Original subtitles

That's what it was all about.

Energy. Energy, aggression, power.

[bandmate] To sum it up, it's a...

Vulgar display of power, is what our shows are about.

-[♪ "Walk" by Pantera playing] -Pantera was like a machine.

Just an unstoppable wrecking ball of sheer power.

♪ Re... ♪

-♪ ...spect ♪ -As a band, we were good.

♪ Walk ♪

But it was Dime's guitar playing

that blew everybody's minds.

He was pushing the limits of what he could get out of a guitar.

[♪ electric guitar solo]

When he would be crushing the guitar, it was just his personality.

That's what comes through.

He's always that spark plug.

Lost one. [laughs]

[Grady Champion] And he gave every bit of himself to every fan that he could.

It was family, it was a bond. It was like blood, you know?

It's the real shit.

[Grady] Pantera was one of those things where I just thought would never stop.

[crowd cheering]

[newscaster] This is another Fox News alert.

Real-life horror playing out at an Ohio nightclub.

There were people running everywhere, just chaos.

[shouting]

The motive at this point did appear that he was targeting the band.

How could a fan turn on him?

How could that even be possible?

[Rita Haney] You think all of these things.

"Could I have seen this coming?"

But I just-- I needed to know. I needed to understand.

Police are now investigating if the gunman

targeted Abbott for breaking up the band Pantera.

[Phil Anselmo] He had notebook after notebook

writing how he was gonna kill Pantera.

[Rita] When you are grieving,

you need someone to blame to cope.

And Philip was that person.

And that was out of anger.

[Phil] He has pinned the guilt on the wrong guy.

I was the villain, and it makes people take sides.

It was just a communication breakdown.

It just kept growing into something else.

We were just letting that rift get bigger and bigger,

and it never should have

'cause I know how much those guys loved each other.

[Phil] There's the old saying, when you're in a band,

it's like a marriage.

The more honesty you could bring to the table,

the better.

When you don't do it,

then you're looking at the Pantera story.

[crowd] Pantera!

Well, it's not pretty.

-[VCR whirring] -[♪ heavy rock music playing]

[static crackles]

[crowd cheering]

[newscaster] Four US heavy metal bands helped rock Moscow

at a concert celebrating the victory of democracy

in the Soviet Union.

[Dimebag Darrell] Get offered to go to Moscow,

play with Metallica, AC/DC,

and we just go, "We gotta do it."

Has it hit you yet you're opening up for a million people?

[Dimebag] I can't wait.

[Grady] It was just people as far as you could see.

You talk about terrifying.

Like, there's nothing like that feeling.

That feeling cannot be bottled.

You know, we'd been on stages before, but nothing like the enormity of that.

We just wanted to keep things pure, heavy metal.

And at that time...

we were a damn good band, man.

This is called Domination!

[♪ band playing "Domination"]

[Rita] If you loved that kind of music, you couldn't help but move.

I mean, it moved you inside and out.

Fuckin' A!

[Rita] It just came up and grabbed you by the nut sack

and just squeezed you. [chuckles]

♪ Agony is the price that you'll pay in the end ♪

Like with great musicians, it's not so much you hear them,

but you feel them.

Dime was just a force.

[♪ electric guitar solo]

[Grady] Some nights, he'd come up to me and he'd go,

"I'ma do some improvising tonight and do some Randy Rhoads shit."

And he would just nail it.

[♪ frenetic electric guitar music playing]

[crowd cheering]

[Dimebag] Anything I do,

I like to fucking just go with it, you know?

I mean, to really feel something and to fucking hammer something

means a hell of a lot more than 20 million notes.

-[♪ band playing heavy riff] -[crowd cheering]

[Jerry Cantrell] He was in control of his instrument in a way

I could only equate to like Eddie Van Halen

or something like that.

He was like an alien creature on the guitar.

[Dimebag] It's more intimate to me to play the guitar from the heart.

It's not like something you can try to earn either.

You know, either you've got that or you don't.

[♪ electric guitar solo]

[crowd cheering]

[cheering fades out]

[Rita] Sometimes it's hard to not let yourself

get stuck and frozen in the past.

We both were only 38 when he was taken.

We met when we were around eight years old.

We shared our love of KISS.

That was our first concert together.

We still had a lot of time together, so I have to be grateful for that...

and remind myself not to get angry or mad.

He was my best friend.

[♪ somber music playing]

I've had 20 years to think about a lot of things,

and I just hope that he knows I understand

how hard he worked to be who he was.

And I don't want anyone to forget that.

[♪ playing "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath]

[Bobby Tongs] I went to the same junior high that Darrell did.

