Official Truth, 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera Read Free Page A

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    HEADS UP
     
If you put your head up above the fence often enough, eventually some fucker is going to throw a rock at you.
     
    B ut when they stop throwing rocks, that’s when you’ve really got a problem, because you’re obviously not important any more. I have no clue whose quote that one up there in bold was—it might even be a combination of things a few people have said, but the message in there is that fame and fortune is truly a fucked-up concept. I mean, obviously it changes the way you dress and the way you present yourself in front of people, that’s a given. But I found myself treating people differently, and not because of their personality or how they were to me. That didn’t matter at all.
    No, the reason was because I was in a higher tax bracket. Fuck, I’d sit there and say stupid shit like, “Dude, I’ve got more money than God.” That must have sounded so arrogant and I’m embarrassed I ever said things like that. Sure, I liked the fame or, rather, aspects of the social acceptance that comes with it, but I liked the fortune better and I attribute that to having been brought up in a household where everything had been a struggle, particularly from a financial point of view. My conclusion, and I’m far from the first to say so, is that everything changes when money gets involved.
    When you’ve been broke and solitary like I was as a teenager, barely cutting it, trying to make a two-hundred-buck-a-week salary cover the rent and still leave room to get a twelve-pack for the week or something like that, it’s no surprise things get a little screwed when the checks start flying in, and then all you can say is, “What the fuck am I going to do with all this?!”
    Well, what we did with it was spend it—too freely at times—but because we toured so much and accepted every good offer that was thrown our way, there always seemed to be a healthy cash flow to keep it all going. It felt great to finally have some money when I’d been poor all my life, I can’t deny that. Do I wish I’d had a little more help at times, some wise and trustworthy financial advice? Of course I do, because I didn’t really know how to go out there and invest, although I did do bonds but wished I hadn’t once the stock market crashed on me. Eventually I learned how to save the money I was making, but there was a long learning curve.
    What complicates things is that you’ve got money coming from so many different places: record royalties, tour money, merchandising, equipment endorsement deals . . . the list goes on, and all you can do is to trust somebody—in my case the company who was part of our business partnership—to pay all the bills and take care of all the taxes, so I really didn’t have to worry about anything. I could just call them and say, “I need some money here, I need some money there” or whatever, or I could call and say, “Just cut a check for this to so and so” and they’d do it so I didn’t have to. That left me to take care of the business I knew how to control: playing the music.
    To have large amounts of cash at my disposal not only felt great, but it also balanced out all the sacrifices I’d made to get in this position: being on the road, being away from my family, and all the other difficulties that come from that kind of life.
    Gradually though—and it doesn’t matter a shit how much money you once had—you realize that not only do you not have more money than God, but you actually don’t have nearly as much as you thought you did.
    Then you panic and all you want to do is just live. I had gotten into the habit of living well—in a large house with every available comfort—and it was great for my kids to live in the type of environment where they can get anything they want, within reason. Being able to provide that meant a lot to me because it was the polar opposite to what it was like for me growing up. Remember, we were musicians, not accountants, and learning to look