Interview with Chris A., author of "A Vulgar Display Of Power: Courage And Carnage at The Alrosa Villa"
December 8, 2004. Some call that "the day the Metal died". That was the night that Nathan Gale stormed onstage during Damageplan's set at the AlRosa Villa in Columbus, OH with a semi-automatic weapon, killing guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott, along with Jeffrey Thompson, Erin Halk and Nathan Bray. The end came only when officer James D. Niggemeyer shot Gale in the head with a 12-gauge shotgun, decapitating him. The entire metal community was shocked and saddened by the loss of one of our heroes and three of our brothers. However, there is so much more to the story than just the tragic murders committed by a psychopath. Unfortunatey, we've never really been given the full story because the vast majority of the media views heavy metal and it's fans with disdain. Finally, author Chris A. has written the story that will help us understand this night. It's not so much about the act itself, but about the lives of those who died. It's about a guitarist who touched the lives of millions, and three amazing human beings who lost their lives trying to save his. "A Vulgar Display Of Power: Courage And Carnage At The Alrosa Villa" will be released on April 14th, and I reccomend that everyone read it. I talked with Chris about the book, and honestly this was about as emotional as an interview can get for a music web site. I hope you all learn as much from this about the human spirit as I did.
Anarchy Music: First off, tell me a little about your background as a journalist…and I suppose you’re a big Pantera fan, right?
Chris A.: I am a Pantera fan. I’m actually not a journalist. I try to avoid that tag. I’m more of a writer and a historian. I spent 20 years in the US military. I was a law enforcement guy in the Air Force. I have a bachelors degree in criminal justice, and I have masters de in public administration and another masters in human resource development. I got interested in writing and photography 20-25 years ago. Over the years I looked for opportunities to do some neat projects and fell into a nice gig writing and taking photographs of the Green bay packers for a publication called The Packer Report. The editor was a guy named Al Pahl. Al was pretty much my writing mentor. He was the one to say “hey man, you’re pretty good at this, and you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it”, which I thought was kind of nice to have him say. I got out of the Air Force in 1999 and in the meantime I’d written a few books on military subjects. A few years ago I wanted to expand my writing and write about music and musicians and take photographs of rock bands. So, I took my photography skills and went digital and worked real hard to figure out what the heck I was doing to try to learn the industry and how one gets their foot in the door to do that kind of stuff. I was very fortunate that a little publication in Ohio called Guitar Digest seemed to appreciate my stuff. That really opened a lot of doors for me, writing for a publication that got me in. that’s pretty much my background. I just love to rock and I think there’s so much to the story that’s worth telling. It’s worth telling with taste and class and a lot of honesty and there’s a lot of sadness but there’s also a lot for people to be proud of.
Anarchy: That’s something that I wanted to talk about. When I got the call that this had happened I turned on CNN and Anderson Cooper was kind of cracking jokes during the segment and not taking it seriously. Fox News was talking about the death of “Dimebag Abbott” and it just seemed to me that us metalheads were going through a tragedy and we were lacking serious, respectful coverage of the event. That’s what you’re providing correct?
Chris A.: Oh, absolutely! There’s nothing sensational, there’s nothing flagrant, nor is there anything cavalier about the way I went about this. You’re absolutely right. I’m not looking for this tag by any means, it’s not my intent, but there’s really nobody that writes about metal or writes about metal related stuff from a serious angle that non-metalheads would look at. For example, I look at Anarchy Music and it’s well written, it’s serious stuff but the target audience is the fans. If you’re not a fan of the music you cover, you’re not reading Anarchy Music. Guys like Anderson Cooper or the dudes on Fox News who don’t listen to metal, it’s an entirely foreign subculture to them. All they know is stereotypical rubbish, and I think that if you’re a true metalhead then you’re going to find a lot in this book that you’re going to think “hey man, iIt‘s about time someone stands up and says a few things”. Dn’t get me wrong, I don’t use the book for any soapbox, I really let the facts speak for themselves. I let the actions of that evening and the events leading up to it speak for everybody. Involved. I found it a very refreshing way to tell the story. This books kind of falls into that true crime genre, and what I’ve normally noticed about those books is that the one common thread is that they tend to focus on the bad guy and focus on the actual crime itself. I often ask people, You know who John Wayne Gacy is right?
