DOWN Doing it up New Orleans style

Doing it up New Orleans style

With Jimmy Bower & Pepper Keenan

By Nikki Neil

What do certain members of Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, Eyehategod, and Crowbar have in common? A love for booze, barbecue, and fishin’. Oh yeah, and when Phil Anselmo (Pantera), Rex Brown (Pantera), Pepper Keenan (C.O.C.), Jimmy Bower (Eyehategod), and Kirk Windstein (Crowbar) are not busy with their respective bands they get together and have some fun with their little ole’ side project called Down. Now mind you, Down isn’t a vanity project nor is it a novelty act. Down is simply an outlet that allows these hard rockin’ veterans to play the kind of music that is imbedded in their souls.

So why did it take seven years for Down to put out a second album?

J: Cuz’ Pepper’s got this weird cancer in his leg.

P: That’s a bunch of shit. I’ve been cleaning banana trees all day.

J: He’s been doing some humanitarian work in the Caribbean. (Laughs) Naw, with everybody’s schedules it’s definitely hard to get everyone in the same place at one time. When we did the C.O.C. / Pantera thing in Australia we had everyone there but Kirk, so we started talking about it and got it all set up and then it finally happened in November.

When you released the first Down album, NOLA, were there any intentions of releasing a second one?

P: I think we always knew we’d do one sooner or later. We wanted to, but just didn’t know when. We knew when we finished the first record that it was some bad shit.

J: It wasn’t just a one-time thing. When you have a chemistry that good you definitely look forward to doing it again.

P: We knew we’d get back together sooner or later.

It’s pretty obvious that your obligations to your primary bands makes it difficult for everyone to get together and work on new material for Down.

J: Yeah, four of us can do it but then one guy is on tour. It just worked out that we were in Australia together so we said, “Nobody plan anything for November.” We put such a time limit on ourselves and restricted it so that we had to do it then, which is what kind of made it so fuckin’ crazy. They way we recorded this album was just nuts.

P: We didn’t have anything really written, but we knew chemistry wise that we are all pretty good at this heavy shit. We have it pretty well figured out at this point. We just went in there with no preconceived notions and created [the album].

So how long did it take you to complete Down II: A Bustle In Your Hedgerow from start to finish?

J: 28 days.

P: Yup, we wrote it and recorded it in 28 days. You have to understand that it might have taken us only 28 days to write and record it but we’ve dedicated our lives to playing this shit, so it ain’t like we had to sit there and brainstorm about ideas. If you take three guys who play blues for a living and you stick them in a room they’re gonna make an ass kickin’ blues record.

J: They don’t make records long enough for the kind of mood we were in. We had to stop ourselves at sixteen songs. We could have went on for days.

P: It’s not like we were lacking in ideas because we all grew up playing this kind of music but, the cool thing is, on this record we branched out into different territories that we’ve never gone in before. To me being a musician is all about putting your ass on the line and sticking your neck out in places that people wouldn’t expect you to go to.

J: Totally.

I heard that you recorded this album in a barn. What were the benefits of recording in a barn as opposed to a studio?

P: Well, Down just isn’t that type of band. Every time we’ve written stuff for Down it’s been in a jam environment. So on this particular outing we not only had to write the songs in a jam atmosphere but we had to record them too. What’s more important than the studio you are at is the vibe in which the songs are written, so we said, “screw the studio.” I wasn’t going to sit in a hotel all day and then go into a studio to record for nine hours and then go back to the hotel and go to bed. We said, “Let’s get this building and send a bunch of shit down there and no one will leave until we get the damn thing done.”

J: Phillip lives out in the middle of nowhere and he has this killer barn. He built this big jam room in it and rented the best shit you could possibly think of.

P: We rented a bunch of old vintage gear and had it shipped down and we just went at it. That is the way I wanted to do it and everybody else agreed. So that is the way it happened because that is more effective for a band like Down than going to some studio and using every damn bell and whistle on the planet. The vibe and the atmosphere are much more important to a band like Down than tracks, lights, and shit.

Well the vibe definitely comes across on this album. I think the barn thing really worked to your advantage.

P: Thanks but, don’t get me wrong, we were living in a swallow. It was basically a bunch of dudes on a month long camping trip just being recorded.

So you basically had a tape running the whole time.

J: Yeah, we went through a lot of tape, blew a lot of speakers, and broke a lot of shit. These guys showed up from Nashville with all this equipment and it took them two days to set it up and after they left shit started breaking.

Twenty-eight days is pretty quick to get an album out.

J: It is. We kind of tripped ourselves out. We wrote and recorded it all in that time.

