Bam Margera Shares Wild Story About Partying With Pantera Legend Vinnie Paul

Alfred Nitsch, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT , via Wikimedia Commons
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Bam Margera has never been shy about his passion for dark rock and metal music.

In fact, he often used his huge TV platform during his MTV reality show heydays to spotlight great bands like In Flames, Children of Boom, Dimmu Borgir, and more. No doubt, he turned legions of young, impressionable kids on to the wonderful world of metal.

Given his passion for the genre and the party life, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Bam and the late, great Pantera legend, Vinnie Paul, were buds.

And since being buds with Vinnie has always seemed to give way to a wealth of insanely fun times and insane party stories from other artists and celebs who knew him well, it also shouldn’t be a surprise that Bam and Vince shared their own raucous party times together.

On a recent episode of  The Nine Club with Chris Roberts, Bam (along with numerous members of the Margera family), recounted some great times of yore, including a pretty damn wild story where Bam defended Vinnie’s honor to a poor, unsuspecting hotel manager in Australia.

Essentially, a plane flight with heavy drinking crescendoes into a hilarious scene in an Australian hotel once they landed. Thanks to a transcription of the tale from Loudwire, you can read (or watch), the whole story in Bam and his brother Jess’s own words below.

It’s worth noting that there’s been a lot of recent press about Bam’s current health and struggles with substance abuse. Thankfully, he looks in good spirits as of the taping of this interview a few days ago. Here’s hoping he can continue to stay healthy and that some of the wilder stories like this one are of the past:

Jess Margera: Remember when you slapped the owner of that hotel in Australia cause [of] Vinnie Paul?

Bam Margera: There was a drum set at the lobby of this fancy hotel in Australia. He hops on the drums and starts playing and the manager

Jess Margera: Well, no, you made him. You’re like, ‘Yo, Vinnie! Get up there, man. Play some Led Zeppelin ‘Moby Dick’ or something

Bam Margera: And speaking of Vinnie we were on a first-class flight from L.A. to get there? It was a 20-hour flight and he’s so wasted [that] he wakes up and is like, ‘How much longer is the flight?’ I’m like – no, he asked, ‘When are we taking off?’ I’m like, ‘We took off 20 hours ago. We’ve landed. We’re here now.’ He’s like, ‘Huh?’

So, he gets on the drums and the manager of this nice hotel comes up and he’s like, ‘You need to stop playing that right now! This is in the lobby!’ I’m like, ‘How dare you?! Do you know who he is? He’s Pantera’s Vinnie Paul! He’s one of the best drummers on the planet!’

Then Bam says he smacked the hotel manager [across the face], yelling ‘you should be ashamed of yourself!’

Jess Margera: you slapped him and he just took it and said ‘I had no idea it was the Pantera guy.’

Vinnie Paul is of course sorely missed. If you’d like to see the newly reincarnated version of Pantera rip it across stages live soon in honor of Vince and Dime, grab tickets HERE.