Anarchy: Sure
Chris A.: You know who Jeffrey Dahmer is, right?
Anarchy: Yes
Chris A.: Let me ask you the key question…can you give me the name of one person that they killed?
Anarchy: Absolutely not, and you’re completely right about that.
Chris A.: That’s not your fault. That’s because the people who write books or do documentaries about it, they know that what’s going to sell their product or book and perhaps make them the most money and get them the most notoriety. Is to talk about the sensational side of the bad guy and really work the crime aspect of it. That stuff is in this book. To tell the story and be correct I’ve got to give you some background to what led this guy to do what he did. I’ve got to tell you ,in very graphic detail, what went down at the Al Rosa Villa because if I dumb that down or gloss over it it detracts from the heroism and the courage that was shown by Erin Halk, Nathan Bray and Jeff Thompson. That’s really the focus of the book is those three guys. Dimebag is in it, there’s been a little bit of debate in a few areas about what this book is about. First of all, I’ve got to tell you it is not a biography of Dimebag Darrell. Everybody refers to this as “the Dimebag book” or “the Dimebag murder book” and I kind of expected that but I don’t want people to be misled into thinking that this is some kind of bio on Darrell Abbott , because it really is not. I think it would be unfair for anyone who is considering reading the book to have that opinion because they are going to be very disappointed. That’s not my story to write.
Anarchy: Tell me a little about these three guys who just happened to be in a situation where most people would run for the door, and they ran to the stage.
Chris A.: These are three typical metalheads, but very interesting. I think everybody has a fascinating background and history. The youngest guy was a guy by the name of Nathan Bray. He was 23 years old,and was a lifelong Pantera fan. His parents got divorced and he was exposed to the parental strife and things like that. He was a good kid. For some reason he was able to overcome all that stuff. Very responsible man, very into sports, but man did he love Pantera! Anytime Pantera was anywhere near him, he went to the show He never met Dimebag or got to hang out with any of those guys, but he was hard core. He loved that band. He was married to a young lady named Carrie, and they had a son named Anthony. On the night of December 8 he went to the Alrosa with a friend of his named Josh.. When Dimebag was shot, Nathan was one of the few people who seemed to realize that this wasn’t a part of the show. He climbed up on top of the stage. He was pushed back a couple of times by security who didn’t want him to get hurt or anything like that. He eventually slipped by them and went over to give aid to Dimebag. It’s just one of those thinsg that when you sit back and look at it you think, ‘what balls does this guy have?” Knowing what was going on he still had that human compassion to go up and try to do something. Especially if you look at it that he’s idolized Dimebag fro years. Before the show he called his wife and he said “Sweetie, I’ve just got this feeling that I’m going to get to meet Dimebag Darrell tonight” A few hours later, the incident goes down. I don’t believe he ever got to actually meet him, I think he tried.
Then there was another guy that was actually working at the venue, by the name of Erin Halk. Erin was doing double duty at the Alrosa. He was 29 years old, and had been in the Marine Corps for a couple of years. When he left the Marines he was kind of lost. More of a classic rock guy than a metal guy. He decided that he wanted to be a part of the music business. He wanted to be a roadie more than anything else. So he started hanging out a venues and talking to roadies and talking to people he knew. Before he knew it he started working at some venues in and around the Columbus area. On the afternoon he got a call from one of his friends who was supposed to work the show but something came up and he wasn’t going to be able to do it so he called Erin and asked if he’d be able to cover for him. So, Erin said “sure, I’ll take care of it for you”. So his job was to load in and load out, but he’d worked at the Alrosa a bunch of times and his arrangement was when he’s not loading then he would work in a security capacity as well. When you’re done loading in, the roadies have hours to stand around doing nothing until outloading. Erin figured “hey, I can make an extra 75 bucks”. His security job was that he was supposed to cover the backstage door at the back of the venue. When the incident went down, after the first couple of people were shot, Erin tried to go after the shooter. He armed himself with a beer bottle and and tried to figure out a way to get to him. Of course he realized very quickly that this was extremely dangerous and he wasn’t in a position to do this. So he backed down and bided his time and waited for an opening. There came a point in time when the killers weapon jammed. He was using a semi automatic and he emptied a magazine and the slide locked to the rear. When people on stage started screaming that he was out of ammo, Erin Halk made his move and went after him. Erin ended up being shot 5 times and killed.
