Zakk Wylde Reflects on 'Greatness' of 'Saint' Dimebag Darrell

Re-spect! On the anniversary of Dimebag Darrell's death this past week, Zakk Wylde remembered "St. Dime" with a posted performance of him riffing away on Pantera's "Walk" on a bullseye Camo Dime Washburn guitar gifted him by the late musician.

In his posting, Wylde spoke of Dimebag's generosity toward him, explaining that this particular instrument was given to him as a surprise while on the Ozzfest. "Every time he hooked me up with one of his fiddles he had me in tears," explained Wylde in the Instagram post. Watch the online tribute below.

In our own interview with Wylde back in 2014, he stated that personally Dime reminded him of "Santa Claus with a pink beard." "He just loved giving everybody presents all the time and he'd light up a room," continued Wylde, adding that the guitarist was a mix of Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Ace Frehley with the spirit of Daniel Blutarski (John Belushi) from Animal House. "That's what's in the Dimebag drink. All those concoctions go into the Dimebag cocktail," said Wylde in the video below.

Wylde had strong ties to Dimebag, with the Black Label Society song "In This River" being inspired by the late musician. "When I looked at the lyrics, I knew this was his tune and it became part of the set which it always will be," Wylde told us of the track.

Though the subject of a Pantera reunion has been brought up and shot down more times than can be counted, Wylde has always been the name mentioned as the most likely guitarist to step in should anything ever come to fruition.

When asked about the possibility, singer Philip Anselmo told us, "Zakk is such a badass fucking player, but I just think he's a different player, man -- different style." He added, "You gotta remember, tonality comes into it -- he has a different tone than Dime, you know? So there would be, I guess, so many things to tweak about what [Zakk] does to not fill [Dime's] shoes but actually play Pantera parts. Cause there ain't no filling them f--king shoes."

The vocalist went on to state, "Make no mistake: Zakk Wylde is a fucking awesome motherfucker, down to earth, cool as shit, and can rip his fucking ass off. But I even said something to him after a show. I said, it's that grip. Nobody had Dimebag's fucking grip on that fucking axe — nobody."

Zakk Wylde Reflects on Dimebag Darrell in This 2014 Video Interview