Dimebag Darrell

Dimebag Darrell is an American guitarist who become famous with his band Pantera and created a new and heavy sound that inspired nearly every metal band coming after Pantera

Career

Darrell Lance Abbott was born on the 08.20.1966 in Texas. He spend most of his youth in his Father's Country Studio but his real heroes were Eddie Van Halen, Tony Iommi and Ace Frehely. He started to play guitar along with his brother Vinnie Paul who plays the drums. At the age of 16 Dimebag was already good enough to win every local Talent contest. The Abbott brothers founded their band Pantera already in the 80's, they have just not been popular until 1990. Pantera used to be a Hair-Glam-Metal band and released four records. Dimebag called himself Diamond Darrell during this time. In 1990 they changed their style from ground up with their new singer Phillip Anselmo. Pantera was now playing neo-thrash-metal and revolutionized the heavy music scene. Pantera existed till 2003, when Phil Anselmo left the band and the Abbott Brothers founded their new Band Damageplan. On the 8th of December Dimebag Darrell was murdered on-stage during a Damageplan gig in Columbus/Ohio by a mentally disturbed fan with multiple gunshots.

On-stage murder

On December 8, 2004, while performing with Damageplan at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, Dimebag Darrell Abbott was shot and killed onstage by Nathan Gale. Abbott was shot a total of four times, at point-blank range in the back of the head. He was 38 years old.

Three others were killed in the shooting: concert attendee Nathan Bray, 23 of Columbus; club employee Erin Halk, 29 of northwest Columbus; and Damageplan security guard Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson, 40 of Texas.

The band's drum technician, John "Kat" Brooks, and tour manager, Chris Paluska, were also injured.

Dimebag Darrell was the first artist to be murdered on stage in history of music.

There are several tribute songs for Dimebag as for example Machine Heads 'Asthetics of Hate' or Zakk Wylde's 'In this River'.

Style

Dimebag Darrel was a Heavy-Metal guitarist. He invented the 'scooped' Metal guitar sound, with all the mids cut out but a lot of high and low end .His Playing had a heavy groove to it, combined wit precise Stccato and legato riffs. His Solos where lightspped shreds through almost every scale there is. He was able do write neck-breaking riffs in one song and do a bluesy half-ballad on the next song. His rythm work was extremely precise, his hammer-ons and pull-offs were very clean and he used to do harmonics with whammy-bar use to create high pitch squeals.

Gear

Dimebag was a fan of Dean's ML guitar design. He became their largest endorser and got his own signature series of the ML and his own creation, The Razorback guitar. To achieve his sound Dimebag used Solid State Fullstacks, first marshalls, later Randall and Krank amps. He used Whammy,WahWah,Flanger,Chorus and Noisegate pedals.