Then there’s Jeff Thompson. He was the security chief for Damageplan. Jeff was 30, he was 6’8”, 375 pounds. He had his heart set on being a band road manager and not really a security guy. He was a last minute fill in for Damageplan. Their security guy resigned or got fired or something. In October Damageplan asked Jeff if he’d be interested in working the last leg of the tour for them. Of course Jeff jumped at it because to be a band road manager he needed road time and he didn’t have a lot of it. This was good opportunity for him so he said okay. Jeff was one of the most interesting people that you could ever read about. He left Arkansas when he was about 20 and moved to Dallas, Texas and became a Renaissance actor. His nickname was Mayhem. Everybody thinks that that’s a heavy metal thing but it’s really not. He actually created a character for a Renaissance festival and the character’s name was Malcolm “Mayhem” McGregor. He was a Scottish guard, protector to the king and queen at this Renaissance festival. He did that for about 12 years. Every Spring he’d go to the Scarborough Renaissance festival and play his role. He also was an actor. He was on Walker, Texas ranger a few of times and did some national tv commercials. He worked as a bouncer in Coyote Ugly and with some other bands like Drowning Pool. He was very in tune with the Texas art and metal scene . Your question is difficult to answer because it’s hard for me to not be somewhat in awe of these guys. In Jeff’s case, when the bad guy ran out on stage, Jeff was really about 10 seconds behind him. He actually had the guy by the shoulders before he fired the first round off. Unfortunately the guy squeezed off a round and fired two more and killed Darrell. He pushed Jeff off of him. Jeff Thompson actually had an opportunity right at that moment to say “the guy’s got a gun, I’m unarmed, you know what, I’m not getting paid enough to get smoked”. That’s not what he did. Once the guy pushed him off, the guy went looking for Vinnie Paul Abbott. Vinnie Paul Abbott walks the earth today because Jeff Thompson made the decision to reengage this guy. He actually got up behind him and put the bad guy in a headlock, but the bad guy was able to reach over his own shoulder and fired. Jeff was big enough that he actually hit Jeff in the chest. When the round hit Jeff, he involuntarily loosed the guy and Jeff had spun all the way around and he shot him in the back and killed him.
That to me is really where the emphasis of the book is. I really want people to understand that. In the midst of all this murder and this confusion, there were people that were willing to step up and put their lives on the line for people they don’t know. For people they’ve never met. The actions of Jeff Thompson, Erin Halk and Nathan Bray are incredible, but when I look at what happened in the crowd I see a lot of really good people. Now, you’re a metalhead and I’m a metalhead. I don’t know what your educational background is. I’m probably a little atypical, but maybe not. We get this reputation of being leather wearing, long haired, cigarette smoking, cussing people, but the fact is that we’re just as regular as everybody else. We just like to rock. These people did something that I think is absolutely incredible. One of the things that compelled me to write this is that when I heard that Dimebag was murdered it really bugged me. It bugged me as much as when John Lennon died. It wasn’t an issue of that the guy was a heavy metal dude. He was a guitar player who was entertaining people and somebody comes up and kills him? What motivates someone to do that? So I watched the media for awhile and initially the motive was reported as the guy was despondent over the break up of Pantera. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to think that’s ridiculous. Even if you’re insane, you don’t kill someone just because the band no longer exists. It’s gotta be more complex than that.
