Former PANTERA singer TERRY GLAZE wants fans to check out band's pre-PHILIP ANSELMO album
24-03-2026
In a new interview with “Reckless” Rexx Ruger of the Pod Scum podcast, Terrence Lee “Terry” Glaze, the original voice of PANTERA, spoke about his time with the legendary metal band prior to the arrival of Philip Anselmo. Glaze was the frontman of PANTERA during the band’s early’-’80s “party metal” phase and sang on the band’s first three albums. After leaving PANTERA, Glaze formed the band LORD TRACY.
Asked how he looks back on the three PANTERA albums he appeared on, “Metal Magic” (1983),“Projects In The Jungle” (1984) and “I Am The Night” (1985),Terry said: “Well, when you first start off, of course everybody’s gonna look back at their first efforts and go, ‘It’s not as good as my more mature efforts.’ But I think if you listen to that stuff, Darrell‘s (PANTERA guitarist ‘Dimebag’ Darrell Abbott) guitar sounds amazing from day one, and especially by the second album, ‘Projects’, he’s fully formed. And so if you can look back past my glam singing and listen to the guitars, the rhythms, they sound very consistent to everything they ever did. Darrell‘s just a badass. So I’m very proud and really fortunate to be just a tiny part of the history of that whole thing. So, I think I would encourage everybody to go back and look up Darrell‘s playing, ’cause it’s just amazing.”
Reflecting on what it was like being in a band with the Abbott brothers, Dimebag and drummer Vinnie Paul, Terry said: “I always remember Vinnie Paul and the rest of those guys, they were kind of like wrestlers — 24-7, and they never came outta character. They were just big, lovable rock and roll animals. So it was a lot of fun.”
He added: “Dime was a special little person. And he terrorized the crew, and no one ever got him back. I was always shocked that everybody loved Dime so much that he did some of the most crazy stuff to all the road crew and no one ever touched him. I don’t really have any of those stories that I wanna share out on a microphone, but every night was an adventure with Darrell. And you’re out there playing and you’re learning how to rock and you’re learning how to play live and you look to your left and you have a guitar player who can play literally anything. He was destroying (Eddie) Van Halen before YouTube. He was destroying Randy Rhoads before YouTube, and then adding his own flavor. How lucky was I that the first real band I ever get in, it’s in a band with Darrell and Vince? It was just an amazing opportunity and I don’t take it for granted.”
Asked if he paid attention to PANTERA‘s career after he left the band and kept in contact with any of the guys, Terry said: “For sure. Before ‘Vulgar (Display Of Power)’ came out (in 1992), Darrell came to see LORD TRACY play in Dallas. And after the show, we went out in his limo and he played me a cassette, the rough mixes of ‘Vulgar’. And he was sitting there air guitaring to ‘Mouth For War’. And he was looking at me just smiling. He goes, ‘VAN HALEN.’ And I was, like, ‘Yes.’ And then the next tour, when they came to California, I went out with them for a couple days with them and saw ’em, and it was incredible.”
More than three years ago, Terry called PANTERA‘s current comeback a “good thing”, saying that it’s a great way to celebrate the music of the Texan metallers. Glaze made his comments while speaking to Eonmusic.
On meeting and forming a band with Dime and Vinnie, Terry said: “We wanted to play with the best drummer we could find, and the best drummer in our school was Vince Abbott. So we got together and jammed, and we tried to get him to play with us. The agreement was that we would take his little brother Darrell who was in middle school. We weren’t really interested in a young kid in middle school, but we reluctantly agreed, thank goodness. We were lucky enough to do that.”
Going on to talk about his desire to see the band’s early output reissued, he said: “I think that it would be a great thing for everybody to get to hear more Darrell, and so that’s where I stand with it. It would be amazing. You could do a big box with everything, and it would just be cool.”
He continued: “You see them all over the planet. I bought copies of CDs that that are pressed out that are that are not legal — bootlegs — but, you know, that’s the only way to get copies of all this stuff now.”
When Eonmusic noted that PANTERA bassist Rex Brown had said the brothers were “dead against” any re-release of those early albums in a 2021 interview with the site, Terry countered: “As far as what the band with the brothers, how they felt, that comes up even to this day, doesn’t it? So, you know, people change their minds, and business opportunities happen and what are you going to do?”
When asked about his thoughts on the recent PANTERA‘s current comeback tour, featuring Brown and surviving vocalist Anselmo alongside guitarist Zakk Wylde and drummer Charlie Benante, Terry said: “I just feel kind of the same way I feel about VAN HALEN; it would be difficult for me to think that that was VAN HALEN without Eddie Van Halen, and Alex is still alive. Imagine if Eddie and Alex are gone, and then it was VAN HALEN. It’s just hard for us old people.”
He continued: “But you know, man, more power to everybody to get to celebrate the music and get together and have fellowship. I especially think about all the young people who never got to see them, now they get to finally go out and celebrate those songs. That means so much to them and that music means so much to a lot of people around the whole planet. So more power to them to celebrate music. Anything that gets people out, live together for rock and roll, that’s a good thing.”
In 2021, Brown dismissed the first three PANTERA albums, telling Eonmusic it was with the addition of Anselmo that the PANTERA story really began.
“The old singer? Shit, it was going nowhere really quick,” Rex said. “He just was not on the same wavelength as the three of us. The dude’s never had a job in his life. I see him shootin’ his mouth off in some of these magazines, and it’s, like, ‘Dude, you were in the band for fuckin’ four years,’ you know what I’m saying? ‘Now you’re wanting claim to fame 35 years later? Sorry, pal, you missed the boat!’ So I don’t want to give any credit where it’s fuckin’ undue, you know? Once we got Philip in the band, it developed into something else, and that was the PANTERA that we know now, and that’s why we never talk about those old records.”
Looking back, Brown conceded: “Hey, look, it’s great to go back memory lane and all that kind of stuff, but those are the farthest things that I wake up for in the first of the morning. ‘Oh, remember that one tune ‘Nothing On (But The Radio)’, and the singer?’ No! I mean, I hate fucking songs like that, but it was a growing process, and now, because the things are out, and they’ve been bootleged a hundred thousand times, people consider it a part of our history. It’s not. Unless Philip‘s singing on it, it’s not PANTERA. That’s the way I look at it.”
When asked outright to clarify that he had absolutely no desire to ever see those records reissued, officially, Rex was emphatic; “God no, god no! The brothers were against that, and I’m against it, and that’s just it. Period. It ain’t coming out.”
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