He was already pretty much a legend here in Arlington, Texas.

He'd won like several guitar contests.

They said, "You can't play in these anymore.

You've already won like three or four of 'em."

[Dimebag] I went to turn in a tape again

and they said, "Look, man, just be a judge, dude.

You already won everything you can win. Give somebody else a shot at it."

[Rita] Darrell, he didn't know theory. He didn't know how to read music.

He was just natural, I guess.

[Dimebag] The only dude that really taught me anything was my dad,

and he plays anything from rock to country,

and he's always cutting his own tunes.

Dude, he just blows me away.

[Rita] And then his brother, Vinnie, was a really killer drummer.

[Dimebag] I've never jammed with another drummer.

Me and him are like attached.

I mean, we're just one chunk, man.

Vinnie Paul from Pantera. Head basher, bash!

[Rita] Them two together, that plan was in place.

Hey, I'm Diamond Darrell Abbott, lead guitars.

And that plan was, "We're gonna be the Van Halen brothers."

[Rex Brown] This is when they had first got the name Pantera.

And when they asked me to join the band, of course I said yeah.

This is Rex rockin' from Pantera.

If you like it hot and heavy, we got it.

[Rex] Vinnie and Darrell,

their dad was kind of managing us on the side.

We put out three records and got a little bit of acclaim at home.

Back then, everyone was blown away with Pantera.

Plus the guitar player was a badass.

A little bit later,

we learned that their singer had left the band.

I want you to know that we're gonna be here tomorrow night, too.

[Phil] They went through replacement singers,

trying to keep their momentum.

I was in a local band in New Orleans.

My guitar player, who turned me on to the band,

was like, "Oh shit." [chuckles]

We pulled up to this tiny little studio.

I don't think I had said a full sentence.

Dimebag just started playing a song.

I just immediately started singing with him.

You know, that's magic.

I mean, you don't even need to speak.

Let the music do the talking.

[Rex] Philip brought a lot of swagger

and a thing called groove.

And when you put him and Darrell together,

it was chemistry like no other.

It was hot, you know? [laughs]

It was funny, too,

the playfulness between Philip and Darrell.

My official first love song from him,

he comes out on stage, it's Valentine's Day, and he goes,

"This is the only love song I wrote for my chick,"

and he actually said it out loud to everyone.

[crowd cheering]

[♪ playing "P*S*T*88"]

And I'm like, "Oh, my God." You know, I was horrified.

But at the same time I was like, "Kick-ass."

♪ Pussy tight ♪

[Phil] Yeah, it was laughable.

But does "Pussy Tight" not have a ripping riff now?

[♪ playing "P*S*T*88" riff]

[singing indistinctly]

[Phil] It was noticeable that this was indeed

a heavier direction than the previous records.

And he saw it clearly.

It was focusing what he was so good at, goddamn it, you know?

And... whew!

They lost the singer that wanted to do the commercial thing.

We wanted to get heavier.

-We got heavier. -That's right.

I remember when Dimebag wrote the riff to Cowboys from Hell.

[♪ playing "Cowboys from Hell"]

It was crushing. It was a crushing sound.

♪ Oh, come on ♪

It felt like it had already clicked for us before we even wrote the record.

Man, the first time I heard Cowboys, I was like, "What the fuck is that?"

♪ You see us comin' and you-- ♪

-♪ All together run for cover ♪ -♪ All together run for cover ♪

[Rex] That song gave us the catalyst to get over the hump.

We just need to get on a label that'll get us in front of people.

[Rita] And then it happened when no one was looking.

They were playing at this little rinky-dink place

that was rented out for a birthday party.

It was the gig they got signed at. [chuckles]

♪ We're taking over this town ♪

[Phil] We were just drunk at a bar one night.

Dime, he says to me, "One day, kids are gonna know your voice

and they're gonna love you, man."

I'm just like, "No, man. You're dreaming."

[interviewer] "Cowboys from Hell"...

[Phil] But he believed it, man.

[Rita] It was weird. It all came together pretty fast.

Ain't I cute?

Next thing you know, they're gonna go out on a tour,

and they rent a Winnebago

and tear the shit out of that thing. [chuckles]

They toured that whole year,

busting their ass to get people to know who they were.

And it's one of the toughest things

to live in a box with 15 swinging dicks, you know?

[Rex] But it was always fun.

-[bandmate 1] Is this where we're playing? -[bandmate 2] Yeah, it is.

There was never a dull moment, man.

-[knuckles tapping] -Who's there?

[Rex] The shenanigans he used to pull up just out of thin air

to keep us amused.

