~Dimebag Darrell Fansite~

Dimebag Darrell (born Darrell Lance Abbott August 20, 1966 – December 8, 2004) (also known as Diamond Darrell until mid 1992) was a guitarist in the heavy metal bands Pantera and Damageplan.Early life Darrell Lance Abbott was born in Dallas, Texas, to country songwriter Jerry Abbott. His father owned a recording studio, Pantego Sound Studios, in Pantego, Texas, where Darrell had seen many blues guitarists play, but after hearing Ace Frehley of KISS play, he wanted to start playing guitar himself. At first, he wanted to play the drums. However, after discovering that he wasn't as good as his brother Vincent, he decided to try the guitar instead. At an early age, Abbott began entering statewide guitar competitions and by the age of sixteen had been banned from entering because he had won too often. He often competed against guitar players who had up to twelve years more experience of playing guitar than him, yet his skills surpassed theirs and he was invited to begin judging the contests in question. It was through the prizes he won — including the guitar that has since become his trademark — that he was able to start Pantera.[edit] Bands [edit] Pantera Main article: Pantera Pantera were formed in 1981 with Dimebag's brother Vinnie Paul on drums. In the band's early days, Pantera could be considered what would later be referred to (sometimes in a derogatory sense) as glam metal, but the band eventually evolved into "true" metal (a term used by many scene purists) – often classified under the subgenre groove metal, or, by term coined by the band "power groove". Pantera went on to become one of the most influential and popular heavy metal bands of the 1990s. The band officially split in 2003 due to conflicts between members.[edit] Damageplan Main article: Damageplan After Pantera broke up, Darrell and his brother Vinnie decided to continue their music careers with a new band, Damageplan, with Patrick Lachman (vocals) and Bob Zilla (bass guitar). Their debut album, New Found Power, reached number 37 on the charts in 2004. The band was effectively ended with Dimebag's murder, and Vinnie Paul has not announced any musical projects since his brother's death. In early 2005, Damageplan manager Paul Bassman announced that a second Damageplan album was almost finished at the time of Dimebag's death but there is no word yet as to when this material will be released to the public. According to Vinnie, "...as long as I'm around I think eventually they will get heard."[citation needed][edit] Other projects Sometime between the breakup of Pantera and the formation of Damageplan, the Abbott brothers teamed up with country singer David Allan Coe for a project called "Rebel Meets Rebel". Vinnie's favorite recorded Dime solo is on this album, part of the track "Get Out Of My Life". The album was released May 2, 2006 on Vinnie's "Big Vin Records" label.Dimebag played guest guitar solos on several Anthrax tracks from their John Bush era the songs being: Riding Shotgun from Stomp 442, Inside Out off Volume 8: The Threat is Real, and Strap It On and Cadallic Rock Box off We've Come For You All. In a recent interview Anthrax bassist Frank Bello said 'Darrel was basically the sixth member of Anthrax'.Shortly before Dime's death, he went into the studio with a band named Premenishen to do a guest solo on a track titled "Eyes of the South". The band consists of two of Dime's cousins (bassist Heather Manly and guitarist April Adkisson).There was speculation that Dimebag and close friend Zakk Wylde would collaborate with Eddie Van Halen, however nothing was confirmed. He was also confirmed as one of the original guitar player choices for Liquid Tension Experiment by Mike Portnoy. [1][edit] Magazine appearances Dimebag frequently appeared in guitar magazines, both in advertisements for equipment he endorsed and in readers' polls, where he was often included in the top ten metal guitarist spots. In addition, Dimebag wrote a long-running Guitar World magazine column, which has been compiled in the book Riffer Madness (ISBN 0769291015). Total Guitar frequently featured him and wrote about him in the months leading up to his death. One year after his death, they also made a tribute issue.[edit] Equipment In his early career as a musician, Dimebag used Dean ML guitars (Most notably the "Dean From Hell" that was custom painted in a lightning bolt design) and Bill Lawrence pickups, which he would install in a reversed position to have the treble blade facing the neck. When Dean guitars went out of business he switched to Washburn. Dimebag used Washburn guitars for the greater half of his career (1996-2004), endorsing various signature models. Seymour Duncan also has a signature pickup co-designed by Dime, called the Dimebucker. Dimebag proudly endorsed Seymour Duncan, but continued to use Bill Lawrence pickups in all of his personal guitars. Several weeks before his death, Darrell ended his long relationship with Washburn guitars, and became a Dean endorsee (Dean Guitars was bought and reopened by Dean Zelinsky). As a tribute to the late great, Dean Guitars released the new Dime Tribute line of ML guitars. These guitars come in various models, ranging from lower end ones that have a stop tail piece, a bolt-on neck, Basswood