One of Dime’s many great recorded solos, the one in Floods – from Pantera’s The Great Southern Trendkill – is one of the most celebrated and beloved. And we’re not just talking about his stunning, emotive lead break in the song.
Let’s not forget about Dime’s hauntingly catchy a capella outro passage, which he painted with moody musical perfection on a sonic thunderstorm tapestry.
In fact, when Zakk Wylde plays this arpeggiated outro live, it’s one of the most emotional moments of the electrifying Pantera Celebration concerts. And the enormous impact the outro has on the sold-out arena crowds is made even more powerful by the video montage of the late Abbott brothers, Dime and Vinnie, that’s projected on-screen while Wylde pays homage to his dear friend.
Built around what Dime would refer to as “the Police chord,” in reference to the wide-stretch,“spread-eagle” root-5-add9 chord shape guitarist Andy Summers used extensively in Message in a Bottle, you may have noticed that the Floods outro has a different tone from the rest of the track.
To find out why, read on. I’ll briefly set the scene and then let Dime flush out the Floods outro backstory, one that I keep in my “You just can’t make this shit up” file.
It was about 5:30 in the morning and I was pulling an all-nighter, working on a crunch deadline for the Dimebag “Destroyer! Pantera Returns” cover story for the June 1996 issue of Guitar World. I was busy transcribing the tapes of the lengthy interviews I’d done with Dime at “Camp Strapped” (his nickname for his Texas home), when the phone rang.
“What freaking jack-off would call me at this time of the morning?” I thought to myself as I hit the pause button on my tape recorder and listened as my answering machine picked up. To my amazement, the voice I heard was the same one I was transcribing – it was Dime!
“Hitchcock! Pick up the damned phone,” he shouted. Needless to say, I took the call immediately.
“Nicolas Cage! [one of Dime’s nicknames for me, alongside “Hitchcock”] I’m sorry to call you at such a fucked-up time, but I need your help!” he said. “We’re in New York mastering the album, and I need to re-cut a part this morning. Trouble is, I don’t have any of my shit with me. Is there any way you can get a guitar and a Korg G3 [a digital multi-effects pedal Dime not only liked but endorsed] to me by 9 a.m. today?
“I wrote down Darrell’s hotel room number, the studio address, plus the tuning and string gauges he wanted and promised I’d do everything I could to make it happen. Dime said a Les Paul would definitely do the trick. The only problem was I’m a left-handed player, so one of my guitars wouldn’t cut it, and I didn’t have a Korg G3 at home either.
I poured through my address book and was lucky enough to get ahold of Steve Pisani from Sam Ash Music on 48th Street in New York City. Not only was Pisani fine with me calling him at home (I was nice enough to wait until 7 a.m.) at the crack of dawn, he also was happy to help and stepped up to the plate like the true champ he is.
As a result, a Les Paul (set up and intonated for Dime’s string gauges and tuning) and a G3 were picked up and delivered to the mastering studio by 9 a.m., per Dime’s plea. Phew! If you’re reading this, Mr. Pisani, thanks again; you rule, my friend!
Scene set. As promised, I now hand this over to the words of the late, great Dimebag Darrell, as they will fill you in on the “before and after” segments of this unusual tale.
“This is a pretty good story,” laughed Dime when we chatted about it a few days later. “What happened was this: I remember I was all buzzed-up at the studio one night while we were recording Floods.
“It was really late, and I’d been working all night, but I just wanted to record that ending part that goes over the rain, so that I could hear how it worked with the song as a whole. So I just grabbed this guitar that was lying in the corner and laid the part down on tape in one take.
“The trouble was, that guitar was way out of strobe [intonation] and I remember it sounding kinda sour and messed-up when the part starts to go higher up the neck. I heard it right away, but I didn’t care at the time because I had intended to go back later and re-record the fucker on a properly strobed-out [intonated] guitar. All I wanted to do at the time was hear how the part fitted before I crashed for the night. Somehow, though, like a jackass, I forgot to fix the thing!
“So, there we were, sitting in the mastering suite in New York. I hear it and go, ‘Oh, fuck, I forgot to fix the son-of-a-bitch… I can’t live with that.’ I just plain freaked out. I mean, how could I possibly let such a sour-sounding, outta-tune thing slip by?
We were on a really tight production deadline, and it was really late, but I had to redo it, no matter what
Dimebag Darrell
“We were on a really tight production deadline, and it was really late, but I had to redo it, no matter what. So, we worked through the night and mastered pretty much everything except that one song. Then we split to get a few hours of sleep before finishing up, and that’s when I called you.
“First thing in the morning, a runner came into the studio with the loaner guitar and the Korg G3 pedal you’d set up, and I went, ‘Okay, I’m gonna record it straight to my DAT [Digital Audio Tape] machine and then we’ll fly it in.’ This dude from the record label was there and was totally freaking out.
“His voice was all shaky, and he went, ‘You’re gonna record a part when we’re mastering? You can’t do that! It’s never been done, and I have to have the whole album finished up immediately. There’s a car waiting downstairs and it’s gonna leave in 45 minutes with the mastered album to get it printed. You don’t understand – it’s the Elektra way! We have to have it right away!’”
“I said, ‘No dude, you don’t understand! This is the Pantera way – whatever it takes!’ I set up my shit in another room and went to record the part, but this dickhead from the label had gotten me all wound up. There I was, early in the morning, hungover, trying to record this laidback, mellow part when I was anything but laidback and mellow.
“It just wasn’t clicking. So I slugged back a few beers and a Blacktooth Grin or three [one of Dime’s drinks of choice, consisting of a healthy dose of Crown Royal or Seagram’s 7 whiskey with a splash of Coke], got in the groove and went for it again. I plugged straight into the G3 and played the part two or three times, direct to DAT.
“I then took it into the mastering room, got Vinnie to choose the one he liked the best, and we flew it in. And the record company man got the finished album on time, too. Goddamn! That’s one hell of a story, even though I say it myself!”
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