Sometimes I even freak myself out.

Darrell throws me this big VHS camera.

He's like, "We're gonna film everything. You gotta be quick with it."

Welcome to the Pantera home video.

-Yeah! -Whoo!

[Phil] They were like, "We should build pot leaves for the stage."

And they did it.

And I was like, "Yeah, dude, I'll bust up the fake joint."

[crowd cheering]

That was like the loudest people cheered for us.

Smoke weed!

We were like, really?

He loved to see joy in other people's faces.

He's never shunned anybody

or made anybody feel like they were a stranger.

Everybody was a friend.

Everybody's pretty straight-on people, you know?

I'll share my beer with you,

-you know, and just hang out. -[fans screaming]

Everybody's totally cool, man.

[Grady] The joy of having friends, man, and having parties.

It was always Dime pulling us ahead.

He was the cheerleader. He really was.

You know that's right.

-[bandmate] Jesus Christ! -[Dimebag] No.

[group laughs]

[Rita] Cowboys was a great start.

But man, Vulgar, that locked it in.

[TV host] It's the coolest record of recent history

and you gotta check it out.

It's Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power.

[Rex] As we mixed that record, we knew what we had on our hands.

I said, "This is gonna be something special, man."

[interviewer] It seems like every record gets heavier and meaner.

Would you kind of agree?

Yes.

[Rita] The magic those four brought out of each other

can't be duplicated, and it was becoming a monster.

Right now we're gonna be playing a video from Pantera.

♪ Can't you see I'm easily bothered by persistence? ♪

That record put us on a totally different path from then on out.

[interviewer] Your fans are mental. They're out of their mind.

[Butt-Head] Pantera kicks everybody's ass.

[chuckling]

-Congratulations on going gold, man. -Right on.

[Rex] We never said, "Well, this is the peak.

We can't go any higher."

'Cause there's always higher.

Yeah!

It's all up to us writing a great third record

and not selling out, not losing our integrity at all.

[♪ "I'm Broken" playing]

[reporter] Far Beyond Driven, Pantera's third major-label release,

surprised just about everybody when it debuted at number one.

No metal band has ever done that.

[♪ "I'm Broken" continues playing]

♪ I'm broken ♪

The whole record, it's just one big, uh, Satanic issue.

[group laughs]

♪ I'm broken ♪

Shows the bond between us and our live audience.

[crowd] Pantera! Pantera!

We made this record for you, the fans, and for ourselves. That's it, man.

[Rita] Gaining that momentum and boom, that record,

it elevates you even more to the top of your game?

It just was incredible.

[Grady] It was this progression from clubs to theaters

to amphitheaters per record.

It felt natural. That's where these fellas should be.

This is where these fellas were gonna get this entire time, no matter what.

♪ Look at me now ♪

When you thought it couldn't get any better, it just kept getting better.

[crowd cheering]

[Phil] That's what you work for your whole career.

Everybody else was living the dream and loving it.

But I was miserable, man.

Coming in at number one, bro, that's the same fucking day

I found out that I had my second blown-out disc, so...

It's all my fucking fault. It's my antics.

He would jump off the risers so much during the set and stomp around so hard,

I would like be going like, "Whoa," you know?

"Don't hit your head on the ceiling."

When you're younger, you know, you think you're invincible,

nothing's gonna hurt you or anything.

But, you know, nobody knew what was gonna happen.

[Phil] At that moment, there is no fucking chance

I could have said, "Fellas, it wouldn't be wise

for me to do the job."

I said, "What do I do?

How am I gonna do the next gig, Dimebag?"

"Just get up and stretch, you know."

It's like, "Dude, wait, no.

It's beyond that, brother."

I asked the doctors, "What do I do, man?

You won't give me surgery."

"You would never recover." That's what I heard.

They said, "Take the medication and drink if you got to."

And that's exactly what I did, so...

The point of every day was to try and numb that butcher knife

in my lower back.

My morale was in the toilet.

My drug addiction was growing by the day.

I couldn't stop

when I should have stopped.

[Rita] No one saw that coming.

Everybody was so busy and caught up in their own pressures

and things they were dealing with,

that I guess that was the start of a rift.

And it got ugly.

[Phil] Dimebag, the same dude who told me kids were gonna love me

and I was gonna be famous and all this shit

is looking at me like, "What is fucking wrong with you?

"Back problem?

Brother, you got a drug problem."

And he wasn't wrong.

[♪ somber music playing]

[Phil] This fucking back injury,

I was in so much pain.

And my friendship with everybody changed, man.

At that time, I spent a lot of time alone.

And on the road I would get my own bus,

I would get my own room.