P: Nobody attempted to do a record like that in a long time. Every band is so fucking homogenized right now. Everything is so planned out and so thought out. Everything is so perfect. We were like watch this shit Mutha

Fuckers. Twenty-eight days fools.

Would you do it again?

P: Totally.

J: Hell yeah.

P: The record sounds crushing. You can put that record up against any record out there. It’s got dynamics, the production is killer, and it’s produced by not being produced. We let it be the real thing. This shit is the real deal.

J: I think we’re coming into an age where a lot of bands won’t have to rely on going to some studio where they don’t feel comfortable. They’ll be able to go out and actually buy equipment that will allow them to record in their own atmosphere, which will make them more comfortable; thus, they’ll have a better record. We definitely sold ourselves on the fact that we don’t really need a studio.

P: It’s something that we’ve always wanted to do.

J: ‘Cuz Led Zeppelin had done that shit. We grew up reading about how Led Zeppelin rented castles and did all these killer recordings, so we tried to do it. The only difference was that our castle was a barn.

Did anybody outside of the band help out with the production of this album?

P: We had Warren with us. Warren was basically knob twisting. He came up with a lot of ideas mainly on the production side of things in terms of how to make this work. It was like, “How are we going to record all these things without having the tape bleed?” It was a logistical nightmare. We had to basically get the barn wired so nothing buzzed. Once everything was up and running, like we had drawn on paper, it worked killer. Warren was very producer friendly in that end. It took a gutsy guy to do that because most people would have said, “You’re out of your mind. There’s no way I’m putting my name on something like that.” But Warren was like, “Hell, let’s do this.”

J: He was definitely a trooper throughout the whole thing.

P: It wasn’t like you were going home and taking a shower after twelve hours. You were eating a can of beans and knocking yourself out with a twelve pack and falling on the floor.

J: We drank all night and we did it up right. We barbequed and shit. It was cool. We had fun. Down hadn’t been together in a long time, so that was pretty much the only way it could be done. It was kind of like a big family reunion for us.

I’m sure you all had a bunch of ideas already stored up in your heads.

J: We have ideas for eight thousand more records.

Do you prefer to play live shows or do you prefer to jam in a studio?

P: We love playing live. I do, but I like writing stuff in the studio too. It’s either or for me. Playing live is just the icing on the cake after you go crazy in the studio. Live, you get the crowd’s response. When you’re jamming you don’t know if it’s going to be killer or not. First we’re sitting in South Louisiana writing these tunes and then, all of a sudden, the payoff comes when we’re in Sydney, Australia playing the same songs we wrote in a barn in the middle of nowhere. That’s the payback.

You guys didn’t tour much in support of the first album. Will you tour more for this one?

J: Yeah, we definitely obligated ourselves to doing a lot more touring.

P: People need to hear this shit so we’re going.

What will your bandmates in your other groups do while your touring with Down.

P: I don’t know.

J: Everybody’s got their own thing going. It’s healthy to get away from your main shit sometimes. I’m going to Japan with Eyehategod in three weeks. I just constantly try to do things all the time with everybody so when it does come time to do something nobody gets upset. I haven’t done anything in about a year, so I’m ready to go.

Jimmy, are you and Phil still doing Superjoint Ritual?

J: Yes we are. We have a record (Self-titled) coming out in May (21^st on Sanctuary).

Any other side projects going on?

J: Everybody just likes to jam. Pepper and I will hook up with the drummer of Eyehategod and jam, but if somebody hears about it, it’s automatically a side project. There’s just a lot of stuff going on. Nobody limits themselves to just one band.

P: Everybody just likes to play music.

J: Exactly. We’re just jamming. Sometimes it’s taken seriously, sometimes it’s not - sometimes it’s just for the moment. It’s fun.

How often do you guys barbeque when you are at home?

P: Probably about twice a day.

J: I eat hamburger everyday when I’m home. I know it’s not healthy but…

As veterans of the music industry what would you say is the hardest part of this business?

J: Waiting on checks.

P: Dealing with people’s bullshit.

J: You can sum up the music business by the amount of time you spend waiting for people.

What is the most important thing you have learned so far?

P: Don’t listen to anybody.

J: I’ve learned all kinds of things. Primarily, don’t listen to anyone and don’t do the business part of it. In the New Orleans scene there are a lot of people whose careers are just starting. I kind of feel that way too. This new Down record is a really big thing. It’s a cool project. Everybody’s heads are geared for it, so I’m looking forward to the future and hopefully touring a lot and writing a lot of cool music and just having a good time. It’s fun to play music. To deny that is crazy. That is why we started doing it in the first place. You just learn to have fun even more.

What does music mean to you?

P: It’s just a way of life. It is what we do. We’re not weekenders here.

J: Totally.

