In the vast history of heavy metal “what ifs,” the image of Jason McMaster fronting Pantera remains one of the most intriguing alternate realities. The Dangerous Toys and Watchtower frontman recently revisited the moment he declined an invitation to join the Texas groove metal titans—long before they revolutionized the genre with Cowboys From Hell.
Speaking in a new interview with Ralph Rasmussen of “Radio Bypass,” McMaster offered a detailed account of the phone call that could have changed music history, explaining why he ultimately said “no” to the Abbott brothers.
The timeline places the interaction around 1986 or early 1987, a transitional period for Pantera as they moved away from their glam roots and singer Terry Glaze. McMaster, then fronting the pioneering technical thrash outfit Watchtower, received a call from the band’s manager and patriarch, Jerry Abbott.
“Mr. Abbott, [‘Dimebag‘] Darrell and Vinnie‘s father, called me on the phone and said, ‘Hey, those are my boys, and I’m kind of managing them,'” McMaster recalled (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “I was in a band called Watchtower, which is this progressive… Before you could put the words ‘math’ and ‘metal’ together, we were ‘math metal’. We were this technical thrash band… And that’s how those guys knew me, and I knew them to be this kind of glam rock.”
At the time, the stylistic chasm between the two acts was immense. While McMaster was navigating complex time signatures, Pantera was dominating the club circuit with a sound closer to Bon Jovi than Slayer.
“They didn’t have Philip [in the band yet]; they had Terry Glaze, and they were a little bit more — I don’t know — [like] Def Leppard [or] Bon Jovi. And that’s fine. And they were kicking a**… All my friends, we knew who they were, of course.”
Despite acknowledging Pantera‘s prowess as a live act, McMaster respectfully declined the offer. He cited his loyalty to Watchtower, who were in the midst of replacing their own guitarist—a task McMaster described as requiring a “third eye wide open.”
However, the Pantera camp was persistent. “Two weeks later, Vinnie calls me to basically say, ‘Are you sure?’ And this was an invitation to only audition.”
Looking back, McMaster believes his refusal was an act of intuition. He recognized that while Pantera had “buzz,” he couldn’t foresee their transformation into the heaviest band on the planet.
“Years later I was blessed enough to get into a little conversation about what we’re talking about with Darrell. And I’m, like, ‘Why me?’ Because, obviously, it’s funny because they got Philip and ended up being this giant monster that defies genre… They were monstrous, and they were obviously breaking down walls, kicking a** and taking names with Philip. Whatever decisions they made, they made right ones. Obviously I was not the right guy, and I knew it prophetically somehow.”
Remarkably, this wasn’t the only major audition McMaster turned down during that era. He revealed that Skid Row also courted him with a nearly identical approach.
“Snake calls me one day, he calls me two weeks later: ‘Are you sure?’ Same answer I had.”
Beyond stylistic differences or loyalty, McMaster revealed a deeper, more personal reason for rejecting these opportunities: creative agency. In Watchtower, he was a vocalist singing other people’s lyrics. He needed a vehicle where he could sharpen his own pen.
“Here’s my real answer… I had a chance to sing my songs because in Watchtower, they wrote the lyrics. I wrote the melodies… But I didn’t write the lyrics, so that part was missing in my skillset, and I needed to sharpen that knife, and this was a chance for me to do it.”
This drive eventually led him to Dangerous Toys, where he found the songwriting freedom he craved, launching him into arenas and onto MTV shortly thereafter.
“I had a chance to be a songwriter, so when I’m saying this to these guys, I’m still working on this right here… And so, now that I have my own songs to sing, I feel a lot better, maybe even about being a replacement singer.”