Every day was about being obliterated

on some type-- type of narcotic.

I was possessed by this evil spirit.

This heroin shit.

[Rita] They were in the studio recording The Great Southern Trendkill.

That was the start of a rift.

It was the first record I didn't have them around me.

I stayed in New Orleans.

I would go shoot dope up and work that way, you know.

[Grady] None of us had any clue that he was doing that, you know?

And what kind of blinders did we all have on?

It was like, did we all have on blinders that we didn't want to know?

Philip was, uh... He was a tough-ass, you know?

He didn't let people know.

You don't want them to see you at your worst.

You push 'em away.

Them two loved each other the most, you know?

And that is what you do.

And that's when that eye-awakening event

happened at the Dallas show here.

[Phil] Sold-out show.

[crowd cheering]

Everybody's family was there.

I scored a big ball of tar heroin.

-[lighter clicking] -It was an absurd shot.

Root beer dark.

[rubber creaking]

And I said, as it came on...

"Wow."

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[Bobby] And then we hear screaming.

So I ran over there.

And Phil's on the bathroom floor,

and his skin's starting to turn bluish hue.

Paramedics finally got there,

and we got him to the ambulance.

[Rita] Darrell and I, we just hugged each other

and like, I felt him just kind of fall on me.

Like, I was trying to hold him.

We didn't think he was alive, you know?

And, uh... And he wasn't.

At that point, Phil was dead, and it was like, what the fuck's going on?

[Phil gasping]

[Phil] And then I woke up puking in the back of a ambulance.

[sighs]

Just...

Dimebag, that hurt him so much, man.

I regret that.

It's humiliating.

[Grady] I regret us all not coming together

and being there for him.

None of us were mature enough to figure it out.

-[objects crashing] -[bandmate] Yeah!

[Grady] Nobody was grown-up, you know what I'm saying?

It was just a freight train.

When you come out of something like that and you wake up,

and you just-- You see how it affects everybody around you,

there's no way that could ever happen again, you know?

[Vinnie Paul] In a weird way, too,

it brought us all a lot closer together and...

[Phil] Very much so.

...we've taken it not as a negative, but as a positive.

[Rita] After that, when they would record,

this was home for him, with Darrell.

[Phil] His house became a great beacon.

We jammed there, we recorded there.

One of the better times was the final record.

[♪ "Yesterday Don't Mean Shit" playing]

Reinventing the Steel, man. That was a good session, man.

We were very much all together.

Everybody's in a good spirit.

I think we had really captured what the true essence of Pantera was.

Back to basics.

Old-school heavy metal.

I take no insult, dude.

I got to admit, I was feeling pretty good on that tour, too.

♪ 'Cause yesterday don't mean shit ♪

♪ What's over is over and nothing between ♪

[Rita] The confidence that they had in each other,

it just showed in the energy on stage.

[Grady] And it just sounded amazing.

But it goes back to how he was playing it, you know?

It was like those guys were being reborn, to me.

[Phil] Alright, goddamn it, we're fucking Pantera!

[Grady] I just remember things being positive, you know,

and things were in a good place.

You know, and then 9/11 happened.

But we just got a report in

that there's been some sort of explosion

at the World Trade Center in New York.

[Phil] We were doing the European leg of the tour,

went to the hotel.

The tour manager calls me, bellowing,

"Turn on the TV! They're blowing up America!"

[Rita] It was crazy. It was chaos.

And I remember finally, I got to talk to Darrell.

This is Dimebag, strapped up at the airport, man.

[Rita] And, uh, he's like, "Alright, I'm coming home."

I think the farthest thing from his mind was actually playing and jamming.

The guys felt like it wasn't gonna be safe.

Who knows what's happening, you know,

if there's a war starting or what's going on?

Been a while since I taught guitar lessons.

[Rita] When they had come back,

they had spoke with Elektra Records and everything,

and it was decided that, "Hey, maybe this was time.

"Let's go and take a six-month hiatus

and then start working on a Pantera record."

So he was able to just crash out and not have that anxiety of not touring

or anything like that.

[cameraperson] This is Dime. He's fixing to get a pedicure.

But with Philip,

none of us realized where his head was.

It was just that separation,

and things spiraled back the other way.

I wouldn't have made it through that tour drug-wise,

'cause I then had three blown-out discs.

I was shooting up OxyContins at the time.

[Grady] I regret us all not trying to go down a different path,

you know, because it was just, just so destructive.

[Phil] It got to a point where I was so low,

I quit answering the phone, period.

