page_title: Dimebag Darrell
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: Dimebag Darrell / Death
context_page_description: Darrell Lance Abbott, best known by his stage name Dimebag Darrell, was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist of the heavy metal bands Pantera and Damageplan, both of which he co-founded alongside his brother Vinnie Paul. As one of the driving forces behind the development of groove metal, he is considered among the most influential guitarists in heavy metal history and one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
  A son of country music producer Jerry Abbott, Abbott began playing guitar at age 12, and Pantera released its debut album, Metal Magic, when he was 16. Originally a glam metal musician, Abbott went by the stage name Diamond Darrell at the time. Two further albums in the glam metal style followed in 1984 and 1985, before original vocalist Terry Glaze was replaced by Phil Anselmo in 1986 and Power Metal was released. The band's major-label debut, Cowboys from Hell, introduced a groove metal sound to which Abbott's guitar playing was central. This sound was refined on Vulgar Display of Power, and the group's third major-label record, Far Beyond Driven, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 1994.
context_section_description: On December 8, 2004, Damageplan was performing at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio. As the band played the first song of its setlist, Nathan Gale, a deranged fan, rushed onto the stage and shot Abbott multiple times with a Beretta 92FS, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol. The band's head of security, Jeffrey "Mayhem" Thompson, then tackled Gale, but was fatally shot in the ensuing struggle. A fan, Nathan Bray, was also murdered as he attempted to aid Abbott and Thompson, as was Erin Halk, an employee of the venue who tried to disarm Gale while he was reloading. Three others were wounded before Columbus police officer James Niggemeyer entered the club and shot Gale once in the head with a 12-gauge Remington Model 870, killing him.
  Abbott was pronounced dead at the scene, aged 38. Thousands of fans attended his public memorial, and the guest list included artists such as Eddie Van Halen, Zakk Wylde, Corey Taylor, Jerry Cantrell and Dino Cazares. Abbott was buried alongside his mother Carolyn at the Moore Memorial Gardens cemetery in Arlington, Texas. Gene Simmons donated a Kiss Kasket for the burial, and Eddie Van Halen donated his original black-and-yellow-striped 1979 Charvel "Bumblebee" guitar, which was featured on the back cover of Van Halen II, to be included in the casket. A few weeks prior to his death, Abbott had met Van Halen and asked him for a replica of the Bumblebee. Van Halen said at the funeral: "Dime was an original and only an original deserves the original."
  After Vinnie Paul's death in 2018, he was buried next to Carolyn and Darrell, also in a Kiss Kasket.
caption: A fan mourns outside the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio, where Abbott was murdered.
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