BONUS TRACK: THIS LOVE
Good Friends and a Tray of Shots
“Once it hits your lips, it’s so good!”
FRANK THE TANK,
Old School
Most people’s first encounter with Darrell Abbott mirrored David Karon’s, not long after Karon started working for Randall Amplifiers, one of Darrell’s sponsors. The setting might be different, the cast might change slightly, but the plot and script were remarkably consistent. The following things generally featured prominently: a sizable quantity of alcohol, a smattering of cursing, and a level of generosity that bordered on complete disdain for finance. In Karon’s version, he was at the NAMM show in 2001.
“It was a very interesting meeting,” Karon says. He’s now director of artist relations for Randall Amplifiers and Washburn Guitars. “He was on one of his long tears. He was in rare form. I remember one of the first things that he did. He’s, like, ‘Go get me some shots.’ Gives me a wad of cash. And I’m, like, ‘Well, all right.’ So I go get him his shots and I bring them back and I’m, like, ‘Here’s your change, man.’ He goes, ‘I don’t want that shit.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking your money.’ It was, like, two hundred bucks. ‘I’m not keeping your dough,’ and I shoved it in his pocket. It was just one of those typical things. I’m, like, ‘Ah, that’s the introduction you get.’”
Most people’s relationship with Darrell mirrored Karon’s as well. If you worked with Darrell, or for him, the dealings rarely remained confined to business. Darrell put too much of his heart into everything else that he did to leave it out just because his head had got involved. Those two organs didn’t often work independently of one another, except when a third (his liver) applied peer pressure.
That combination of head and heart was so palpable, Karon could feel it even when he and Darrell weren’t in the same room, which was often the case; his and Darrell’s partnership played out mostly on the phone. They spoke often, and during those frequent conversations, Karon found that Darrell was even more up-front when separated by a long-distance connection than he was in person.
“I remember one time when I was hanging out and something happened, and he [called and] was, like, ‘What are you doing?’” Karon says. “I’m, like, ‘Uh, walking my dogs.’ He’s like, ‘Well, if you don’t get this shit straightened out I’m gonna fuckin’ shoot your dogs.’” He laughs.
“You know, he was a really smart guy,” Karon continues.
Great business guy, great business sense. But I think a lot of the time, yeah, he used his heart before anything else. Whenever he’d deal with people, it was first through his heart and then it was through his head, and then through his hands. So, I think people could see how genuine he was as a person. I mean, you can tell when someone’s bullshitting, and he was never one to bullshit. If he wasn’t happy, he’d tell you straight up he wasn’t happy. If he was happy, he’d tell you straight up when he was happy. Usually metal people don’t show their emotions, and he was one that would show his emotions. Not afraid of them. Regardless of if there was good things or bad things or whatever, he always showed you how much he cared about you. Not every artist is that way. He made sure he told you what you mean to him. Not everyone else that you work with does that. He made sure of it.
Darrell didn’t just let Karon know how much he and Randall meant to him during those regular phone calls. His show of support was public and prolific and had little to do with his endorsement contracts. “Every time you saw him in a photo or on TV or anything, he was always wearing either a Randall or a Washburn shirt or hat or something,” Karon says. “Or, you know, BLS [Black Label Society]. He always backed his friends and his family.”
Darrell usually went well beyond wearing a T-shirt or hat when it came to showing how he felt about someone. No one ever had to ask, but when people did ask for something, he gave it to them and then some. It didn’t matter if he’d known them for years or minutes. More often than not, it didn’t matter if he knew them at all.
“When I was playing in Slow Roosevelt, the guy that was helping me out, my guitar tech live, he was a real big guitar fan and really loved Darrell’s playing,” Scott Minyard says.
I called Darrell one time around Christmas, and asked him if there was a way that he’d have time to sign me a poster. This is what I wanted to give this guy, because this guy gave me a lot of stuff, and I wanted to give him something, something he couldn’t pay for—because he made pretty good money and everything. I wanted to do him up right one year and get him a poster signed by Dime, and I was going to get it and put it in a frame and everything for him the right way. Darrell says that he’s going out to this club over in Fort Worth and to meet him out there. So I go out there to get the poster, and he’s got two posters signed; he’s got a shirt signed; he’s got a bag full of picks with his name on them that have been unopened. He saw what I was doing. He loved stuff like that.
When one of Darrell’s endorsers flew him in for an event, he made sure no one left without getting a piece of him. Because he never lost the mind-set of a fan, it was easy for him to put himself back in that place. Darrell knew what he would have wanted if he were in that line, and so he gave it. Sometimes it was an autograph or a photo. Sometimes it was a guitar pick. Sometimes it was a guitar.
At Darrell’s public memorial service at the Arlington Convention Center, his longtime friend and collaborator Nick Bowcott told a story that shed even more light on Darrell’s random acts of kindness. A kid showed up with his father at one of Darrell’s autograph signings. Darrell asked the kid if he played, and he told Darrell that he wanted to, but he couldn’t afford a guitar. Darrell said he knew what that was like and gave the kid his John Hancock. When the boy and his father were out of earshot, he told one of the members of his crew to make sure they didn’t leave. They waited around while the line emptied, and Darrell had them come into the back of the store. Waiting there was a new guitar. He would have given it to the boy earlier, but he didn’t want to embarrass the father by doing it in front of the crowd. “When I come back, you better be able to rip!” he said.
