Rex Brown has a favorite Dimebag Darrell guitar solo from their time in Pantera, but the bassist reveals that had he not intervened, Dime was about to ditch it. That said, Brown revealed that the Dime solo actually moved him to tears upon initially hearing it.
What Is Rex Brown’s Favorite Dimebag Darrell Guitar Solo?
In the latest issue of Guitar World, Brown was asked for his favorite Dimebag Darrell guitar solo. His response was Dime’s work on the band’s cover of Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan,” and while speaking about the guitarist’s work on the song, he revealed that Dimebag almost discarded his take on the track.
“[Dimebag] thought it sucked and I told him to leave it alone, so he comped it and stayed with that one. I was literally in tears,” says Brown about the initial conversation about the solo.
What Rex Brown Has Previously Said About Dimebag’s Solo on “Planet Caravan”
Back in 2022, Brown reflected with Tone-Talk, ““We actually learned the song in about 15 minutes. I played fretless bass on it and played synthesizer on it. Vinnie played the bongos. Now this is very, very important. Dime, when he went to play that lead, the first one, I had to leave the room because it was so fucking good.”
“Planet Caravan, it’s like an E9 kind of a chord and just the way that Dime played, it was the perfect chording for him to play over,” Brown continued. “And the way he put those notes together, just off the fly. You know, he always came in with something, but we cut this so quick that, I think we’d gone out to dinner and he just came back and let it let that one have it.
“It was like… I won’t say ;Eruption,’ because that changed fucking everything for everyone. But I will say that it was one of those moments for me, of listening to that and being right next to my best friend [who] just played it. So [I] keep that in my heart.”
What Dimebag Darrell Considered His Best Solo
Earlier this year, the Pantera celebration added the song “Floods” to their setlist. During a Drumeo appearance, drummer Charlie Benante revealed that Dimebag Darrell actually considered “Floods” to have his favorite solo.
“It was Darrell’s favorite guitar solo that he did in the history of Pantera,” proclaimed Benante.
“Floods,” the ninth track off 1996’s The Great Southern Trendkill, is a sprawling 7-minute song. At about the halfway point, Dimebag launches into a soaring guitar solo.
After a little more than a minute of absolute shredding, the solo slams into Phil Anselmo repeating the words “die, die, die.” The soaring guitar sound transforms into a thundering crunch leading into the song’s outro.