Body, and lower quality pickups, to higher end models with Dimebuckers, a Floyd Rose bridge, and set neck construction. Dean has also produced a unique Dime signature-design guitar, called the "Razorback", (now being used by Matt Heafy of metal band Trivium) reminiscent of Dean's classic ML design, but with a more modern twist. During the height of Dimebag's fame, he also worked together with MXR and Dunlop to produce the MXR Dime Distortion and the Dimebag "Crybaby From Hell" Wah respectively. Dimebag's rig also included Randall Century 200 heads and cabinets loaded with vintage Celestions and Jaguar speakers, Furman parametric equalizers, MXR flanger/doublers, Lexicon effect modules, Korg tuners, Rocktron silencers and Digitech Whammy pedals, amongst other gadgets in his arsenal. When Dime left Washburn a few weeks before his death, he also left Randall Amps, investing in and endorsing amps from a brand new company, Krank. He planned to redefine his very own sound by developing the "KRANKENSTEIN".A lot of controversy now surrounds Dimebag's guitar skills. Firstly, Darrell is considered by many as a whammy bar master, who's style is considered one of the most original and extremely innovative, in which he was able to introduce his own techniques and later influenced guitar idols such as Joe Satriani. However, Darrell is critisized for his technical abilities, usually undermining them or blowing them out of all logical proportion. To begin with, Darrell is considered a very technical picker, he's considered one of ther more technical of the guitar pact, with his flawless guitar playing, the records of Dimebag playing sloppy in a song, even playing covers of other artists such as Michael Angelo Batio or Van Halen, are almost technical picking. Although Dimebag rarely tried to shred on Pantera records, his picking ability is comparable to the likes of Marty Friedman of Megadeth in a few of his solos, something Dave Mustaine claimed. Despite this, Dimebag shows little technical knowledge of other techniques such as finertapping, sweep picking (although he does occasionally use some of the more technical lines) and most of the others. Another point to emphasis critisicm on is the fact that many people considered the fact that Dime's "tweener" solos were very experimental and creative, with wild effects and screaming wahs, a good quantity of solos were used as fillers, just for the inclusion of a guitar solo in the music.Darrell used a variety of guitar tunings. He was one of the first guitarists to demonstrate the use of tuning every string on his guitar down 1/4 of a step, something that became part of his "signature tone". From Cowboys to Vulgar Dime tuned down 1/4 of a step, a half step and sometimes an entire step, as well as using drop-d (DADGBE) tuning. From Vulgar onwards, Darrell's guitar tuning got lower and lower, giving more of an "edge" to the murkier, heavier feel of many Pantera/Damageplan songs. Damageplan tuning a whole step and a half. Also, Darrell made the Bill Lawrence high-output humbucker famous, which was first featured by Alex Lifeson on the Rush album, "Signals." Dimebag is also known to have mastered Micheal Angelo's "Star Licks" instructional guitar video, along with the likes of John Petrucci and Micheal Romeo, and not to mention dedicated a Pantera set to him during Pantera's tour of the album "The Great Southern Trendkill", in which he played some guitar pieces of Batio's notorious "Speed Kills".[edit] Influences Among Dimebag's influences were Judas Priest, Randy Rhoads, Eddie Van Halen, and Ace Frehley. Dimebag once said in an interview that if there was no Ace Frehley, there would have been no Dimebag Darrell - he even had a tattoo of the Kiss guitarist on his chest. Ace signed the tattoo in pen ink upon meeting him upon Dimebags request, and then the autograph was painstakingly tattooed over soon after, so as never to be washed off. In addition, he cited many of his contemporaries among his influences, including Slayer's Kerry King, Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society, Metallica's James Hetfield, Prong's Tommy Victor and Helmet's Page Hamilton. He also credits Vito Rulez of Chauncy for convincing him to try Bill Lawrence pickups.According to an interview with Dino Cazares then of Fear Factory Dime told him that during the recording of Reinventing The Steel he A/B'd his guitar tone with Dino's [incidentally during the making of Fear Factory's Demanufacture Cazares A/B'd his guitar tone against that of Vulgar Display Of Power)Dime has stated, in various interviews, that his riffs were largely influenced by Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath. Indeed, Tony's influence can be heard in many Pantera songs, Dime often emulating his sliding, slurring, style, his odd timing, his dissonant, eerie single note riffs, his open string chugging, his use of the wah pedal on rhythm parts, his penchant for odd changes and adding funky embellishments and his frequent use of sludgy, mammoth walls of distortion. Tony's influence can occasionally be heard in Dime's soloing as well, with his fast, manic pentatonic licks. Tony also influenced Dime's tunings, which often went down to C# or lower. Pantera covered Planet Caravan, Hole Layout made by Andy