Pantera 101 Proof T-Shirt
-This Pantera 101 Proof T-Shirt features artwork from Pantera’s 1997 live album 101 Proof.
-Pantera is an American heavy metal band from Arlington, Texas, formed in 1981.
About the band
Having started as a glam metal band, Pantera released three albums in the mid-1980s with lead vocalist Terry Glaze (Metal Magic, Projects in the Jungle, and I Am the Night), with little success. Looking for a new and heavier sound, Pantera recruited Anselmo in 1986 and released Power Metal in 1988. They secured a record deal with major label Atco the following year. Their fifth album (which the band has since declared to be their official debut album), 1990's Cowboys from Hell, popularized the groove metal genre, while its 1992 follow-up Vulgar Display of Power achieved an even heavier sound and increased their popularity. The subsequent album Far Beyond Driven (1994) then debuted at number one on the Billboard 200.
Tensions began to surface among the band members when Anselmo, reeling from severe back problems brought on by years of intense on-stage performances, began growing distant from his bandmates in 1995, eventually becoming addicted to heroin as a result of his pain issues (he almost died from an overdose in July 1996). These tensions resulted in the recording sessions for The Great Southern Trendkill (1996) being held separately. The ongoing tension lasted for another seven years, during which only one studio album, Reinventing the Steel (2000), was recorded. Pantera went on hiatus in 2001 but lingering disputes led to the band breaking up in 2003. The Abbott brothers went on to form Damageplan while Anselmo continued to work on several side projects, including Down, which Brown joined as well.
On December 8, 2004, Dimebag Darrell was shot and killed on stage by a mentally unstable fan during a Damageplan concert in Columbus, Ohio. Vinnie Paul went on to form Hellyeah after his brother's death, and died of heart failure in 2018, leaving Brown and Anselmo as the only surviving members of the band's best-known lineup. In July 2022, it was announced that Brown and Anselmo were reuniting in 2023 for Pantera's first tour in 22 years, with Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante filling in for the Abbott brothers on guitar and drums, respectively. The new lineup played its first show in 21 years at the Hell and Heaven festival in Mexico on December 2, 2022, and the band's reunion tour will continue into 2024.