The Stage of the Alrosa Villa
Anarchy: So, what was his deal? Did he have a history of being a nutcase?
Chris A.: Well, it’s a very sad story. He was afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia. One of the things I learned as I wrote this book was that I didn’t know jack shit about paranoid schizophrenia. I thought I did, and I think most people feel the same. It’s a very very complicated and actually very difficult affliction to diagnose because so many things can seem like it. This guy was a bad guy from age 12 on. He had a good mom, a single mom, who worked hard to try to do the right things. Basically, this guy just fell into the abyss of mental illness. Some people like to say that he fell through the cracks of the system, but I don’t really buy that. I think this guy had plenty of opportunities to be happy. The fact is that teachers, probation officers, judges, parents, counselors, they’re not trained nor are they aware of what the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia really are. You just know that you’re dealing with a juvenile delinquent that’s taking drugs and has behavioral problems. It’s really easy to say that this guy is misbehaving because he’s smoking weed or snorting coke or whatever he happens to be doing. The fact that he might be afflicted by a mental illness really isn’t the number 1 thing. When he went into the Marine Corps, they were the ones that determined that he had it. The Marines did an excellent job with this guy. People like to say that they turned him into a killing machine and then they kicked him out, well that’s not how it goes. That’s an incredible oversimplification of the facts. The bottom line is that the Marines were able to determine that yes, he was indeed suffering from an extreme mental illness. They were able to determine that this was something that he was afflicted with before he joined the marines. They actually institutionalized him. They figured out a pharmaceutical regime for him with antidepressants and antipsychotic. The most important thing the Marine Corps did was they sat him down and said “look, this is what you’ve got, this is what your problem is, but if you take this medication and you follow this regime you’ll be fine”. if you run into problems, if something’s not right then you need to go see a doctor and address it”. All of his records indicate that he understood that and as long as he took his meds then he’d be okay. The problem is that at some point after he got out of the Marine Corps he stopped taking his meds. He started out being a Pantera fan, but as he fell deeper into his psychosis he started reading into the music. He started reading into the lyrics. He realized, that “holy hell, they’re singing about me”. “They’re singing about things that I think about”, they’re spying on me”. “They’re stealing my thoughts”, they’re taking my ideas”. “Pantera is based on me, and my life and goldsmith, they’re not giving me any credit for it”. That’s the motive. I am 99.9% sure. I put my name on a book and said that it is. It would be pretty arrogant of me to say that this is definitely it, because we are talking about a guy who suffered from a very hardcore mental illness, but I am pretty confident that I’m on the right track with this. It’s a lot deeper than people think. The things this guy went through to prepare to do what he did is far more intense and deep. When I started writing this, I was 3 months into it and I was ready to chuck it and throw it all into the garbage because it’s such a bummer. It’s so dark and it’s so disturbing. I was looking for a silver lining in the murder of four people. When I initially started this I didn’t think there was one. When I found the silver lining was when I had the chance to sit down and interview the parents of Jeff Thompson, the parents of Erin Halk and the wife and father of Nathan Bray. When I get letters and emails from, for example Erin Halk’s mom who said to me “you were sent to me by Erin. You’re our angel. You’re going to tell his story” I thought “holy shit, man”. I realize that the silver lining was that I can tell anybody who’s interested about these three guys and their lives and what brought them to the Alrosa Villa and the actions that they took that night that resulted in them being killed. It takes 30 years of a heavy metal stereotyping, stuff like Judas Priest’s music made this guy kill himself or Marilyn Manson’s music made these guys go kill people at Columbine. You take all that stuff and throw it in the garbage after you’re read this. This presents a completely different look at this.
Anarchy: Well, metal fans are just like any other type of person. We’re as smart and caring and as varied as anyone else.
