Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante has revealed that he was the one and only choice to take the drum throne for the Pantera celebration tour, a role he felt “very honored” to accept due to his deep, decades-long friendship with the late Abbott brothers. In a new, in-depth interview, he also opened up about the immense pressure of the position, admitting he was “so nervous” before the band’s first comeback show in 2022.
Speaking on the new Metal Sticks podcast, co-hosted by Iron Maiden‘s Nicko McBrain, Benante recounted how he was approached by Pantera‘s surviving members, Philip Anselmo and Rex Brown.
“Philip called me and said, ‘Would you be into doing this?’ And they didn’t want anyone else [to play drums]. It was always me that they wanted to do this, which I felt very honored by that,” Benante said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “And I just jumped at it, and I’m, like, ‘Yes, I wanna do this.’ Because the love that goes back for me with these guys, it goes back a long, long time ago. I mean, I met Darrell and Vinnie — God, like, 1985. So we’ve known each other since then. And I just loved hearing that I was the only choice that they wanted for this position.”
He then recalled the immense pressure he felt before their first performance in Mexico City in December 2022, a show he knew would be a “spiritual event” for the passionate fans.
“Man, [I] was so nervous,” he admitted. “The intro came on and started, and I’m just, like, ‘Okay, this is it. Let’s go.’ And then once we kicked into the first song, I kind of settled down. But you know, man — the first show of a tour, you’re jittery. You just don’t know what to expect. And then I was so happy that I just kind of settled in and just kind of rode it out, and it was just beautiful.”
For Benante, the entire project is about honoring the legacy of his fallen friends, “Dimebag” Darrell and Vinnie Paul Abbott. He said he understood that Anselmo and Brown “really wanted to do something again with the legacy that that is Pantera and just celebrate the life and the music of them.”
