Vinnie Paul Thoughts

Very interesting guy and a great member of metal were lost last week. Here's a personal story about the Pantera legend. 

It was 2001 and I just left a radio gig in Vegas to hide out for a while in Dallas Texas. When I got there, I had an opportunity to manage a strip club called Baby Dolls on Northwest highway. A lot of people came through there when I was there:  Nick Nolte when he was in the middle of his famous bender, Owen Wilson ( that dude was a regular), a couple of safeties from the Miami Dolphins SB winning team in the 70's and of course Dallas Cowboys defensive linemen.

One night after an annoying bunch of real cowboys got into a gunfight in the parking lot, these two metal guys came in for a beer.  I recognized them immediately... frickin Vinnie Paul and his brother Dimebag Darrel from Pantera!  At first, we thought they were scouting the place out because they had a rival BYOB club called the Clubhouse and competition between clubs is real, but not these guys, they were just drinking beer, and doing Jager shots and having a fun time.

Met them, both of them.... and they were so down to earth and cool man, like Texas cool. They liked our club so much that he would invite the staff from time to time to their after-hours parties at the Clubhouse so obviously, we partook.

The funny thing about Vinnie was that he really didn't act like a primadonna rockstar. he was so accessible and down to earth. The opposite of what you would expect from someone like Lars from Metallica. And he didn't sell out like they did either. The fact that he was such a good guy is why every rock star on the planet is doing a tribute for him.

54 is too young to die from a Heart Attack, man, but It was good to see this guy lived life to the fullest ... RIP