[Grady] Everything that we've worked for

and everything that we've achieved up to this point,

just all of a sudden just poof, up in smoke.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[Rex] We had had a break around 1999,

and Philip called to say, "Hey, man, why don't you come down to New Orleans

just to spend a weekend."

That became the impetus of Down.

[Phil] Down started out as a jam thing.

Just something we would do to have fun.

And Superjoint Ritual, it was the same thing.

They all started organically enough.

But then I pushed it too much.

[Rex] When 9/11 happened, there wasn't any really bad blood

other than the wear and tear of all those years on the road.

But did we need a break at that point? Yeah, abso-fuckin-lutely.

[Rita] Phil called saying, "I just want to put my music out.

"I'm not trying to tour or anything.

"We're taking a six-month hiatus

and then we're gonna start working on a Pantera record."

That was what was said.

And then all of a sudden, they were touring.

My next plan is to do something with Superjoint Ritual

and then do something with Down again, you know?

It just kept growing into something else.

Yes, I'm still playing with Pantera, I guess,

unless, you know, they're against me.

[Rex] Dime called and he goes, "Look, I'm kinda hurt by all this."

"Dude, it just came up. We just went and played these dates."

That's when my relationship with Darrell started to fracture, too,

over me being with Down.

I was starting to end up being on the other side

of this line that got drawn in the sand.

Nobody communicated with each other.

Just kept letting that rift get bigger and bigger.

Then Philip started to fall back in that hole.

There is a drug called methadone.

[interviewer] Oh!

[Rita] Vinnie would wake us up daily,

"Did you hear what Philip said today?"

That whole media thing, he said, she said.

Philip said this, and yeah.

It was ridiculous.

I shouldn't have been doing interviews at all.

I didn't know what was gonna come out of my mouth.

To be looked down upon by Vinnie

because of my friendship with Philip,

I'm not the one that's saying it, Jack.

You need to call him.

[Rita] Darrell and Vinnie had set up a meeting,

and Philip and Rex, they didn't show up.

Okay, then that's our answer.

We're done.

They didn't want to be a part of it anymore,

and we couldn't continue to sit around and wait and wait and wait.

Best of luck to them as individuals.

Best of luck to them as a band.

That was all so fucking regretful, man.

You gotta have communication, period.

No matter what.

This is just one of them riffs I wrote, you know.

[Rita] Darrell had been kind of working on a few songs.

End up in the key of F.

[Rita] He kept working on it, and Jerry Cantrell was there.

You know, I would show up to their house sometimes,

sometimes unannounced.

You know, hanging out with them there and jamming on stuff,

and I think he was always pushing himself as a musician,

and he was really curious.

Him and Vinnie both had a pretty strong vision

about what they wanted to do.

I think they wanted to do something different than Pantera.

[newscaster] Well, the group Pantera had chart-topping success

in the 1990s, now, two of the founding members

of the Dallas-based band have a new plan, called Damageplan.

[crowd cheering]

Took so much work to get to where they got.

It was like, "God, it's like starting all over again."

[Rita] He hated starting over.

"I don't want to be playing these little bitty clubs.

I don't want to do all of this all over again."

He goes, "'Cause I'm not happy."

[Zakk Wylde] At that point, I always told him, I said,

"At the end of the day," I was like, "Dime, you're still playing

"and you're still crushing it.

And you're playing with your brother."

I said, you know, "Keep inspiring kids and everything like that.

"Eventually, you guys are gonna get back together, man.

Everybody takes a little break. Have fun, man."

[Rita] I know, in the end there,

Darrell had talked to Rex on the phone.

He was making communications with them.

He was going to fix this.

[Rex] We had planned on getting together over Christmas.

And he said, "The road just beat me up. I've gotta get home."

And I hung up the phone.

I remember we were both crying on the phone.

Right after Thanksgiving, he called me and he's like,

"What's up, dude?" We hadn't seen each other in two years.

And, uh, we talked on the phone till the sun came up.

You know, I couldn't imagine what my life would be right now

if him and I hadn't had that conversation.

He wanted to go back to Pantera for sure.

He's like, "If I have to get in a car and drive to New Orleans,

we're gonna get it back together and we're gonna do it again."

He said, "I love you." I said, "I love you." And that was it.

That was the last time I saw him.

Never in a million years did I think

that we would not have ever gotten back together.

And-- And that fateful day in-- on December 8th of, uh, 2004...

sealed that.

Some things you just can't control.

[crowd cheering]

[crowd] Damageplan! Damageplan!

Damageplan! Damageplan!

[Rita] I remember talking to him that night.

And just out of nowhere he hit me with, uh,

"You know what? I hadn't said it in a while, but I love you."