P: This is what we’ve dedicated our lives to. Everything else is just gravy, but I’ll tell you it’s a fuckin’ pleasure being able to make a living doing music. It’s something we are all extremely focused on at all times because it is our lives.

J: Yeah. I’ve lived with my mother for five years because of the simple fact that I did a lot of touring with Eyehategod and Crowbar. We weren’t making millions but we still kept on doing it. Everybody did what it took to do it, whether it was moving into your mom’s house or taking in a roommate. Sometimes the financial aspect of being a musician is hard, and I think it deters a lot of people. To not have to worry about the financial end of the things would be super cool.

What are your viewpoints of the current state of music?

J: Confused.

P: The R&B scene is killer.

J: The rock scene is really depressing.

P: Underground country music is great. They got it going on. As far as modern stuff goes, I don’t listen to anything that you would listen to. I’m right down the street from the Maple Leaf and the Reverb Brass Band is getting ready to play tonight, so that’s where my head is at. The music scene is alive and well. You just have to search for it. [The labels] are trying to spoon-feed you a lot of bullshit nowadays, but there’s a lot of cool, creative stuff out there. I look for people who mean what they are doing.

J: I like the pissed off bands who are flippin’ the bird. If you look at the bands that are making the fifteen-year-olds freak out now—when I was fifteen I had Slayer and Metallica—now you have bands like Slipknot. I can see how a fifteen-year-old would think that was the most killer thing. But as far as what we consider our favorite thing it is different because we are older.

P: Do your homework. There’s a lot of cool shit out there. I had to search when I was a kid. Black Flag didn’t just fall in my lap.

J: We had fun searching for obscure ‘70’s underground bands that were similar in style to Black Sabbath. That’s kind of the stuff that we got into. We’ve always tended to listen to more underground type stuff.

Did you guys party hard for Mardi Gras?

P: Hell yeah!

J: Pepper is more of the dive into Mardi Gras person than I am.

The bio refers to you guys by your nik-names [Nodferatu (Phil), The Sarge (Pepper), Crown Brown (Rex), Flash (Jimmy) and Toots Sweet (Kirk)] How did you all acquire them?

P: I don’t think anyone in New Orleans has a real name.

J: If you go to Kirk’s house you could tell him your name but it ain’t gonna do you any good.

P: Yeah, you won’t be the name you tell him.

How did Kirk end up with the name “Toots Sweet”?

J: (Laughs) Kirk’s name is Toots Sweet, Old Man…he calls himself Old Man. It’s never Kirk. Phil’s mom and dad have called him Jackass since he was fifteen. Then you have Kirk’s dad who has a Judas Priest sticker on the back of his ’78 Caprice Classic that he drives to work everyday.

P: Kirk’s dad’s nickname is Slim.

J: Kirk’s parents were really active and supportive in our career and it’s really cool to grow up around people like that. We just call each other stupid nicknames. But Kirk is king of that shit.

Jimmy, the last time I spoke to you Kirk was running around drunk and naked in front of the Whiskey. Does he still do that?

J: Yeah, nothing has changed. He is still the same.

Does any other member of Down have any strange or unusual habits?

J: I like to smoke a lot of weed.

I know that. They took your joint away from you at the Palace when we were smoking out while watching Body Count.

J: Yeah, that sucked. Hanging with you was fun, but they took away my joint. As far as everybody else goes, they all like to drink. I don’t like to really drink that much. We have other hobbies like fishing.

So no one else in the band gets drunk and runs around naked?

J: Kirk is the only one with that habit, but there is this dude that sells our t-shirts who has a bigger nude habit than him.

P: Especially when it comes to fishing.

J: Yeah, he likes to get naked too.

When he is fishing?

P: Yeah, we call him the naked fisherman.

J: I wouldn’t see that dude fishing any other way.

I have a question that I’m not sure you can answer, but I heard a rumor today that Pantera is breaking up. Is this true?

J: Phil said something in an interview and it was blown out of proportion. It was taken out of context. For one thing, people take shit too seriously. It was just Phil’s mood at the moment. People take everything to heart. There are a lot of rumors going around about everybody – just stupid rumors. About two years ago the rumor was that Mike Williams, the singer of Eyehategod, had AIDS. All they are, are rumors. That’s all.

Is there anything else that you would like to add?

P: I’m cutting grass with a push mower right now.

J: We’re gonna do a lot of touring. We’re going to play L.A. Are you still out there?

Yeah. We’ll have to get together and do shots at Barney’s Beanery again.

J: Definitely. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview.

P: Yeah. Hook us up with a fishing trip to Catalina Island. [Fuck yeah! Let’s go!!! Mmmmm…fresh fish caught yourself. -J]

Sure, as long as you teach me how to fish.

P & J: It’s a deal.