failure in June 2018, and any hypothetical Pantera tribute with Anselmo, Paul, bassist Rex Brown, and a guest guitarist never came to fruition.