Ever want your own platinum record? Pantera is making that a reality. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Far Beyond Driven, the band is selling personalized platinum record plaques. The plaques are $275 and available at the band’s online store.
Released in 1994, Far Beyond Driven was the band’s seventh studio album and first to hit number one in the United States. This feat proved to be a big moment for heavy rock, one the band never saw coming.
Phil Anselmo told TV Rock Live back in 2014 regarding the achievement:
“I don’t think any of us had any idea at all that we would have a No. 1 record or anything like that.”
The heavier direction the band took with the album seemed to be an easy decision for the band to make following their 1992 album Vulgar Display of Power. In a 2014 interview with ARTISTdirect.com, Ansalmo said of the making of the album:
“There was a lot of speculation out there about what type of record we were going to make. I definitely had a chip on my fucking shoulder because there was no way in hell I was going to go the fucking commercial route. At the time, I think we were very aware of other heavy metal bands that had found a little bit of fame and taken that ‘commercial route,’ so to speak, with their music. I very much instilled that there was no fucking way I was doing that into the other guys. I think they were on board quite a bit. It’s like when you have a favorite band, you follow their entire career, you wait anxiously to buy their new record, you open up it, you put it on, and it’s a letdown. That’s a shitty feeling. We knew what our fan base wanted. We were very focused on delivering what our fan base had come to know and come to know of us. A lot of people like to say we did things in reverse. Meaning, we didn’t start out this heavy fucking band and get more commercialized. It was kind of the other way around. That was the main focus there. When I laid my vocals on that fucking record, I wanted people to feel the fucking spit on their faces coming out of the speakers.”
That sentiment was echoed by the late Vinnie Paul during an interview for the 20th anniversary of the album with Vanyaland in 2014, saying:
“The only pressure we felt was the pressure we put on ourselves. We didn’t let any kind of record company pressure or anything like that affect us. We wanted to make the most extreme record we could make; we came up with the title ‘Far Beyond Driven’ before we even wrote one song for it, and that kind of set the tone for the whole record.”
In addition to the plaques, the band is also releasing a limited edition long-sleeve t-shirt of the album cover. A 20th anniversary edition of Far Beyond Driven was released in 2014 and can still be purchased from the band’s website. The CD version of the set includes a bonus disc recorded during the band’s 1994 set at the Monsters of Rock Festival in Donington, England.
