Advertisement
Disturbed, Anthrax, Drowning Pool and Soil will play a benefit for the Dimebag Darrell Memorial Fund on February 23rd at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom. The fund was established to cover medical and bereavement expenses for three victims of the Columbus, Ohio, nightclub shooting on December 8th that claimed the life of Damageplan guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott. Chris Paluska, a member of Damageplan's management team, and John "Kat" Brooks, a drum technician for the band, were wounded in the attack, while band security worker Jeffrey "Mayhem" Thompson was among the four people killed.
Disturbed frontman David Draiman took a break from recording the band's third album to organize the benefit, reaching out to bands with a personal connection to Dimebag. "Everybody was really into it," he says. "They all knew how much Vinnie [Damageplan drummer and Dimebag's brother Abbott] was going to be affected by it, they all knew how much the crew members would be affected by it, and they certainly knew how much Rita [Dimebag's common-law wife] was going to be affected by it. In our particular genre -- in the world of metal -- if we don't take care of our own, I guarantee you that no one else will. It really is up to us."
Draiman and his Disturbed bandmates' relationship with Dimebag dates back to the group's earliest days, when Dimebag was a member of Pantera. "On our very first Ozzfest, you could find us every night after the show in Pantera's dressing room," Draiman recalls. "Vinnie, Dime and Rex [bassist Brown] were just really welcoming and very nurturing to the baby band. They were showing people the way, and they never were satisfied until everybody around them was about ten times as inebriated as they were. Dime was always the man with the black tooth -- he was always the man passing out the shots. He's the kind of guy that every single night you were with him he did everything in his power to make it the best night of your life."
Dimebag's death has Draiman reevaluating his own band's shows. "It kind of changes everything," he says. "Whereas before we were completely open to letting kids jump up onstage with the intention of hopefully just jumping right off, that can't happen anymore. You need to take security more seriously. I don't think I'm ever going to complain about having to wear a laminate again . . . This was the 9/11 of rock, and now we have to approach every situation differently."