There has been a lot of hype surrounding the upcoming Pantera shows, but you might be surprised to hear that one of the members of the band is not prepared yet (that member being Zakk Wylde).
Per a recent conversation with The SDR Show, Wylde talked about his involvement regarding these upcoming Pantera concerts; he speaks to how he had nothing to do with putting the project together and that he is honored to be performing Pantera’s material. (The following was transcribed by Blabbermouth):
“I had nothing to do with [putting the Pantera thing together]. I’m friends with the guys. It’d be like if Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were gonna do a tribute to Jimi [Hendrix] and they [asked] Eric Clapton, ‘Eric, would you sing and play Jimi’s stuff? We’re gonna put this tribute thing together.’ It’s just, like, of course Eric would [do it]. ‘Just let me know when you wanna do it.’ It’s just like anything. Like when we do Experience Hendrix, we do anything like that, it’s just, like, ‘Would you guys like to go out and honor Jimi Hendrix?’ It’s just, like, ‘Yeah. And why wouldn’t we?’
“Yeah, of course. I’m gonna be honored. Even if it was a festival they were putting together and they wanted Black Label to come up and have Phil sing and they were gonna have all the different bands up there — Lamb of God, Black Label, Anthrax — and all the bands were gonna play a Pantera song and Phil‘s gonna sing. Of course we’d be involved. Why wouldn’t we be involved?”
All that said though, Wylde is actually not prepared at the moment to perform Pantera’s music. In this conversation, he shares that he still has to learn how to perform the band’s songs.
“I don’t know [how to play] the songs. If Dime had to play the ‘No More Tears’ solo and ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’ and ‘Miracle Man’ and ‘Perry Mason’ and play ‘Suicide Messiah’, it’d be, like, ‘You must know Zakk’s stuff.’ He [would be], like, ‘No. I don’t know any of his stuff. Zakk’s my buddy, but no, I don’t know any of his stuff.'”
This sort of surprises us – for not only do the band have shows coming up this December, but Wylde was friends with Dimebag (and you might assume that he would have learned a Pantera song or two by now). Well, here’s hoping that Zakk is prepared in time! You can check out the conversation with Zakk via The SDR show below.