Chris A.: The thing that’s really freakin cool, is that when you read this book and you close that last page, you’re not going to be thinking of the killer Nathan Gale. You’re going to be thinking “holy crap. Erin Halk, Jeff Thompson and Nathan Bray, that was some cool shit they did.” Here’s a wonderful story. When I was interviewing Detective Gillette, who ran the homicide investigation on this issue, I asked him what the most surprising thing about this was to you and he said “we showed up at the venue probably an hour after the shootings and it’s almost midnight, it’s December, it’s cold as hell, and there’s 250 heavy metal fans milling around the parking lot waiting to give statements to the cops”. think about when Tupac Shakur was killed in las Vegas. He was on the strip surrounded by his crew, gets murdered, no one sees anything. It’s incredible. Local media described the scene as “extremely chaotic” and “panic-filled” and I can tell you straight out that it wasn’t like that. You may have seen a 15-20 second clip that was taken from the stage that night. I’ve got 2 and a half hours of it. I can tell you that I’ve watched it close to 400 times to extract little bits of insight and comparing it to people‘s statements, and crime scene photos, and really trying to get in there and make sure that I’ve got my facts straight. What I walked away with was that initially when it started people didn’t know what they were looking at. They were very much taken by surprise and one of the most common statements made by almost everybody is that they thought that it was part of the show. It took 35-45 seconds for people to realize that this was the real deal. It wasn’t like a pack of elephants trying to get out of the plaza. It was a reasonably orderly evacuation as word spread through the crowd that this was real. People helped each other get outside but at the same time people were trying to help get Dimebag off the stage to protect him. There were people climbing up on the stage; security guards, crew members, fans, giving CPR, trying to negotiate with the bad guy. The bad guy’s got a hostage, he’s back in the corner. 4:59 seconds of super intense stuff. But it wasn’t what you think. You watch the news and they talk about the “panic and chaos at the Alrosa Villa”. man, it just wsn’t like that. You’re going to be really proud of the vast majority of the people who were there. They represented us really well.
Anarchy: It’s a segment of the population that’s not really given the credit for being level-headed were being level-headed in a situation that no one could even be thought to be that way.
Chris A.: Well, I look at the demographics of the crowd. There were teachers in there, there were police officers, there were prison guards, hotel managers. We’re just a cross section of normal life. There’s nothing unusual, there’s nothing abnormal, there’s not a prototypical metal fan. We cross all the demographic boundaries. You’ve got people in there making 100 thousand dollars a year and you’ve got people making 18 thousand dollars a year. The bond that ties us all together is metal. You go to a rock show you see all these rough looking people, but their calling each other “brother”, their patting each other on the back, they’re talking about concerts that they saw. I’ve never felt threatened or intimidated at a show. Anybody I’ve ever taken has said that it was a lot of fun.
Anarchy: Not at a Metal show anyway. Some others and you might have issues with intimidation.
Chris A.: Go to a Hip Hop show. It’s a whole different world, man.
The "Memorial" rock outside the Alrosa Villa, Columbus OH
Anarchy: Even though the book’s not about Dimebag, there is a tribute to him though, right?
Chris A.: There’s a lot about Dimebag in it. First of all, while I became very close to the families of the Halks the Brays and the Thompsons, the Abbotts are involved in litigation, and consequentially didn’t want to be very involved. They declined to be interviewed and I understood that. Because of that, unlike Jeff Thompson, Erin Halk and Nathan Bray who I have a chapter bio on each of those guys, I’m not working with Dimebag’s family. I don’t want to go try to construct a bio on just public domain stuff. That just wasn’t the way I wanted to do it. In all candor, I’m pretty sure that Dimebag’s family will someday want to put together their own life story on Darrell Abbott, and who better to do it? Without their cooperation I thought it would be pretty pretentious of me to do that, but I wanted to do something. So, I put out the word that i was looking for positive, uplifting stories about Dimebag Darrell Abbott. We interviewed some rock star guys, Nick Cantonese from Black Label Society, Tommy Rombola from Godsmack, Dean Zelinsky from Dean Guitars, Mistress Juliya who used to be on Fuse. Also fans who saw pantera or guitar players that were touched by Dimebag. People who never met him. Some are just a few paragraphs, some are 3 or 4 pages. Between every chapter there's a little thing called Dime Time, and it's just a story about Dime and how he touched that particular person. It's got rock stars, it's got guitar players, and it's got dudes you've never heard of who just emailed me.
