Rex Brown says ZZ Top and Van Halen were Pantera’s two primary influences
“There’s nothing like Tres Hombres and there never will be.”
Pantera’s Rex Brown. Credit: Christian Petersen/Getty
Pantera bassist Rex Brown has cited Van Halen and ZZ Top as the groove metallers’ primary influences.
Speaking to Rick Beato in a new interview, Brown suggests that Pantera’s sound could even be described as a sped-up, heavier mix of those two bands.
“If you take a look at this band and you had two bands that you had to pick, it would be Van Halen and ZZ Top sped up in that 6/8 in that ‘Texas Stomp Boogie’ as we used to call it, that’s what it was all about,” Brown says [as transcribed by Loudwire].
“It was all over Texas at the time. ZZ Top, you gotta throw them in there somewhere fellas, because they influenced more in those first couple of records than [anyone]. For us, as a region of Texas, it was a big ass state. But when I first heard them, I was driving my bicycle about 8-years-old and I heard La Grange and something just happened. I lost my mind.
He continued: “There’s nothing like Tres Hombres and there never will be. It’s just song after song after song and it’s the most magical record that I have in my collection.”
Indeed, the late Dimebag Darrell was a renowned fan of Randy Rhoads in particular. Brown said in an interview last month, when reflecting on the first time he met the Darrell brothers, that it had only taken Dimebag a month for him to learn Rhoads’ entire repertoire.
“Vinnie had a little brother named Darrell, and when I met him at 15, he still hadn’t picked up the guitar yet. And then, [around] ’81, he tucked himself inside his room, didn’t see him for a summer, and learned all that Randy Rhoads stuff,” he recalls. He came out of that bedroom, and I’d never heard anybody [play like that]. He was a skinny little kit with tight, permed hair. It was just like a complete metamorphosis.”