And I was just like, so happy, you know?

It was-- It was a good-- good phone call, good day.

And, yeah, he was coming home. He'd be home soon.

And, uh, that was our last thing...

[voice breaking] ...you know, before he went on stage, so...

[announcer] Alrosa, here they are!

Damageplan!

[James Niggemeyer] So the Alrosa Villa is a local concert venue,

and typically it was always rock or metal music.

That night, I just happened to be going eastbound

on Morse Road, which is the direction towards the Alrosa Villa.

And that's when the call went out that there was a shooting.

The suspect, he didn't enter through the front door,

so he wasn't checked by security.

He jumped the fence to get into the venue.

He just walked straight to the left side of the stage,

went up the steps, and drew the gun and went straight across the stage.

[♪ heavy metal music playing]

-[gunshots] -[band screaming]

[crowd screaming]

[James] It was just chaos.

[dispatch line ringing]

[crowd shouting]

[gunshots]

[♪ somber music playing]

[Rita] My phone started ringing with this weird area code,

and I'm like, "Who is this?"

And, "It's Vinnie. It's Vinnie fucking Paul, goddamn it.

I just saw my brother get shot."

And I go, "What?"

'Cause I was like, "Did I hear you right? Are you sure?"

I go, "Where are you?"

And he goes, "I'm in the kitchen. I got a butcher knife."

[stammering] I didn't know what to say or do.

I was-- I go, "Are you okay?"

And he goes, "I'll call you back when I know something,"

And he hung up.

[crowd shouting]

[speaker] What the fuck, man?

I remember vividly when I pulled in the parking lot,

somebody came and started pointing me in a direction to go.

As soon as I opened my door, I grabbed a shotgun.

When I step into the back door,

I didn't hear or see anything else.

[♪ tense music playing]

I kind of got really tunnel visioned,

and everything else went dark, and it was surreal.

I look across the stage.

I could see the suspect holding a hostage in a headlock.

He was holding Kat Brooks, Vinnie's drum tech.

As I worked my way across the stage,

he put the gun to the hostage's head.

I know for a fact that he's not afraid to shoot more people.

At that point, I remember pulling up the gun and saying,

"Uh-uh, you're not shooting him."

[gunshot]

[overlapping shouting]

[James] After I shot, I was like,

"Wow, that was fast. What just happened?"

Your mind's spinning at that point.

I don't even know if it's describable.

[Rita] And then I got a call. It was Vinnie.

[voice breaking] He started to cry.

He goes, "Rita, they wouldn't tell me anything."

[Rita] He kept asking,

"What do you know about my brother?"

They had said that some people had died.

And he goes, "Look, can you just tell me this?

Does one of them have a guitar tattooed on their arm?"

And he said, "Yes."

I didn't know what to do. I...

[sniffles] And Vinnie just kept saying, "I'm so sorry, Rita."

And I go, "What do you need me to do? Do you need me to come there?"

He goes, "I don't know."

And I go, "I don't know what to do either."

[♪ somber music playing]

[Grady] It was 2:00 in the morning.

A guy who I'm friends with right now just calling the landline at the house.

All he's-- he's screaming is, he's like,

"Dime's dead! Dime's dead, dude. Dime's fucking been shot!"

You know, and I'm like...

Didn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it.

And I'm thinking, "Well, I'm sure they're gonna save him in the hospital,"

and just all this stuff, you know.

I'm still emotional about that.

There's certain things that are private to me, you know.

I don't remember who told me.

I was out of my fucking mind.

I know I was loaded.

And I know I got on the phone with Rita and I misspoke.

I ma-- I-- I didn't know what the fuck I was saying.

I didn't know what the fuck was going on.

He said, um,

"Right things happen to right people."

I will never forget that line.

And I was like, "What did you fucking say?

"If you show up here,

I will blow your goddamn head off myself."

I didn't mean to upset Rita. I love Rita.

I've known Rita since the day

I fucking moved to fucking Texas.

Jesus, man.

[♪ tense music playing]

[James] I got home early in the morning.

And so I turned on the news to try to see what the media had to say.

A deadly shooting at an Ohio nightclub.

Sending shock waves through the music world.

[newscaster] The ex-Pantera guitarist...

Heard this pop, pop, pop.

[reporter] The makeshift memorial continues to grow.

As you've heard, it took until this morning

for police to identify for the public

that the shooter was 25-year-old Nathan Gale of Marysville.

And though the motive behind the shooting is still a mystery,

25-year-old Nathan Gale was a former Marine

discharged early in 2003 for undisclosed reasons.

He lived alone in a small Marysville apartment.

