Crowbar and Soilent Green drummer, Tommy Buckley, recently talked with the Vulgar Display of Podcast about a variety of topics, from Crowbar’s undeniable influence on modern metal music, to jamming with Dimebag Darrell on Vinnie Paul’s drums and much more.
The Pit has transcribed portions of the interview below, including Tommy’s thoughts on the Pantera ‘reunion’ (it’s worth noting timeline-wise that this interview appeared to take place after the reunion news broke, but before Zakk Wylde was officially confirmed as the guitarist).
When asked if he was surprised by the amount of “backlash” there was to news of the Pantera reunion, Tommy says:
“I was, but I wasn’t dude. I had two friends reach out to me and asked me if I was doing it. I was like no man, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I couldn’t even do that to Vinnie…or Dime.
But you know, I’m friends with Charlie [Benante]… it’s like dude, he’s gonna catch a lot of heat for that shit. They’re all gonna catch a lot of heat. But, I don’t think Phil & Rex really care, because they’re gonna do what they want to do. And they do have the right to do it. But… it’s just not gonna be Pantera, dude. It’s not the same. It’ll be Pantera songs with Phil and Rex. I always said it would be Zakk Wylde… who knows if it’s going to be Zakk Wylde. But, Charlie’s absolutely doing it. It was crazy, I had two friends reach out to me that morning when all those posts started going up. They were like ‘hey what’s up dude are you doing it?’ I’m like no. It’s flattering, but i’m like no. I can do that shit with no problem.”
Tommy talks about the time he jammed with Dimebag on Vinnie Paul’s drums:
“Me, Kirk [Windstein] and Dime had a jam one night at Dime’s house… everybody’s kind of dwindling off one by one because eyehategod, Crowbar and Soilent Green, we were all staying at the house that night because we were on tour together. So, everybody’s going off one by one, going back to the house and man, it ended up the last three people back there in the jam room – which was the studio where they recorded Reinventing the Steel -you know, his backyard. Dude it was me, Kurt and Dime.
So Dime’s got a guitar, Kurt’s got a bass, and they jam. And I’m like, dude, this sucks. And Dime’s like ‘man, Vinnie don’t like nobody playing his drums’. He’s like ‘nah, you can’t can’t play on Vinnie’s drums’. So it went from I said it sucks and then he’s like ‘what do you mean it sucks?’ I said, dude, I know all these songs and we could be jamming these songs right now. Dime’s like ‘all right… i’ll tell you what.’ He’s like ‘go ahead… beat ’em lightly.’ [Laughter] It was the the drum kit that was in the Mouth for War video with the bricks. He went from ‘don’t touch Vinnie Paul’s drums’… to ‘okay, beat ’em lightly’… to ‘come on boy, you hittin’ like a pussy!’ [Laughter]
Me and Kirk, we share that common bond that we we had that night with him [Dimebag] man. We played Van Halen’s ‘Dance the Night Away’. We played Kiss’s ‘100,000 Years.’ We even played Pantera power metal. We were ripping through Judas Priest, we were ripping through whatever. We had the funnest time dude and dude, god bless him man. You know, it’s hard to believe that both of those dudes are gone now.
Tommy on why Zakk Wylde is the only one that can do Dimebag justice:
When the interviewer goes back to the topic of the Pantera reunion and mentions that as a fan, he feels that it’s not the Pantera that the fans want, Tommy interjects:
“But you knew it was the Pantera you was going to get, if it ever happened. You knew it was going to be Zakk Wylde. It HAS to be. That’s his best friend, dude, and it’s the dude that’s smoking on guitar just as bad as fucking Dime. So I mean ,who else would it be, right?
You can find the whole interview below: