How Pantera’s Rex Brown Went From Playing Tuba to Bass

Rex Brown is at present celebrating the legacy he helped construct, taking part in bass and revisiting the music of Pantera on the band present tour dates. But do you know that the bass wasn’t his first instrument? That truly could be the tuba.

During an interview performed with Gibson TV in December 2020 that is been making the rounds on-line, Brown goes into element about how he finally discovered his method to the instrument he is most recognized for at present, which is the bass.

Brown revealed his musical training began with a need to be a part of his center faculty band’s drumline, however as he revealed, that did not come to fruition with the band director suggesting that he play the tuba.

Brown remembers, “Dude, I weighed about 80 pounds and trying to pick one of these things up, that’s another story altogether. But I went on to be All-State every year. I started at beginner class. Within two months, I was in the intermediate class and then three months I was head chair, so something was happening.”

Rex says his fast ascent selecting up the tuba led to extra alternatives inside the band, and he was requested to check out for guitar. “Every chord and every downbeat was the Chet Atkins fucking chord. Nobody does that, and they couldn’t find a kid anywhere to do that, so that’s when I picked up the bass,” says Brown.

He remembers, “I was like, ‘Man, this has got to be easy.’ They had like these ’72, ’73 Fender Jazz precisions and they’d let me take them home. They had the cool amps and stuff.”

Brown says he finally struck up an excellent rapport with the band director to the place there was some belief as his ardour for the instrument grew. “I’ve always been one of those cats where you just look someone in the eye and you tell them the truth, that’s who you are. There’s no pretension there, you know. I was like, ‘You mind if I take the bass? I’d really like to learn over the weekend.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, you’ve done so well with the tuba, so no problem,'” says the bassist.

But in accordance to Brown, he pushed the boundaries of that belief a bit as soon as he received older. “I got kind of sneaky in the 9th grade. The door had a window that you could open up and I kind of borrowed some amps for the weekend. [The band director] found out about it and pulled me into the office and was like, ‘You been taking the amps away?’ But they looked fine. There was no scuffs or anything, so I was like, ‘Dude I was gonna tell ya, but it was just impromptu. A jam came up.'”

As many Pantera followers know, these jams grew to become extra frequent for the teenage bassist, who finally crossed paths with brothers Vinnie Paul Abbott and his brother Darrell, with the three musicians forming the bottom of what would grow to be Pantera.

Watch extra of Rex Brown’s story within the Gibson TV Icons video under.