Pete Freedman
Ex-Member Of Indiana Band Desecrates Dimebag Darrell's Grave, Earns Old Band All Sorts Of Ire.
The metal world is up in arms today over a possible publicity stunt definitely made in bad taste by a touring band from Indiana at the grave of the late, great Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott.
The long and short of it: The Fort Wayne band Nuclear Hellfrost, which toured through the Dallas-Fort Worth area in late December for a show at Lower Greenville taqueria and panaderia La Chichen Itza, used its time in the region to visit Dime's grave site in Arlington. Once there, they spit on his grave, stole a pair of cowboy boots left in Dime's honor and left behind a note with the word “fag” marked on it — this all according to a since-deleted Tumblr post from one of the band's members, in which Dime was also referred to as a “douchebag” and his bandmates were called a “buncha racist hillbillies.”
This comes just months following the tenth anniversary of Dime's tragic on-stage death in Columbus, Ohio, and just days following the 23-year anniversary of the release of Vulgar Display of Power, the band's best-selling LP.
So, no, not at all surprisingly, the Pantera team, which shared a screengrab of that original Tumblr post on its own Facebook page, isn't exactly thrilled about all of this. Rather, they say they are “absolutely disgusted” by the stunt and that “authorities have been notified” about it.
Since that early afternoon Pantera post, which has at this point been shared well over 11,000 times on Facebook alone and has also been the subject of numerous stories on metal-focused web publications, Nuclear Hellfrost has done its part to apologize and defend itself.
In its own Facebook response, the band claims that the person responsible for the post is no longer a member of its group, that the band as a whole does not stand by that now-former member's actions, and that this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. The band is also quick to point out that the ex-member responsible for this didn't desecrate the grave so much as just leave a piece of paper on top of it.
Not to justify the band's actions in the slightest, but, even if its members had carved something onto Dime's gravestone, it's not like they'd be the first to do so. Pictures of the site clearly show that fans have been carving their own tags into the memorial for some time now.
Still, this is an absurdly shitty thing to do. That's clear.
Less clear was the motivation behind this move. If the goal was publicity, hey, it's worked — in the sense that most anyone even familiar with the situation now deplores Nuclear Hellfrost, regardless of its intent.
Of course, thinking things all the way through doesn't appear to be Nuclear Hellfrost's strong suit. This is a band, after all, that also uses specials on a drink that Dime is credited as inventing on fliers meant to promote its own shows.
