Today marks seven years since Pantera and Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrell was killed onstage. This week, we are posting remembrances of him by his friends. Today, former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult (pictured left) recalls some of Dimebag’s greatest pranks. Having toured extensively with Pantera, she became close friends with the guys and chronicled that friendship in photos last year with her book I’m in the Band. The new, 100th issue of Revolver, which is available here and on newsstands on December 13, features a free pullout poster of Dimebag.You played some pretty big gigs with Pantera, including some in Japan. What do you remember about those?
It was really funny ’cause we flew with them to Japan, and we’re all the way in the back in economy with all the roadies and crew. And Pantera were up in front in the second level of the airplane in these big swivel chairs, dining like kings. Luckily, I was kind of like their mascot, so I was just hanging out with Pantera the whole time in the upper deck. It was just so funny.
Dimebag had a reputation for being a prankster. Did he ever get you good with a prank?
He did this one he loved so much that he did it twice. I used to wear these engineer boots all the time. And he got like a hundred dollars worth of pennies, and he sent a roadie to run out in the middle of our show and fill pour the pennies into my engineer boots so that they wedged all around my feet and ankles, and they felt like they weighed a hundred pounds. It was just so heavy I could hardly move. And I’d come off stage, and he’d say, “Junior,” he called me Junior, “did you feel weighed down?” He was just fucking with me.
He did so many things. He used to do this horrible character where he put on this old man mask and a cape. He had this huge plastic dildo thing. And he would whip open the cape, and somehow he filled it with dish liquid or something. And somehow that large projecting thing would just start squirting all over everywhere.
And he would do that right in the middle of our show.He did so many pranks constantly. He did the one million and one Super Balls, I think it was St. Louis. Another time, at the end of the tour, they got a snow machine. And they made it snow on us for like an entire song. And all this fake snow was in our gear and fucking up everything. It would just never stop. It was onstage, offstage. He put a big inflatable shark on top of our bus. Everything had some significance and meaning to him, but I don’t remember what that could’ve meant.
Did you ever get him back?
Oh yeah, there’s a photo in my book. He was always talking about his stomach being “clubbed up “when he felt fat. So I had this back brace, because I’d broken a rib on tour, and I made it Darrell’s “club holder,” and I labeled it and slapped it on him. Another time, I think this was actually in a Pantera video, on our first tour with them, Dimebag always used to wear this Nine Inch Nails shirt. So I got this roadie to go on his bus and get his clothes out for me, and then a hat, and then his guitar. I had a little troll doll that had hot pink hair, it looked just like Darrell’s beard, and I taped it on my chin and kind of just mimicked him for a song or two. That was pretty funny, But yeah, whatever we could do, we were just trying to entertain each other all the time. The other thing was he always said “three” when somebody stuck a finger in their ear. Me and my friend in Tokyo made these huge fingers with the number three on them and we were jabbing him in the ears onstage.
It sounds like you were very close. Did you keep in touch after the tours?
Yeah, he was really like a brother to me. We were so close. I hadn’t talked to him in a little while when I moved to New Orleans. We lost a little touch. He was still out there touring. I was unfortunately at the funeral, and it was just very surreal. It’s still impossible to believe that he’s not with us.
Sean Yseult photo by Marina Chavez // Dimebag Photo by Lorinda Sullivan
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Chris “Fatneck McFlabbyass” Krovatin is the author of two young adult novels, Heavy Metal & You and Venomous. He is currently working on multiple new writing projects, as well as new material with his local New York metal band Flaming Tusk. He is a freelance writer for Revolver and generally comes off as a good-natured pain in everyone’s collective ass.
Let me be frank with you guys: I totally love Revolver’s Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock issue. It’s arguably my highlight of the heavy-music-magazine year (second only, of course, to the Hit Parader Dick-Touching Tournament). Now, while some readers may snicker and say, “Of course you do, Chris, you fat fucking onanist,” you’re missing the point. The issue is rarely tawdry or disrespectful, but rather a reminder to myself, and hopefully to others out there, that there are many confident, talented, and beautiful women making extreme music right now. (To be fair, though, as a man who likes his women reality-based, the issue could use a plus-size metal chick or two.)
Similarly, I don’t respect an all-male metal band unless at least one of them looks like he’s going to eat my face, take 30 shits, and die. For dudes in extreme metal, hideousness is currency; in fact, the misshapen mugs of Jagger, Vicious, and Kilmeister lead me to believe that rock and roll itself is saturated with a tradition of calculated freakishness amongst men, which only adds to their overall sexiness. When I see a metal singer trying to gyrate me into submission, I get pissed; when he looks like the thing next to the trashcan I passed on the way through the parking lot, I’m down like a clown. So, step right up, Golden Gods and gross bastards alike, for my picks for the Six Hottest Chicks and Ugliest Dudes in Metal.
The Six Hottest Chicks In Metal:
1) Doro Pesch Not only is Doro still incredibly fine in her 40s, she’s also unspeakably metal. When you imagine a post-apocalyptic warrior woman, you think of Doro Pesch. No. 1, easily.
2) Liz Buckingham of Electric Wizard Every metalhead dreams of finding a cute blonde in a denim vest who just wants to smoke weed, worship Satan, and play thunderous doom-metal guitar all day. So simply put: Ms. Buckingham is every metalhead male’s dream come true.
3) Karen Cuda of Nashville Pussy The streaky-haired bassist for Southern metal’s filthiest band is an energetic biker babe built for sin. There’s something enchanting about a woman who might beat you up…
4) Sean Yseult of White Zombie With the face of a cherub, the bass of a mortician, and the threads of a sideshow freak, Ms. Yseult will always be remembered as as the band member who brought credible sexiness to one of the sexiest bands in metal. Unless you’re really into dreadlocks and cowboy hats.
5) Grace Perry of Landmine Marathon Not only is Landmine Marathon’s singer one of the most brutifal vocalists in metal, but she’s incredibly nice, and a Trekkie. So a smoking nerd who screams death metal. Jesus.
6) Dr. Mikannibal of Sigh This stunning saxophonist-vocalist for Japan’s premiere black-metal troupe has a PhD in physics and records her parts in the nude. Just be careful, boys—on her MySpace page, her first two interests are “prostate” and “urethra.” Yikes…
The Six Ugliest Dudes In Metal:
1) Erik Rutan of Hate Eternal The best death-metal vocalists are the ones who actually look like they’re going to murder you in a cave and eat your bones. Well, this guy has bone-eater written all over his severe, misanthropic face.
2) Billy Milano of S.O.D. I feel like it’s one thing to have a mean-looking frontman, but it’s another one entirely if he’s an offensive, lumbering, drug-crazed fat fuck. Points to metal’s funniest band for their freakish singer.
3) Devin Townsend: OK, these days, the genius behind Strapping Young Lad et al. looks like this (see left). But remember, he once looked like this. Oh yeah. You can’t un-see it.
4) William Murderface of Dethklok This unhygienic, overweight, club-footed gap-toothed piece-of-shit bassist is a perfect representation of everything disgusting about death metal. What can I tell you, pobody’s nerfect.
5) It of Abruptum Fuck glam metal, it’s all about getting laid. Let’s be the anti-glam and try to never, ever get laid! I know! Let’s hire a repulsive corpse-paint-caked dwarf for a frontman! Brilliant work, everyone!
6) Oderus Urungus of Gwar Say it with me now, kids: OH GOD NO.