[James] Through the investigation, I came to find out

that he was a paranoid schizophrenic,

that apparently he wasn't taking his medication.

I came to find out that there was a prior incident

with him and the band in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He, uh, went on stage then, too.

Some kind of a scuffle broke out damaging a bunch of equipment.

The band didn't want to press charges.

He was trespassed from the property.

[Rita] He felt that they were telling his thoughts

through their lyrics,

and that he needed to put a stop to it.

His mother, she bought him this gun.

He wasn't supposed to have this.

I'm like, why didn't we get a heads-up about this?

Why weren't we alerted?

'Cause at least if we knew somebody out there

thought those things, that maybe we could have...

Things could have been different.

[reporter] And as you can see behind me,

earlier more than 100 people were here

to pay tribute to a rock musician who died inside.

[Rita] You know, the people that were really at that show,

the way that that had to affect them, to have to see that,

to... to live through that,

I wish I could take that away for 'em.

[Joe] I came here to pay my respects. I'm a big fan.

I just felt like I had to-- had to be here.

[James] A lot of people lost their lives that night for no reason.

I mean, it was senseless.

There was Jeff Thompson, the band's security guard.

Thompson was killed going after the suspect.

Nathan Bray, he jumped on stage.

Erin Halk, who was a security guard for the Alrosa Villa.

And, of course, Dimebag.

But he didn't know anything.

There were five rounds and they were all,

you know, the back of the head.

But it was instant.

He was playing, jamming for the crowd,

and that was the last thing he knew.

When you go through something like that and you don't understand why,

you got to-- You try to find the reason or something to blame.

And Philip was that person.

[Phil] You can't help how other people feel.

You know, I had to get right with his death by myself.

It's crushing.

It's real.

It's...

I can't...

I can't do it, man.

[♪ somber music playing]

[newscaster] Tonight, a makeshift memorial

continues to grow outside Abbott's house in Dalworthington Gardens.

[Rita] It was almost a week later

before Darrell was released to come home.

And it was kind of a shock.

Vinnie looked at me immediately, he started to cry,

and he goes, "People can't see him like this."

And I go, "I know."

And he goes, "You gotta fix him. You gotta-- You gotta fix him."

And I go, "I will."

Started to put his jewelry back in,

and that's when I realized I couldn't put his earrings in

[choking up] because there was nowhere to put them.

[sighs]

The whole time when I was doing that stuff...

all these little things kept popping in my head,

and funny stuff and little memories and stories.

And it was like this whole conversation

that I was having with him this whole time.

It was good moments with him still.

[♪ wistful music playing]

I was glad that I had that.

And when I could step back and actually think

and-- and realize it was worse punishment

for Philip and Rex to know that they weren't right with him,

I couldn't imagine having to live with that.

People want my reaction to what happened.

This is not about me.

After all the war, you know, after all the stuff...

they didn't want me at the damn funeral.

And I never got a chance to say goodbye

in the right way, and it kills me,

and I'm so sorry.

That's pretty lonely, you know?

Pretty lonesome time.

I love him...

like a brother loves a brother.

I had convinced Vinnie to let Rex come.

I really tried for Philip,

uh, but Vinnie did not want to see him

'cause he needed someone to blame to cope.

Because you do that when you are grieving.

Even I, myself, I needed someone to blame.

It was a heartfelt goodbye as thousands of people

paid tribute to murdered guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott.

We flew in and, you know, in true Dime style,

they wanted it to be a celebration.

[reporter] Fans crowded into the Arlington Convention Center's main ballroom

as some of the most famous faces of rock...

[Rita] Eddie Van Halen was there.

And he goes, "An original deserves an original."

And Ed brought him an original.

Took the guitar and placed it in with him.

All I kept thinking in my head was,

"Dude, look what you got. Look what you got." [chuckles]

I don't think he ever realized

how much he touched people.

[Vinnie] He had a special talent for making you feel like you were number one.

It didn't matter who you were or what you did, that's just how he was.

Vinnie never did like to talk about it

'cause then it would remind him that he wasn't here.

[Vinnie] We grew up like best friends,

you know, because we had a common love, and that was music, you know?

[Rita] I think it was the same way with Pantera's music.

Like, he couldn't hear it.

[Vinnie] With my brother no longer being here,

there's no such thing as a reunion for that band.

I'm not worried about whether people want to live in the past or not.

Man, if you live in the past, you got no future.

[Rita] Vinnie's resentments, he never got past that.

That's not what Darrell felt at that time.

Sad news to report here out of the music world.

The drummer and co-founder of metal band Pantera has died.

