DANGEROUS TOYS Singer JASON MCMASTER: Why I Turned Down PANTERA Audition

June 26, 2021

In a new interview with Waste Some Time with Jason Green, DANGEROUS TOYS frontman Jason McMaster once again spoke about the time he was approached by PANTERA about possibly singing for the group before Philip Anselmo connected with the fellow Texas metal act.

"I like talking about this, only because it clears up some things," Jason said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). I was offered an audition. I never auditioned. I didn't accept the offer to audition.

"[PANTERA guitarist 'Dimebag' Darrell Abbott and drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott's] father called me first, which was interesting, that someone who could have been my dad is calling me, 'Hey, I'm Mister… And I'm looking…', kind of management style, and I'm just a dude, and I'm going, 'Woah, this is trippy.' And I turned him down. And then Vinnie calls me, like, two weeks later, and the same kind of a thing happened.

"But we — as in my scene in Austin — we had heard about people talking, 'Man, I saw this band PANTERA, and they played this, and they played METALLICA,'" he continued. "But they were saying they would play DEF LEPPARD — they would play the popular hard rock and heavy metal songs. It didn't matter if it was this new thing called thrash or whatever. I don't think that they were covering DESTRUCTION or SODOM or CELTIC FROST or VENOM, like me and my friends kind of wanted to, but they were [playing] the popular stuff. They were doing club circuits. They were wearing pink and purple and green and yellow on stage. They had big hair. And so it was kind of, like, the whole, 'Well, do you call them posers?' Well, you're not a poser if you believe what you do. And they were good. And everyone said how good they were. Darrell was always a guitar legend in Texas. The guy probably never had any lessons and he just learned from slowing down VAN HALEN songs. [He was] an incredible talent, and everyone knew it, even though there was never a citing of any of that, because in my circle, it was a little more hardcore.

"So, '86 comes around. WATCHTOWER's first record is out, 'Energetic Disassembly'. It's getting attention globally — still on an underground level, of course… We helped… I know it's a big crown to wear for me to say this, but I will insert the word 'arguably' WATCHTOWER, and if not myself, had a giant hand in kickstarting the thrash, the metal thing in Austin, Texas in '82.

"So, yes, the PANTERA camp calls me. [WATCHTOWER] was losing [guitarist] Billy White [at the time]. He was ready to jump ship from WATCHTOWER and start playing different styles of music and just rock guitar… So the last two shows we played with Billy White were the only two shows that WATCHTOWER ever played out of the state of Texas, and they were in the Bay Area in the first of October of 1986. I believe it was right before that that the PANTERA camp had called me to see where my head was.

"Years and years later — I think it was '95 — I'm standing behind the backline with Darrell and some of his party boys. It was PANTERA, of course, with TYPE O NEGATIVE in San Antonio, at Sunken Gardens… And I had a chance to just basically get right in Darrell's head and go, 'Dude, why me? 'Cause you hooked up with Philip, and this is working. This is some brutal, really awesome, I'll just call it rock music. This is exactly where you guys needed to be.' And he's, like, 'Man, Jason, you just had a good buzz. Everyone that we knew in the Dallas/Fort Worth area' — I'm paraphrasing — 'knew your name and was a fan of WATCHTOWER. And you were on a list. That's it.' It was a simple answer, and I was, like, 'Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense.' I realized how big of an honor it was by the time they blew up. And I was, like, 'Wow. These guys are cool.'"

According to McMaster, he had no idea at the time he was approached to audition for PANTERA that they would one day turn out to be such an influential metal act.

"I'll put my hands on the table and show you all my cards and everything by saying the riffs from 'Cowboys From Hell', who knows if they were even written at that point?" Jason said. "Who knew that they were going into this completely hardcore and/or arguably creating their own style of 'groove' metal. I don't really like the term, but it became a thing. As well as that they could thrash too. Who knew? 'Cause I didn't. I just thought they were this kind of glam rock band that did the cover band circuit, and that's all I knew about 'em… But I was really kind of blinded by my own worries with WATCHTOWER."

Founded in 1987, DANGEROUS TOYS released four full-length albums and one live album before unofficially disbanding at the turn of the millennium.

Although DANGEROUS TOYS continues to perform live, the band has not released any new material since 1995.

Find more on Pantera
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).