Blake Ibanez says Power Trip‘s 2025 Pantera tour gave the band the confidence to continue after Riley Gale‘s death.
Blake Ibanez has pointed to Power Trip‘s 2025 European run with Pantera as the moment the band realised they had a future, telling Brian Slagel on the Metal Blade Records founder’s “100 Songs That Define Heavy Metal” podcast that the tour is the reason the group are still working today. Power Trip had returned to the stage only months earlier with Seth Gilmore singing in place of Riley Gale, who died in 2020, and had no touring plans at all when the offer arrived.
The Pantera dates ran from 21 January 2025 at the Ice Hall in Helsinki to 25 February at OVO Arena Wembley in London, with Power Trip slotting their own headline shows around the arena bills.
“Oh, it was the best tour ever. We had a really good time. They treated us great. The crew was amazing. And it was just a really cool opportunity to be able to do that,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Ibanez said the band had not expected to be on the road at all.
“We had just gotten the band back together, and I don’t think we were planning on touring at all,” he continued. “We were still kind of feeling it out. When we got back together, it was, like, ‘Well, let’s try to do this justice and honor what we did, honor [late Power Trip singer] Riley [Gale], pay tribute to all the years and all the time we put into this band.’ And clearly, people still wanted to see us play. So it was the perfect situation, I think, for us to do it. Otherwise we never would’ve done it.”
Both bands come out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Ibanez framed the pairing as carrying a local significance beyond the size of the rooms.
“We had played, I think, four shows maybe, maybe five, just since we got back together with six or seven months before that,” Ibanez said. “And I think that tour really gave us a lot of confidence because — well, not only were we playing to arenas every night, and the experience of doing that was just so amazing and inspiring. And, obviously, playing with Pantera, they’re [originally] from Dallas, it was a great honor for us because Dallas, we got some people, but we’re not like a superstar city. This isn’t L.A. or New York or something, but we have some major people and stuff. But Pantera, just growing up, that was a big part of living here. Everybody obviously knew about Pantera, what they meant to DFW [referring to the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area in Texas]. [Late Pantera drummer] Vinnie Paul always wearing the Cowboys gear and the Stars jersey. And then not just that, but they’re one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time. I don’t think you can really argue with that. They changed it completely, and just wrote some great songs. And, obviously, they had Dimebag Darrell, who’s, many people think, the greatest guitar player of all time — one of. And it sucks that they all can’t be here for the tour, and, obviously, we’re missing someone too. But I think you could see how much it meant to everybody to hear those Pantera songs.”
Pantera split in 2003, before Ibanez was old enough to see them. He described going on immediately before them each night, and the reception the band got from both the crowds and the headliners.
“It was cool for us. I never got to see Pantera,” Ibanez added. “They definitely broke up before I was even able to really get out there and see them. So, it was just a really great honor, and it gave us a ton of confidence, ’cause we played to these arenas every night, and we played right before them. So it was cool… It was, like, ‘F**k, hopefully they don’t just boo us and want Pantera to go on.’ But I think we held it down all right, and the crowds were great. We had a really good time. And to play to that many people and to get them involved and to get them into it and feel like you belonged up there, which we felt like we fit the bill. And, obviously, the Pantera guys, everybody was really welcoming, really, really cool. I think Rex [Brown, Pantera bassist], some of his kids live in Dallas, and we have mutual friends, and we know some of them. So I don’t know. It was just kind of a cool, like, ‘Hey, you guys are part of the family. You’re from Dallas. We support you guys.’ And it was really cool to have that. And getting to hang out with [Anthrax and Pantera drummer Charlie] Benante and talk about old music. Everybody was really cool. It was just a great experience. And I don’t know if we’d be doing what we’re doing right now if we didn’t do that tour, because it showed us, like, ‘Oh, we can actually do this and play to a lot of people. And things are working for us.’ So, it was really, really important.”
Pantera returned in December 2022 with Philip Anselmo and Rex Brown joined by Zakk Wylde on guitar and Charlie Benante on drums, in the roles held by Dimebag Darrell, who died in 2004, and Vinnie Paul, who died in 2018.
Speaking about the criticism that arrangement has attracted, Ibanez, whose own band have faced comparable questions since Gilmore took over, said he understood both positions.
He said: “It’s hard. It’s been so long. They broke up such a long time ago, and I think there’s so many people and multiple generations now that just never got a chance to see them [with the classic lineup]. So I think a lot of people you ask, it’s, like, ‘Well, would I rather get to see them play these massive songs live again, or not?’ And I get it [why some people wouldn’t], if you saw them a million times back in the day [with the classic lineup]. But you also don’t have to go. You can just stay home, and you don’t have to pay for it, and you don’t have to go. But these guys poured their life into the band, and they wrote a lot of great songs that a lot of people wanna hear. I don’t really see the issue with it. But everyone is entitled to their opinion. We’ve gone through the same thing. And I respect where anybody stands on anything because bands are special to people. And they have special relationships with bands, and they might not wanna see a different way. But I think if you devote everything to a band and you write songs and you do all this and there’s demand, I think you should share that with people.”
Ibanez‘s remark about not knowing whether the band would be doing what they are doing now has a concrete follow-up. Power Trip signed with Blue Grape Music in March 2026, the label founded by Roadrunner Records veterans that had already picked up Fugitive the previous May. By spring the band were in the studio with producer Jacob Hansen, whose credits include The Black Dahlia Murder and Arch Enemy, working on what will be their first body of work since Gale‘s death. They are also booked for the Infest festival in Edmonton, Alberta, from 4 to 6 September.
Power Trip formed in Dallas in 2008 and released Manifest Decimation in 2013 and Nightmare Logic in 2017, both through Southern Lord. The band stopped after Gale died in August 2020, then made a surprise return at a Fugitive show in Austin in late 2023 with Gilmore on the microphone. The current lineup is Ibanez, Gilmore, drummer Chris Ulsh, guitarist and vocalist Nick Stewart and bassist Chris Whetzel. Alongside Skourge, Gilmore fronts Dallas thrash band Fugitive, which he started with Ibanez in 2021.
