PANTERA: First-Ever Authorized Visual History Due In September

"A Vulgar Display Of Pantera", the first-ever authorized visual history of PANTERA, will be released on September 13 via Lesser Gods.

A breathtaking, behind-the-scenes, comprehensive look at one of the world's most legendary metal bands, the voluminous coffee table book features rare and never-before-seen images of PANTERA in the studio, at home, on the road, and kicking ass on stage, from their humble beginnings to their grand finish. "A Vulgar Display Of Pantera" also includes contributions and recollections from various band members.

The images in the 384-page book were provided by Joe Giron, one of PANTERA's longtime photographers and earliest supporters. The foreword was penned by former PANTERA bassist Rex Brown, who also provided anecdotes in the book along with drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott.

Check out photo samples from "A Vulgar Display Of Pantera" at LesserGodsBooks.com.

PANTERA was one of the most successful heavy metal bands of all time—and arguably the most important metal band of the 1990s. PANTERA's 1994 album, "Far Beyond Driven", debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 chart. PANTERA has sold over twenty-five million albums worldwide. In the United States alone, four PANTERA albums were certified platinum (one million sold) and two more went gold (five hundred thousand sold).

Asked by Songfacts in a 2015 interview what his greatest contribution to a PANTERA song was as far as songwriting, Rex said: "We were the three-piece kind of thing. You know, that kind of VAN HALEN stuff. So pretty much all the stuff that was underneath the solos, and any time there was a key change, that was me. And our arrangements a lot of the time, just depending, Phil [Anselmo, vocals] and I would work on those. But any time we changed into a key pattern, changes or stuff like that, was me. And me and Dime [guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott] worked on a lot of those riffs hand in hand — mine with his. He'd have this little part and I would come in with a different little section at the end of it; that's what made the riff. But any guitar player in the band is going to come up with the majority of the shit a lot of the time. We had four very different individuals in the band, and it took all of us to make what I called the "magic in a box." You'd put those four individuals together, and that was magic. Once you opened that box up, there were so many influences between all of us, and we would just pour them all into it."

Brown also talked about PANTERA's enduring influence. He said: "Every band out there wants to be PANTERA, I'll just put it that way. I'm not patting myself on the back when I say that; it's just fact. They're trying to get the riffs and they'll never have it. They'll never get it. It takes the four of us. Special. I mean, you can't just throw three of the original guys out of SLAYER and expect to sound like SLAYER, it's just not going to work. Just one of them things, man. You run across that once in a lifetime and you just fight for it, and that's what we did with the band. But it was all about the song. It was all about that melody, that "catch" that could suck people in."

Giron shot photographs of PANTERA since 1983 and throughout the rest of the band's career. He also photographed many other artists, including AC/DC, David Bowie, Gwen Stefani, VAN HALEN, and U2, just to name a handful, for many of the world's leading rock magazines. Today, his niche is in the gaming industry as the photographer for the World Poker Tour and head of the official photography team at the World Series Of Poker. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.