Zakk Wylde may have gotten the nod to fill Dimebag Darrell’s shoes in the newly reprised Pantera, but Kayla Kent is proving once more she would have been a stellar pick for the job, nailing Dimebag’s style during a phaser-drenched take on Eddie Van Halen’s Ice Cream Man solo.
Kent was in fact in the running for the Pantera gig, and while Wylde turned to Guitar World buyer’s guides for Dimebag tone tips, Kent probably needn’t have gone to such measures, such is her insane tonal connection to the late shredder.
The YouTuber has made her name by channeling Dimebag’s sonic spirit and tackling classic solos, such as Symphony of Destruction, as if Dimebag himself had performed them. This time, she’s giving one of Dime’s biggest influences the same treatment.
John Brim’s blues cut was covered by Van Halen on the band’s 1978 debut record, and it showcased (as every track on the album did) Eddie Van Halen’s revolutionary chops, which Kent has handled with aplomb.
Interestingly, Kent’s note-perfect performance also shows just how many tonal cues Dime took from his hero, the fast descending run early on morphing from EVH to Pantera tones each time she changes strings. It’s wild.
Of course, there are whammy bar dives and squeals aplenty – two other tricks Dime loaded into his arsenal after falling in love with Van Halen – and Kent’s apparent effortlessness while killing it is a source of envy.
“I think Pantera might’ve talked about this in Hot and Heavy,” Kent writes in the video’s description, “but I’m not totally sure.”
After several years of shreddy antics, Kent recently announced she wants to form a band and put out an open call to vocalists around the world. She also shared a demo of a work-in-progress track for singers to play with, and it sounds eerily like a long-lost Pantera demo.
At the time, it seemed Kent’s Pantera-esque group might represent the closest thing to new Pantera-sounding music. However, Wylde has confirmed that the current iteration of Pantera may use Dime’s raw riffs to cook up a new record.
Dimebag and Eddie had a lot of love for one another, and Eddie even offered to hand-paint him an EVH Bumblebee guitar for him. That, sadly, never came to be, as Dimebag was killed just weeks after the exchange. The guitarist was then buried with Van Halen’s original black-and-yellow-striped Bumblebee guitar.
