NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) sludge metal heroes CROWBAR were recently interviewed by the NYC EXAMINER. FROM THE NYC EXAMINER: Sludge metal pioneers Crowbar came to New York City this past Sunday, playing a packed show at Santo's Party House in support of their upcoming album Sever the Wicked Hand. Before the show, I was fortunate enough to get some time to speak with frontman and songwriter Kirk Windstein, who pulls triple duty playing guitar in Down and Kingdom of Sorrow as well as fronting Crowbar. Read the interview below for Kirk's thoughts on the new Crowbar record, rehab, Youtube recordings, and more, and my review of the concert itself here:
Examiner: Kirk, we’re in downtown Manhattan today, Crowbar plays tonight at Santo’s Party House, welcome to New York City.
Kirk: Thank you, good to be here.
Examiner: I know you’ve played here many times before, do you have any favorite parts of New York?
Kirk: I don’t know, usually it’s just a gig and doing press all day. If the weather’s nice, which it’s not today, I try to get out a little bit. Last time I was here was with Down, at Nokia, but I’ve been at different spots... I’d like to come here on vacation once, and see it and not work, yknow?
Examiner: Totally. Now I understand you filmed a video here in New York today, for Cemetery Angles. Where did you film?
Kirk: I don’t know, some cemetery.. I think down, lower side somewhere by the river. A couple of locations but I wouldn’t know. Then we’ll get some live stuff from the show tonight and mix it in with some other footage and storyline and stuff and that’ll be the video.
Examiner: So fans who are at tonight’s show should be looking for themselves when the video comes out.
Kirk: Absolutely, they may be in it.
Examiner: So over the summer you checked into rehab...
Kirk: Actually I didn’t ‘check in...’ it was time to stop drinking. Time to do a 180 and get my life together.
Examiner: In college I remember a couple of friends going to rehab, and coming back and saying that was the most fun they ever had. But I think my friends missed the point of rehab.
Kirk: They probably did. It’s real simple dude, it’s one of those things where it gets to the point where not only is it not fun anymore but it’s a problem, when it starts affecting all aspects of your life it’s time to stop. So everybody’s going congratulations, I’m like don’t congratulate me. People fall off every day, 90% of people that stop, start again. So, you just go day by day. It’s actually easier, believe it or not, on this particular tour, because we’re doing 23 shows in a row. Staying busy keeps me away from being bored, which used to be a lot of my problem. I’m touring and I’m bored and it’s an off day or I’m travelling and boom, there ya go, it’s fun again cause I’m drunk. And it’s not like that, today I was up before daylight shooting the video, we were playing in Trenton, NJ last night I didn’t get to bed until 3am, slept like three hours, did that, took a nap, got up, did photo shoots all day, the whole nine yards. MTV Headbangers Ball hosting, anything, just keep me busy.
Examiner: And you weren’t worried about going right back on the road with all the partying that goes on there?
Kirk: Well, yes and no. And what I mean by yes is because you’re obviously surrounded by it. But no because let’s be honest, my drug of choice is beer. It’s not only socially accepted, you can’t even watch a football game without having it shoved in your face a thousand times. In New Orleans it’s literally a way of life. Drinking goes with everything, there’s always an excuse to drink. We sell beer and liquor 24/7/365 everywhere, you can buy a 5th of vodka at 3am on Easter Sunday if you want. So it’s one of those things, where it’s not like cocaine or heroin or whatever, when you’re on those kind of drugs you quit calling the dealer, you quit hanging out at the places you used to frequent or you quit hanging out with those people. You can’t get away, I can’t fill my car up at a gas station without Coors Light, Bud Light, Corona, whatever, it’s just the way it is.
Examiner: So the new album comes out in February, Sever the Wicked Hand, and you’ve been playing a couple of new songs on this tour. How has the fan response been?