[Rita] As for Vinnie, what he was devoted to

and what was in his heart would always be with his brother.

But Philip was not responsible for what happened to Darrell.

[Phil] I would not listen to Pantera for years.

And then, on a whim,

put on... some stuff.

And I gotta say,

every time I'd be crazily impressed

and reminded of how fucking goddamn severe that band was, man.

[exhales sharply]

[Rita] I know he left the best mark in the world

by what he put out there for the short time he was here,

but I want to know when I'm not here,

the world doesn't forget him.

And to live through his music, it's gotta be played.

After so many years,

Phil was doing a thing

where he was playing Pantera songs, and so I went.

Every time, every night that we play these fucking songs,

it is a maximum tribute

to Dimebag and Vince, man.

-Give it up for 'em. -[crowd cheering]

[Rita] And I didn't realize that that was the therapy

that I didn't know I needed.

And for him, it's tenfold.

I have to sit back and really ask myself, you know,

"Okay, what would Dime do?" You know?

He was going to fix this, and he told me that.

The Philip I know today

is the Philip Darrell knew and loved.

And I know Darrell would be standing by his side in a heartbeat.

And Vinnie would, too,

because then Vinnie wouldn't have had to go through

some of the bitterness that put him at odds with Philip,

because Darrell would still be here.

He knew who he was in his heart.

No matter what he called it, he was always going to be Pantera.

Pantera needs to be his last music.

[Rick Beato] In an exciting update from the metal world last year...

I'm hot.

...we learned that Rex Brown and Phil Anselmo

were reuniting for a monumental event:

Pantera's first tour in over two decades.

[♪ heavy rock music playing]

[Rex] Philip and I looked each other in the eye.

I said, uh, "Do you want to do this?"

"Wholeheartedly."

[Phil] How many, it's your first time to see Pantera?

-Let's see. -[crowd cheering]

[Rita] A lot of these kids today never got to see them.

So, with the Pantera Celebration, you know,

finally they get to have a piece of magic.

[Phil] I fucking love it, man. I do.

[Rita] Feeling it around you, just getting to hear it in that setting,

and it being so huge and thunderous,

you can close your eyes and it can take you back.

[♪ "Cowboys from Hell" playing]

♪ Oh, come on ♪

[Phil] I still feel like the fucking kid when Dimebag said,

"Man, your voice is gonna be famous."

I'm just like, "No, man."

♪ Under the lights where we stand tall ♪

♪ Nobody touches us at all ♪

He's been gone 20 years now,

and I still get little glimpses of him up there on the stage.

I really do.

Anywhere we're playing, I'm like going, "Dime, Vinnie, check it out."

♪ We're the cowboys from hell ♪

[Zakk] Every day when we think of Dime and I play his stuff,

he's still alive.

[crowd cheering]

And that's why we're out here celebrating him every night.

[Rita] It's healing for Philip and Rex,

for the crew that's out there,

for the fans.

You know, music is the healer.

[Rex] Here we are 45 years later.

We've come a long way with this band.

This is all about Dime

and what he meant to so many people, not just me.

God bless him, wherever he is, man.

Pantera, it will always be them four.

But the celebration continues, this legacy for him,

and for Vinnie, too.

It's like Vinnie and Dime put their arms around you and they just hug you.

It's so moving.

People talk about closure.

I don't like to use that word because I just don't think

that door's ever gonna close with him and I.

He's still so much of my world every day,

and I am so thankful for that.

I think about other people, and-- And how they probably forget

how someone smells, or...

their voice, or-- You know?

[voice breaking] And I don't ever have to forget.

His voice has never left me, you know.

Never.

Just, I-- I miss him, you know?

I think about him every day, and I miss him.

You know, he just made me me.

I mean, I've never met anybody else like him in my life.

He was one of my best friends.

We just had fun together.

[Dimebag] I mean, your real friends are your true friends,

and they'll always be there, you know?

It's like you get off tour from jamming

and you get back on tour with your buds at home

and keep wielding, you know.

It's cool. I wouldn't change anything, though.

I'm happy.

[♪ wistful music playing]

[Phil] Shit, man.

[sighs]

If I woke up one day...

[both] "Cowboys from Hell."

-We're on the air. -[laughter]

...and there was the proverbial genie's bottle next to me...

Everybody on the count of three say, "Happy birthday, Phil!"

[Phil] ...and an actual genie

came out of the damn bottle and gave me three wishes...

you know where I'm going with this.

I would wish to retain the knowledge of my life...

Yeah!

[Phil] ...but let's start over again and bring it all back

and do it right

'cause that's...

that's my heart.

[♪ gentle music playing]