MIKE PORTNOY Explains How PANTERA’s Vulgar Show Of Energy Saved Steel Alive In The ’90s

Steel within the ’90s was tough. Grunge got here alongside and killed the hair steel scene, demise steel was simply beginning to bubble up in a major manner, and thrash bands had been slicing their hair. So what saved steel going all through the last decade? Properly, a couple of artists. However one in all ’em’ was positively Pantera, in the event you ask Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy.

In line with Portnoy in an interview with Consequence, Pantera‘s 1992 album Vulgar Show of Energy was the one that actually floored him and cemented his opinion on the survival of steel all through that troublesome decade.

“Vulgar Show of Energy got here out across the identical time as [Dream Theater’s] Photos and Phrases again in 1992. We had been really labelmates on the time. So, we had been engaged on the identical label with the identical individuals. And I bear in mind listening to this when it got here out, it simply floored me. I used to be already a fan from Cowboys from Hell that got here out a yr or two earlier, however this took their new sound and elegance and elevated it to an entire new stage. To me, Pantera was the band that saved steel alive within the ’90s.

“By the point I used to be developing with Dream Theater within the early ’90s, thrash was beginning to go away, grunge was killing all of us. We had been all combating grunge, whether or not you had been steel or prog or no matter, so Pantera to me was the band that carried the flag. When Metallica was going by their modifications and Anthrax had been going by their modifications, Pantera was carrying the steel flag all through the ’90s. And I’ve to provide credit score to perhaps Machine Head and Sepultura, as properly.

“Pantera, they took the heaviness of the thrash and pace steel world, however they actually gave it a groove. I at all times appreciated that. That they had a Texas swing they usually had that swagger they usually had the riffs and the heaviness of all these heavy thrash and pace steel bands, however they’d the swagger of Mötley Crüe or Weapons N’ Roses, as bizarre as it’s to say. And that’s perhaps why they toured with Skid Row when this album got here out.

“Vinnie Paul performed with a swing and a groove that lots of thrash and pace steel drummers perhaps didn’t have. And I say that with all due respect, as a result of lots of these drummers blow my thoughts and are extremely influential on me, however Vinnie, like a Mikkey Dee [King Diamond, Motörhead], had that swagger and that groove and actually made these riffs that Dimebag was enjoying simply actually swing and groove.”