What's really cool is that the book isn't based on opinion. Most of it's based on first person interviews. I'd have to say that the mother of the killer was exceptionally gracious in her cooperation. She is a woman who has a dark cloud that follows her around and a weight on her shoulders that i don't think most people could imagine. She understood that her son's going to get beat up in this book. I'm not a olitically correct kind of person. you won't find any excuses or rationalizations to explain away his culpability for what he did that night.
Anarchy: For us Metalheads, this is kind of a JFK moment. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard that Dimebag was shot. Where were you?
Chris A.: At the time he was shot I was probably at home, but when I heard of it I was driving to work and I flipped on the radio and I caught the last part of the story. I think they said Darrell Abbott from the band Damageplan, and I had no idea who Damageplan was. I thought “Darrell Abbbott, you’re kidding me, it can’t be Dimebag”. As son as I got to work I checked online and sure enough man. It was just one of those moments where I sat back in my chair out of breathe going “why?”. Why would somebody hurt this man? I never saw Pantera, I never met Abbott, but everyone I’ve ever talked to who did, or everyone I ever interviewed who knew him…We all knew about the hard drinking, hard living of Dimebag, but I was always impressed with the accessibility, the outreach and how he was just a regular guy in the party he was a guy who appreciated where he was at. He realized that without the people buying Pantera records and going to shows, he’d be just another guitar player in clubs around Dallas. I think he was really grateful and appreciative. Nick Cantonese from Black Label Society is very similar in their approach to the fans. Dimebag really shared a lot of insight about how to deal with the fans . Don’t be a dick, you go out there and you shake hands, you sign autographs, you thank people. If it takes you an hour to do it then so be it, because without them you’re not doing what you want to do.
Anarchy: I did some work with Dimebag on the Headbangers Ball tour and I didn’t know him or anything, but he was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever worked with in the music industry.
Chris A.: You’re saying exactly the same stuff I’ve heard for the last two years. One of the best Dime Time quotes was from Mistress Juliya from Fuse. She said that her favorite rock stars were Ozzy and Dime, and she’d never met Dime. You know how you have an expectation of how you think they will be and she was saying “please, please let him be how he seems to be” and she said he was exactly that. He was a sweet man who was enthusiastic. He wanted everyone around him to be happy and having fun. I really appreciate that because if you’re writing about music and heavy metal, just like I have, you’re going to run into some assholes.
Anarchy: Yep
Chris A.: And it takes the shine off. All it takes is one bad encounter to turn somebody off of your band. People absolutely judge a book by it’s cover.
Anarchy: As great as a human being as he was, as great as a talent as he was, it seems like that has been overshadowed by the tragedy of the very last night. What will be the lasting legacy of Dime and that night? Hopefully years from now we’re not going to be concentrating on the death aspect.
Chris A.: Well, That’s always going to be a part of it, but I think there’s several legacies here. I honestly think that it’s an issue of perspective. First and foremost, he was a great metal guitar player. I think Cowboys From hell is one of the finest metal records ever made. It’s still fresh today, it still kicks ass, and Dimebag is the public face of that band. Second, there are people who want to place blame on the venue, or on security, but the fact of the matter is that everything I looked at when I wrote this book told me that there isn’t anyone who runs a venue that has a plan to deal with an armed intruder intent on killing people. The Alrosa Villa to me is a place of great courage, a place of honor. It’s not just this horrible tragic place where Dimebag got murdered. If you choose to look at it through that dark, menacing perspective and think we should tear the place down, then those are the people have just accomplished the mission that Nathan gale tried to accomplish but failed in. For the people who say bulldoze the Alrosa Villa or take the owner and have him hung or whatever other ridiculous stuff they are saying, you just hit a home run on behalf of the killer. To keep that rocking, to keep bands in there, to send a message that says we’re not going to shut down, we’re not going to overreact to the psychosis of one individual, I think that says a lot. I that one of the things that’s really key for people to understand, when it comes to placing blame I clearly and unequivocally place the blame directly on the shoulders of the killer. I don’t blame. I don’t blame the venue. I don’t blame Damageplan. I don’t blame Phil Anselmo, although he’s his own worst enemy and did himself no favors. The fact of the matter is that the person who planned this out and pulled it off was Nathan Gale and Nathan gale was killed by a Columbus police officer. The legacy to me is love for your fellow man and brotherhood and courage and honor, because that’s really what happened there. In this case, Dimebag was a pure victim. He didn’t even know it was coming. Jeff Thompson, Ern Halk and Nathan Bray, they didn’t have to do what they did. They could have stood back and gotten the heck out of Dodge, but something compelled them, something in their hearts said that they couldn’t stand back and watch this, that they had to do something.
