AVENGED SEVENFOLD Bassist Talks About 20th Anniversary Of PANTERA's 'Vulgar Display Of Power'

June 1, 2012

Video footage of AVENGED SEVENFOLD bassist Johnny Christ talking about the 20th anniversary of PANTERA's "Vulgar Display Of Power" album can be seen below.

A studio recording of AVENGED SEVENFOLD's cover version of PANTERA's "Walk" was released on a special CD accompanying Kerrang!'s 25th anniversary issue. Entitled "High Voltage", the 15-track disc — which hit the newsstands in the U.K. in May 2006 — was made up of classic rock and metal songs covered by contemporary bands, with 10 of the tracks recorded exclusively for the CD. AVENGED SEVENFOLD's version of "Walk" was also included on the the "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott (PANTERA, DAMAGEPLAN) tribute album, which was released in December 2009 on the cover of the 200th issue of U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine.

In a 2006 interview with Blender.com, AVENGED SEVENFOLD singer M. Shadows stated about his band's cover version of PANTERA's "Walk", "Kerrang! magazine came to us and they asked if we wanted to cover one of our favorite bands' classic songs. [And we went], 'Well, we know 'Walk'. Can we do that?' So we had Terry Date [PANTERA producer] record it for us and Vinnie Paul [PANTERA drummer] give us his blessings on it, so we went and did it. And from then on, we kind of like… you know, playing festivals in Europe with METALLICA and stuff, it kind of brings back… Dime, to us, was one of the greatest guitar players ever to live, and to us, it's like a tribute to him. It kind of lets his spirit live on at Ozzfest. PANTERA was, for a few years, tearing it up at Ozzfest, you know, and now they're not a band anymore, and I think… To us, it's a song we can play, we know we do it well, and we're just going out there and letting the spirit live on a little bit."

The 20th-anniversary reissue of PANTERA's "Vulgar Display Of Power" sold 9,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 48 on The Billboard 200 chart. This is more than double the first-week tally registered by the 20th-anniversary reissue of PANTERA's classic "Cowboys From Hell" LP, which debuted at No. 117 in September 2010 with sales of 4,200.

Upon its original release, "Vulgar Display Of Power" peaked at No. 44 on The Billboard 200 and spent a total of 77 weeks on the chart, the most weeks any PANTERA album spent on the list.

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