EastWest 92302
Producers: Terry Date & Vinnie Paul
Track listing: Strength Beyond Strength / Becoming / 5 Minutes Alone / I’m Broken / Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills / Hard Lives, Sunken Cheeks / Slaughtered / 25 Years / Shedding Skin / Use My Third Arm / Throes of Rejection / Planet Caravan
April 9, 1994
1 week
When Pantera’s Far Beyond Driven entered The Billboard 200 at Number One, USA Today ran a story about the group’s “overnight success,” but nothing could have been further from the truth.
Pantera, which is Spanish for panther, was formed in 1983 in Dallas by drummer Vinnie Paul, his brother “Dimebag” Darrell on guitar, and bassist Rex. The group released three albums on their own Metal Magic label before replacing their original lead singer with Philip Anselmo. After one more release on Metal Magic, they were signed to Atco.
Pantera’s 1990 major label debut, Cowboys from Hell, didn’t crack The Billboard 200, but appeared on the Heatseekers new artist chart and went on to sell more than 500,000 copies — an extraordinary total for an album that failed to chart. Vulgar Display of Power, released in 1992, debuted and peaked at number 44, showing that the band had an active and growing fan base.
With four and a half years of virtually constant touring, Pantera were primed for success when Far Beyond Driven was released on March 22, 1994. “Touring has been the total key to our success,” says Paul. “We’re not on regular AOR radio. We’re not on MTV, except for Headbanger’s Ball. People find out about us from our playing live. They see us and they tell their friends, and their friends tell their friends.”
For Far Beyond Driven, Pantera took a different approach. “Usually we do demos and then we fly [co-producer] Terry [Date] in and re-record everything,” Paul says. “This time around, we wrote as we recorded. Whatever felt right ended up on the record. It was more spontaneous and more fun.” During the sessions the band would focus on three songs at a time and then take a break. “Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills” was recorded at the end of a very long day. “It was about 4 a.m. and everyone was pretty wasted,” he says. “And we thought, ‘Let’s do something different.’ So we ended up with this two-and-half-minute song. It was recorded on the first take and it ended up being one of a lot of people’s favorite song on the record.”
Pantera also paid tribute to one of their influences by recording Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan,” an obscure track featured on Sabbath’s 1970 Paranoid LP. Pantera’s version of the cut, originally recorded for inclusion on Sabbath tribute album but was left for contractual reasons. “Everyone else was doing the obvious songs like ‘Iron Man,'” Paul says. “We wanted to do something that would set us apart and it turned out killer. When we found out we couldn’t put it on the tribute album we said, ‘Fuck it, let’s put it on our album.'”
Far Beyond Driven‘s huge success may have caught some observers by surprise, in part because it was Pantera’s hardest-rocking record to date, as the band continued to push the limits rather making their sound more accessible. “Other bands have tried to commercialize their sound and they lose their fan base,” Paul says. “We didn’t want that, so we went the other direction.” Far Beyond Driven also became hardest rock record to top The Billboard 200. “Metallica’s [Black Album] last year was amazing,” says Paul, “but it’s not nearly as hard as this album.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of April 9, 1994
1. Far Beyond Driven, Pantera
2. Longing in Their Hearts, Bonnie Raitt
3. The Sign, Ace of Base
4. Above the Rim, Soundtrack
5. Live at the Acropolis, Yanni