(Credits: Far Out / Tommy Holl)
Mon 3 November 2025 4:00, UK
There are two approaches to creating music, one of collaboration, one of competition; both can be pretty solid.
We saw a great example of how the competitive approach can work in 2024 when Kendrick Lamar and Drake had their back-and-forth. It skyrocketed the two of them to the global conversation and cemented Kendrick Lamar as one of the greatest musicians who ever lived. When he was asked about his approach, he said it was because he has always had a competitive outlook towards music.
“My intent was to always keep, I think from day one, was to always keep the nature of it as a sport,” he said. “I don’t care how mother fuckers look at it as a collaborative effort, you know, that’s cool too, but I love when artists grit their teeth. Like, I still watch battle raps […] This has always been the core definition of who I am, and it’s been that way since day one.”
You can certainly understand Lamar’s approach; however, there have also been a number of musicians who prefer to be part of a collective. You tend to find this is the case when a genre is still finding itself. With Lamar, hip-hop was well and truly established as one of the biggest genres in the world; however, in the ‘80s, glam rock was all the rage, and so thrash metal bands who were poking their heads above the water, such as Metallica and Pantera, were more keen to bounce ideas off one another.
Pantera are no doubt a band who have a lot of controversy behind them. For the sake of this piece, we will only be referring to their music, specifically the guitar work of Dimebag Darrell and how he and James Hetfield influenced one another at the beginning of their careers. As they were working out the elements of thrash metal they both wanted to champion, they would jam together and try to work out what amp settings would be better to get that crackly sound, which we now consider a pillar for a lot of metal.
“Well, what a blessing to have been in his life and him in my life. Yeah, some of those early days… Just travelling down there to the Dallas area and meeting with those guys and just hanging out,” recalled Hetfield, “Dimebag introduced me to the solid-state amp. I remember he had this freaking amazing crunch going on. It was like, ‘What is that?’ You know? So yeah, [we] inspired each other. He inspired me as well. No doubt.”
If you were to listen to both bands’ work, you could certainly pick out sections from their catalogues which seem to be inspired by one another. However, there is one song in Pantera’s catalogue that came directly from Metallica, as a riff that Hetfield had previously been working on was harnessed and turned into a thrash metal classic. ‘Cowboys From Hell’ came from a Hetfield riff that he showed to Dimebag Darrell when they started jamming together, which Pantera then adopted and made their own.
“It was one of those times they came to the [‘Abbotts’] house to hang out […] We’re hanging out in the front room with James playing guitar,” recalled Walter Trachsler, who was in attendance at the jam and worked as Pantera’s guitar tech, “I said, ‘Hey dude, you’re gonna come up with any new Metallica stuff?’ He said, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact [I’m finishing this off] wanna hear it?’ […] He played all the way through, and it was a slow song. I was like, ‘Dude, what the fuck? What’s that called?’ He said, ‘Cowboys from Hell’”
He confirmed, “It was a Metallica song. One hundred per cent. James Hetfield came up with that. It had nothing to do with Texas, nothing to do with cowboys.”
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