Former Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo has insisted he won’t mark the tenth anniversary of Dimebag Darrell Abbott’s murder today.
The guitarist was shot dead on December 8, 2004, in Columbus, Ohio, during a show with Damageplan. He’d formed the band with brother and drummer Vinny Paul after Pantera had split the previous year.
TeamRock Radio will broadcast an hour-long documentary on Dimebag’s legacy tonight. It’s available on demand now.
And the next edition of Metal Hammer, on sale tomorrow, marks the guitarist’s memory with an in-depth main feature containing quotes and anecdotes from the people who knew him best.
But Anselmo – who plays with Down in San Francisco tonight – tells Yahoo: “There is no fucking way on this planet Earth that I am going to celebrate the death of one of my best friends.
“I won’t do any Pantera songs or anything like that. Like every night I’ll send out a song to Dimebag. I always send out Lifer because if there was ever a lifer in heavy metal, someone who lived it, breathed it and forged it every day, it was him.
“He is the epitome of a lifer, whether he is in the tomb or not.”
Anselmo admits his memories of Pantera and their acrimonious split are never far away. “Every year gets harder,” he says. “I look at what’s out there in heavy metal and I think about what could have been.
“This is an evil time of year for me. It’s rough. The murder made no sense. The reasoning made no sense. It’s just confounding and miserable.”
