James Hetfield spoke about how his good friend, the late-“Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, influenced him musically. Blabbermouth transcribed the Metallica frontman's recent chat with SiriusXM's Metal Ambassador podcast.
Hetfield recalled Dimebag saying, “What a blessing to have been in his life and him in my life. And yeah, some of those early days, just traveling down there to the Dallas area and meeting with those guys and just hanging out. Yeah, Dimebag introduced me to the solid state amp, I remember. He had this fricking amazing crunch going on. I was, like, 'What is that?' Y'know? So, uh, yeah. (We) inspired each other. He inspired me as well. No doubt.”
Not too long ago, Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo told us that Pantera never got the respect or coverage they deserved from the media, despite the fact that their 1994 album Far Beyond Driven debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200 albums chart. “Back when Pantera was swinging the chain, we had put out a Number One record on Billboard magazine and still the radio stations and major media outlets such as Rolling Stone magazine and Spin magazine — ha! what a laugh that magazine is — they chose to ignore.”