Darrell Dimebag

Darrell Lance Abbott, also known as "Diamond Darrell" "Dimebag Darrell", or simply "Dime" (August 20, 1966 – December 8, 2004) was an American guitarist, best known as a founding member of the heavy metal bands Pantera and Damage plan. He also performed in the southern rock band Rebel Meets Rebel.

Abbott frequently appeared in guitar magazines and in readers' polls, and wrote a long-running Guitar World magazine column, which was compiled into the book, Riffer Madness. He was praised for his tone and was included in "The 50 Greatest Tones of All Time" by Guitar Player magazine. Remembered for his amiable nature and rapport with fans, Abbott was described by Allmusic as "one of the most influential stylists in modern metal."

On December 8, 2004, Abbott was assassinated onstage during a Damage plan performance at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio.

Assassination

 
On December 8, 2004, Abbott was shot onstage while performing with Damage plan at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio. The gunman was Nathan Gale. who shot Abbott five times, including once in the head, killing him instantly, and then continued shooting - killing three others, and wounding a further seven. Gale fired a total of fifteen shots, taking the time to reload once and remaining silent throughout the shooting.

Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson, the band's head of security, was killed tackling Gale, as was Alrosa Villa employee Erin Halk. Audience member Nathan Bray was killed while trying to perform CPR on Dimebag and Mayhem. Damage plan drum technician, John "Kat" Brooks, was shot three times as he attempted to get the gun away from Gale, but was overpowered and taken hostage in a headlock position. Tour manager, Chris Paluska was also injured.

Five police officers came in the front entrance, led by Officer Rick Crum, and moved toward the stage. Officer James D. Niggemeyer came in through the back door, behind the stage. Gale only saw the officers in front of the stage; he never saw Officer Niggemeyer who was armed with a 12 gauge Remington 870 shotgun. He approached Gale from the opposite side of the stage to avoid hitting the hostage - and fired a single shot, striking Gale in the face with 8 of the 9 buckshot pellets. Gale was found to have 35 rounds of ammunition remaining.

Nurse and audience member Mindy Reece, 28, went to the aid of Abbott and she and another fan administered CPR until paramedics arrived, but were unable to revive him.

In May 2005, Officer Niggemeyer testified before the Franklin County grand jury, which is routine procedure in Franklin County after a police shooting. The grand jury did not indict Niggemeyer, finding that his actions were justified. Niggemeyer received a commendation from the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission for his outstanding police work in time of crisis as well as the National Rifle Association award as 2005 Law Enforcement Officer of the Year. The five other officers that were first on the scene received Ohio distinguished law enforcement medals for their efforts. In 2006 James Niggemeyer penned the foreword to a book written about the event A Vulgar Display of Power: Courage and Carnage at the Alrosa Villa.

Early theories of motive suggested that Gale may have turned to violence in response to the breakup of Pantera, or the public dispute between Abbott and Pantera singer Phil Anselmo, but these were later ruled out by investigators. Another theory was that Gale believed Abbott had stolen a song that he had written. In the A Vulgar Display Of Power book, several of Gale's personal writings, given to the author by his mother, suggest that the gunman was not angry about Pantera's breakup or about a belief that Pantera had "stolen songs"; instead, the documents suggest that Gale's paranoid schizophrenia caused delusions that the band could read his mind, and that they were "stealing" his thoughts and laughing at him.

Abbott's grave is located at the Moore Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Arlington, Texas. He is buried alongside his mother. He was buried with Eddie Van Halen's Charvel Hybrid VH2 - a black and yellow Frankenstrat guitar, also known as "Bumblebee," that was pictured with Van Halen on the cover of the album Van Halen II - because Dimebag had asked for one in 2004, shortly before he was shot. He was buried in a KISS Kasket.

Influences

In the late 1980s, around the time of Power Metal, Abbott often covered songs by guitarist Joe Satriani, such as "Crushing Day". He also incorporated elements of Satriani songs like "Echo" into his live solos as well. Abbott stated, in various interviews, that his riffs were largely influenced by Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath. Iommi also influenced Dimebag's tunings, which often went down to C# or lower. Pantera covered Black Sabbath songs "Planet Caravan", "Hole In the Sky" and "Electric Funeral."

He also cited thrash giants Anthrax, Metallica and, despite a sometimes vicious feud, Megadeth as primary influences. He was also a great fan of Slayer and a good friend of Kerry King. Dimebag mentioned in an interview with Guitar World that the clean chord passages in the intro to Cemetery Gates were influenced by the clean chordal passages found in much of Ty Tabor's (King's X) playing. As with Billy Gibbons, Abbott frequently made use of pentatonic scales and slide guitar in both his leads and rhythms. Both guitarists employ blues scales, start / stop dynamics and pedal tones, as in Dimebag's southern style riff in "The Great Southern Trendkill", and the main riff to ZZ Top's "Tush". Randy Rhoades' style chord arpeggios can be heard in much of Dimebag's playing as well, noted examples being "Floods", "Shedding Skin", "The Sleep", and "This Love". He also stated that "Eddie Van Halen was heavy rock and roll, but Randy was heavy metal". Eddie Van Halen, whom Abbott had recently befriended, placed his original black with yellow stripes guitar (commonly called "bumblebee") into the Kiss Kasket. Abbott had mentioned to Van Halen that he liked that colour combination the best of the latter's guitars (this guitar appears on the back sleeve of Van Halen's second album "Van Halen I I"), and Van Halen was going to paint one that way for him. Abbott also credited Vito Rulez of Chauncy for convincing him to try Bill Lawrence pickups. According to an interview with Dino Cazares then of Fear Factory Abbott told him that during the recording of Reinventing the Steel he compared his guitar tone with Dino's (incidentally during the making of Fear Factory's Demanufacture Cazares compared his guitar tone against that of Vulgar Display of Power). Abbott co-designed a guitar with Dean just months before his death. Called the Razorback, it was a modified version of the ML. It is more pointed and has extra barbs on the wings. This design spawned variations, such as a 24-fret version, different paint jobs including a flamed maple top with natural finish, EMG pickups, and also helped with the design of the V-shaped version and the Razorback V (lacking the neck-pointing front wing).