Vinnie Paul

"It's drummers playing for drummers. It's called, 'Look at me. Listen how fast I can go' — dudududududududu [mimics ultra-fast double-bass beat]. There's no melody, there's no song and there's no chorus. It just doesn't take you anywhere, so it doesn't have a groove to me. I think there's a lot of death metal or doom metal dudes that somehow or another find a groove in it. David Vincent from Morbid Angel is a good friend of mine, and he's, like, 'Yeah, bro, there's great groove in that. What do you call it? — blast beat, man. You just haven't found it yet. I can appreciate people for being able to go that fast with their left hand, man. But I just can't groove to that beat. I'm sorry. It's just like somebody sweeping the floor or something — tik tik tik tik tik. It just doesn't really jam to me. I'd rather hear a [John] Bonham groove going on than somebody sweeping the floor. You know?"

"One of my philosophies about playing drums is if you really break it down, there's probably only about 10 or 12 percent of the people in this world that are actually musicians that understand what goes into making a song. The other people are just listeners and they feel the groove and they feel the beat and that's what makes them move and that's what makes them go, 'That's a fuckin' kick-ass song.' As a drummer, I always approach things as, 'I want to play just enough to keep other drummers interested, but not enough to go over the average listener's head.' That's where I think a lot of these guys today are just, 'I'm the drummer, man. Check it out. Here's my lick. I just learned this new drum lick. I'm just gonna blast all over the place.' It's like, 'Man, you've got to let the song breathe.'"

"The late, great Vinnie Paul was the man who put the groove in Pantera’s crushing, captivating “power groove” brand of swaggering heavy metal. As hard as the Texan firebrands’ music hits, it always has swing, and Paul’s unique talent behind the kit was one of the group’s great secrets. That he was also a big part of their songwriting and record production only adds to his bona fides."