Pantera, the groove-metal band behind Dimebag Darrell, Vinnie Paul, and Rex Brown's gear

Pantera is the Arlington, Texas band that turned "power groove" into one of the defining sounds of 1990s heavy metal, then lived through as much tragedy as any band in the genre's history. Formed in 1981 by brothers Vinnie Paul (drums) and Dimebag Darrell (guitar), the band spent its first five years as a glam-metal act before Rex Brown (1982) and Phil Anselmo (1986) completed the lineup that would eventually record five albums the band itself calls its official catalog: Cowboys from Hell (1990) through Reinventing the Steel (2000).

That run made Pantera one of the most influential heavy metal bands of the decade and sold around 20 million records worldwide, but it ended badly. The band split in 2003 amid years of internal tension. A little over a year later, Dimebag was murdered on stage. Vinnie Paul died in 2018. Anselmo and Brown are the only surviving members of the classic lineup, and in 2022 they brought Pantera back on the road with two friends of the band, Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante, filling in on guitar and drums.

This page is the band-level reference: formation, catalog, the breakup, and what happened after. Full gear breakdowns for Dimebag, Rex Brown, and Vinnie Paul live on their own profiles, linked throughout.

Pantera's first three albums, Metal Magic (1983), Projects in the Jungle (1984), and I Am the Night (1985), were glam metal, recorded with original singer Terry Glaze and produced by the Abbott brothers' father, Jerry Abbott, at his own Pantego Studios in Texas. The band doesn't count them as part of its official catalog today. Glaze left in 1986 after tension over the band's internal voting system; after several short-lived candidates didn't work out, 18-year-old New Orleans transplant Phil Anselmo auditioned at the end of the year and was hired immediately.

With Anselmo, Pantera released Power Metal (1988), a heavier but still transitional record, then spent 1989 shopping a five-album-old band to labels that kept turning them down. Atco Records finally signed them after label rep Mark Ross saw them live in Texas. Cowboys from Hell, released July 24, 1990, dropped the glam entirely in favor of the mid-tempo, riff-driven sound the band called "power groove," now known as groove metal. The band and most fans treat it as Pantera's real debut.

Vinnie's playing defined groove metal's rhythmic identity as much as his brother's riffs did: mid-tempo grooves rather than thrash-speed blasting, double-bass technique applied at that same mid-tempo pocket, and tom-led fills that signal a song's section changes. "Walk," from Vulgar Display of Power, is the canonical example.

The cracks started around 1995. Anselmo, dealing with severe back pain from years of high-intensity performances, turned to alcohol and then heroin rather than take the surgery and recovery time doctors recommended. He nearly died of an overdose after a Texas show in July 1996; his heart stopped for almost five minutes before an adrenaline shot revived him. The band kept working, recording The Great Southern Trendkill in two separate cities that same year, but the distance between Anselmo and the Abbott brothers kept widening.

Pantera played what turned out to be its last show together on August 28, 2001, in Yokohama, Japan. Anselmo spent the next two years touring and recording with Down and Superjoint Ritual instead of returning; Vinnie Paul later said Anselmo had told him he'd take a year off, then didn't. The Abbott brothers officially disbanded Pantera in November 2003, concluding Anselmo wasn't coming back. What followed was a public, bitter war of words in the music press that lasted for years and was never fully resolved before Dimebag's death in 2004.

After the split, Dimebag and Vinnie Paul formed Damageplan. On December 8, 2004, less than a minute into a Damageplan show at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, a gunman walked on stage and shot Dimebag dead, along with three other people, before being killed by police. He was 38. Vinnie Paul went on to form Hellyeah and died on June 22, 2018, at 54; his official cause of death was dilated cardiomyopathy and coronary artery disease. His death left Anselmo and Rex Brown as the only surviving members of the classic lineup.

In July 2022, Anselmo and Brown announced Pantera's first tour in over two decades, with Zakk Wylde on guitar and Anthrax's Charlie Benante on drums standing in for the Abbott brothers. Both were careful to frame it as tribute, not replacement. "Obviously, it's not Pantera," Wylde said. "Pantera is those four guys": Phil, Rex, Dime, and Vinnie. The Vinnie Paul estate echoed that: "There can never be a Pantera reunion without Vinnie and Dime... we are honored that Charlie and Zakk, their very close friends and musical brothers, will share the stage with Philip and Rex." The new lineup played its first show at Mexico's Hell and Heaven festival on December 2, 2022, and has toured steadily since, including European and North American dates supporting Metallica. A handful of 2023 European festival dates, including Rock am Ring, Rock im Park, and a Vienna show, were canceled after promoter backlash over Anselmo's past racist remarks and a Nazi salute he made at an earlier, unrelated event. The band's touring schedule runs into 2026, with newly announced first-ever shows in Turkey and Greece.