Anarchy: And who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t
Chris A.: Absolutely.. I really believe that if Jeff Thompson had not re-engaged Nathan gale, that Vinnie paul Abbott and a guy by the name of John Graham would almost certainly have been shot and killed. I believe that with all my heart. I think that when you read the book you’re going to find some really moving stuff in it. You’re going to find out who these three guys are. You’re going to read some really neat things about Dimebag. You’re going to read some disturbing stuff. I’m not going to fool around with you. For example, 8 months before the murders, Damageplan played a show at a place called Bogart’s in Cincinnati. Three seconds into the first song at Bogart’s a guy climbs on stage and goes after Dimebag. Security jumps on him and they get him off stage and they turn him over to police. I bet you’re going to guess who it was…the same guy, Nathan Gale.
Then you’ve got a week before the murders, Phil Anselmo’s interview with Metal hammer hit’s the streets. I’ve got the audio from that so I know the context in which everything was said. Phil likes to say that it was done after the interview was over and it was taken out of context and that it was tongue in cheek, sorry Phil. You said what you said, and you said it in context. Now, do I believe that the bad guy ever read that or heard it? I don’t know.
Anarchy: But it hardly matters if he did.
Chris A.: I saw nothing that proves to me that he saw it, but somebody could have told him about it, he could have read it at the library, I just don’t know. The cops even looked into and they said that they saw no indication that that influenced him, but we don’t know. If you’re going to be a public figure, and you’re going to make disparaging remarks about people, you better be very cautious about what you say and how you say it. There’s ten percent of our population that deals with mental illness on a full time basis. It’s hard to take back saying that someone deserves to be severely beaten and a week later they’re killed. That’s a hard thing.
Anarchy: I can’t speak for Phil but I can’t imagine that he feels good about those comments.
Chris A.: You know, I tried to get a hold of Anselmo. In fact, homicide tried to get a hold of Anselmo and we both failed miserably. Who knows where he’s at or what he’s doing. Down isn’t even signed. They don’t have any representation. They’re very, very difficult to get a hold of, but I gave it a shot. I feel like I was fair to Phil because I just tell it like it is. I tried not to interject much opinion at all into the book, but when I feel I had to do some opinionated stuff I tried to base it on fact. It turned out much different than I anticipated that it would. It’s something that I’m really proud of. I won’t tell you that it’s the greatest book ever written. I’m not Hemmingway by any means. If you look at it with blinders on, it’s horrible. That’s part of it, but there’s some inspirational stuff in there. There’s some things that remind you that there’s more good people out there than bad people. My opinion is that in this case, that bad guy didn’t win. He shot some really good people and we took some heavy losses, but he didn’t win.
Tell us your story
Dimebag's life touched so many fans, and his tragic death affected the entire Metal community. Tell us your story about Dime and you'll be entered to win a copy of the book. Did you see him perform live? Did you get to meet him? What did you go through when you hear dthe news of his death? Send your story to anarchy@anarchymusic.net (and please let me know if you'd like to remain anonymous in case stories are posted). One of you who responds before April 16th will be randomly chosen to recieve a copy of the book.