Rex Brown from Pantera Recalls Dimebag and What He Did After
Pantera bassist Rex Brown recently spoke during a TV conversation. He also recalls what he did after his bandmate Dimebag Darrell‘s passing away. He also talked about other things such as his current bass rig.
Dimebag Darrel was the guitarist of the heavy metal bands Pantera and Damageplan. He co-founded both bands with his brother Vinnie Paul. He had been living a successful career until a concert in Columbus. A talented guitarist and songwriter, Dimebag Darrel had been shot right on stage during their concert at a club by a fan and murdered brutally at his 38 back in 2004.
And after 16 years, his bandmate from Pantera, Rex Brown joined Ampeg TV and talked about how he felt back then and what he did after his friend Dimebag’s death.
“After Dime got murdered, instead of going to someplace like freaking Wyoming or somewhere and get my head together, I had to keep working.”
After the process, he says that he moved out and settled down in California for a while and used a different name while he was there. He reflected that he kept working and busy himself not to think.
“I’ve always kept busy, and then Down came right after that, did that for another six years; and then Kill Devil Hill, and then finally about the end of that I’ve been doing this on the road for, damn, near 30 years.”
Leaving Roads
He also talked about how he got tired of being on the road all the time and how he missed his children so he made a deal.
“And I was just burnt, I mean, I got to get home and like – what does the grass feel like, underneath your toes, you know? My kids were about 14, I just said, ‘I’ve got to take two years off.’ And eight months later I was back in the studio somewhere.
That’s just always been my deal. Since then, I haven’t been back on the road except for one European tour in 2017.”
So especially these days he has much more freedom and can be more selective while choosing how and when he will work. So Pantera’s bassist also talked about where he stands in his life at this point after being asked a question.
“I’ve been asked to do that even over this kind of Zoom thing, and I just don’t want to do, I think that’s just so bland. I think this is great for our situation, if we’re having a conversation, trying to get across on a screen with four guys and masks and you know, no, to me it looks like a ‘Howdy Doody’ show.”
It is never easy to lose someone, especially if that person was around you most of the time and you have been sharing too many things. But Rex Brown and the rest of the Pantera seem to handle it well. And we know that they carried on most for him.
His current bass rig
After a little remembering and depression, he also talked about his current bass rig and his go-to that he always carries around him.
“We found this case of Spector basses that, like, I was looking for this thing forever and it probably got about six or seven in there, like my fretless that I hadn’t seen in a while, I was like, ‘I wonder where those are?’
They’re still left, we had lockups everywhere for all the Pantera stuff and that’s been 19-20 years ago, so it’s usually just a Spector, a Sans amp driver, and then straight into an Ampeg.
We cut it off between the D.I. and then usually, sometimes I’ll use a real clean, like SVT2 sound, and then I’ll use SVT4 so I can get a bit of dirt, just when you have that for a little bit of warmth, but that’s basically it.
I also have a plugin too that’s been coming in kind of handy, I never thought of using it, I usually just use the gear, it’s from Bassforge, the Rex Brown thing, and it’s got really, really great reviews, kids seem to love it.
So we tried it out on this session I did a couple of weeks ago, and it worked out pretty well. I think they checked you guys about administration, it has the amp, but then it has a DI and it has a pedal that’s fully parametric.
I mean, just the full bump, it’s a full bundle, different mics, different cabs, all kinds of different ways, you can get anywhere from like Honky Tonk blues to full-blown distorted, you know, to the extreme.”
And finally, here is ‘Train Song’ from Rex Brown’s latest solo album ‘Smoke on this’ back in 2017.