Quotes from Vinnie Paul

To me, a hockey player has to be every sport rolled into one: ice skater, baseball player, football player, etc. It's just incredible to watch!

Jacques Cousteau was my hero.

Sometimes you get too jaded, too seasoned. With Hellyeah, we've been having a lot of fun. From the minute we sat down in the studio, there was a lot of energy.

John Bonham, probably the greatest drummer ever - all of us wanted to play drums like him.

I love being on the road; I love traveling. I love interacting with the fans and friends and fans and metal on the way.

Slayer is one of my favorite bands of all time, and to be on a tour with them is absolutely a dream come true.

In 1994, we had the first record by a true heavy metal band to ever hit the Billboard top No. 1 slot. We paved the way. And we always waved the heavy metal flag.

The first time I heard Kiss, I knew that was the type of music I was attracted to.

Pantera is a marquee band, with the most diehard fans. We sold over 20 million records without MTV or radio.

When heavy metal was really big in the '80s, it was huge, and then it kind of waned down and kind of came back.

So many bands would say that they were alternative, or they were this or that... 'Heavy metal' was a pretty uncool word after about 1992; it was almost like, 'Stay away.' But it didn't bother us one bit. And our fans were the best ever.

I think there's a lot of death metal or doom metal dudes that somehow or another find a groove in it.

With the last couple of Pantera records, we kept getting more and more narrow-minded because of Phil. He didn't want to experiment or take any chances, and it was like being in a tube that was getting to be so small you couldn't even breathe. Personally, I think the dude was afraid of success.

The most important thing about drinking on the road is just you've gotta do it in moderation, first of all. You've gotta know your limits.

Music is made to be heard, whether you hear it in concert, you hear it on the radio, or you hear it in your car. It's not for two people to sit in a closet and go, 'That's my band, the only band I've ever heard, and I'm the only person that's going to hear it.'

I am one hundred percent dedicated to Hellyeah. I love what I do in this band. I'm really proud of this band. Everybody in this band is such a special person, and the music that we make together, I really believe, is very special and the next level in my life.

It's called the music business. We've all gone into it 'cause we love the music, and a lot of people end up with nothing at the end of the day, after they've done all of this great music, 'cause they never learned any of the business side.

To me, I always felt like drums have to be the support and the driving factor in a song, and there's places where the drummer has to show off and do things and get the spotlight, but not all the time. You've gotta pick and choose. And it's always gotta be about the song. That's really the bottom line.

I will never take anything away from Pantera. It was great; we had fourteen amazing years together. But it's no longer here. My brother is no longer here.

If you live in the past, you've got no future.

Basically, a band's first record is them coming together and really learning everything, and then, after they're on the road and really become a unit, the next record slams.

In 1999, we did a thing called the 'Reinventing The Steel' tour with Pantera, when I was still with them, and Slayer was part of that, and it was a great tour.

I remember, in 1999, when we did the last Ozzfest that we were part of, and I think Disturbed was on it, Static-X, obviously Ozzy, us, and we were the only band on the tour that had a rider that had any alcohol. Nobody else had it.

There are numerous different kinds of drum sounds - some are more ambient and roomy and this, that, and the other, the John Bonham kind of thing. Then there's kinda what I did with Pantera, which was much more attacky, and then with what I did for 'Blood For Blood' on the Hellyeah record is kind of a combination of all of that.