VINNIE PAUL On Today's Music Scene: 'Individualism Is Kind Of Gone'

Bob Howard of Synthesis.net recently conducted an interview with former PANTERA/DAMAGEPLAN drummer Vinnie Paul. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Synthesis.net: I love that "DimeVision" video. I was laughing so hard that my face hurts today.

Vinnie Paul: "That's what it's supposed to do. It's all part of the healing process. I thought it was gonna be really difficult to make, when we first undertook the chore, and it really just helped me a lot and put a big big smile on my face and it really is a great tribute to my brother. You've seen it so you know it features his stellar guitar playing and him cutting up like nobody else could. He was the king of that shit."

Synthesis.net: It's amazing. I loved hearing you guys playing those old covers, OZZY and METALLICA, and him just tearing those solos up harder than the originals.

Vinnie Paul: "Those are the things that inspired us. Bands that come out today they never get an opportunity to cover that kind of ground. They just immediately start writing their own songs whether they know how to write songs, play their instruments or anything else. With a band like us, back in the day, we spent seven years in night clubs playing cover tunes and I mean we knew our instruments inside and out, we knew the stage inside and out, we knew everything, and that's one of the reasons that we were such a powerful band when we finally hit the scene."

Synthesis.net: One of the parts that really moved me in "DimeVision" was towards the end when Darrell is talking with the camera, and he's talking about organic music with the mistakes and everything is what kind of makes it so special and so unique. This album ["Rebel Meets Rebel"] really has that feel, it doesn't seem like you were going for technical perfection.

Vinnie Paul: "What he says there is so true. Today's music is just its all mechanized, its all ProTools'd up, it's all made perfect. If you listen to the older music: STONES, PRIEST, VAN HALEN, ZEPPELIN, it's all real. The mistakes are really just the feel sometimes, and what's happening. Same thing with this record, we slammed, and we played pretty tight anyway, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time trying to make it sound like a machine which is what most metal records sound like. The bass the drums the guitar, they all punctuate together, juh-juhn, juh-juh-juhn, juh-juh-juhn, you know, everything hits, and it's a powerhouse, and with this kind of music it had a lot more of like a ROLLING STONES vibe where everybody could really just play what they wanted to and it was wide open. Perfection was not important."

Synthesis.net: I love the fact that you guys keep talking about music with an open mind. I saw that interview with DAMAGEPLAN, and you guys talked about broadening your musical spectrum. It just seems important to you.

Vinnie Paul: "Yeah, we just didn't want to be limited. We always felt like as musicians that we could play more and have more to us than just a total balls-out metal side. I mean, we love the metal, we love the balls-out, but there's something there that is great when you have dynamics and some nice melodic passages and then you hit with a bunch of power and strength. Me and Dime were always just fans of music in general. It didn't matter who was coming to town, if DURAN DURAN's coming through we wanted to go see 'em, and the next night we could be at a SLAYER show. We just like music.

Synthesis.net: What are you looking for with Big Vin Records?

Vinnie Paul: "Yeah, man, anyone can send me CD's or demos or whatever they have at www.bigvinrecords.com. There's an address on there to send the stuff to. I'm looking for something that stands out like a sore thumb. Like I said earlier, something that looks different, sounds different, is different, has a different philosophy, something that's just out there. Something that might be a new trend in music. 'Cause it is rather stagnant right now. There's a lot of corporate shit out there, but the individualism is kind of gone. Every record company's looking for the next LINKIN PARK, or whatever's big right now and that just kind of fucking waters it all down."

Read the entire interview at Synthesis.net.