Kirk: Really good, I mean it’s odd because they’ve never heard it before, or maybe they saw the crappy version on Youtube where you can’t even hear, so it’s a little odd when you haven’t heard the new material, but I think the stuff’s killer and we’re probably playing two tonight, I’m gonna work on a special setlist for tonight. That’s why we’re just doing Cemetery Angels at soundcheck, it’s the first time we’ve done it since rehearsal before we went in the studio, so we have to practice at soundcheck. And that song everybody’s heard, it’s all over the Internet, we let it out with the preorder and put it out there. And then when the record is actually released, we can begin picking up some others.
Examiner: Well you mention fans seeing it on Youtube, in this day and age people come home from a show and the video’s online hours later, and sites like Blabbermouth pick it up... do you follow Internet chatter?
Kirk: Well, I do and I don’t. If it’s something real... by the time the show’s over, I go check on merch, I check on things, I get on the bus and chill and pop the laptop open, it’s already on Youtube, and then a lot of the people are haters and you’re like, well of course it sounds like shit, somebody did it from their phone! That’s why when people are like “can we film tonight?” I’m like absolutely. I’d much rather it be put on with a legitimate camera or a better version for people to see, it sounds like “(muffled noise)” well this song sucks, well yes it does, it could be Bohemian Rhapsody, it sounds like shit, you can’t tell what it is. So I don’t really follow it or let the haters get to me, it is what it is.
Examiner: Generally speaking, how would you say the new record compares to your existing discography in terms of the production, the tone, the overall sound?
Kirk: Definitely production-wise better than anything we’ve done, soundwise. And Zeuss mixed it and did a great job, he did the two Kingdom records and Hatebreed, and just did the Murderdolls, he’s really good. Great guy and really, really good producer, engineer, the whole nine yards. Production was incredible, best we’ve ever had. And as far as the record as a whole, the music and whatnot, I’m very, very satisfied that it’s really satisfied all the Crowbar fans. It’s twelve tracks, and none of them sound like the one you’re gonna hear before it. Play it like it’s meant to be, from A to Z, it’s a journey. It’s supposed to take you somewhere. Every song is different, I’m very proud of it, and to me, bands always say it’s the best they’ve ever done, and fans have their favorites, I understand that, but no matter what, if you like Crowbar, I don’t see how you could say it’s not killer.
Examiner: What would you say your favorite record has been until now?
Kirk: Either Odd Fellows Rest or Broken Glass, although I like Sonic Excess quite a bit. And Lifeblood. I mean, you have favorites, I mean an album like Crowbar - Crowbar, the self-titled one, it’s a classic and all that. We do two or three songs every night off that, because people want to hear it and it’s like, me playing All I Had (I Gave) is like Lemmy playing Ace of Spades or something. Sure he does it, he’s got to do it, it’s fun, you enjoy it because the crowd loves it, but there’s a lot more to Motorhead than the Ace of Spades. There’s a lot more to Crowbar than All I Had (I Gave). There’s a lot more to Crowbar than just slow stuff or heavy vocals too. People, when they really dig deep into what it is and really listen to it with an open mind they’ll be like wow, I didn’t know there was that much going on.
Examiner: You mention Odd Fellows Rest, I have to ask you about the song Odd Fellows Rest. Because you’re listening to an otherwise crushing record, and all of a sudden out of nowhere you have this slow, trippy, spacey jam coming out, where did that come from?
Kirk: Something I came up with, and I just wanted it to be a short segue piece, and it ended up being, I said I could sing on this. I ended up singing and doing some soloing, lots of texture on it... That’s what I love to do in the studio. I love to write and have the basic foundation of what the song’s all about. Then once the drums are done it’s time for fun for me, because I don’t know what I’m going to sing yet, and melody-wise I don’t even have my lyrics written... I write my lyrics the day I sing the song, so even when I have the basic things, I’m thinking what can I change, what can I add, how many harmonies can I do? What can I trick up, and really what you get in rehearsal and the final outcome are two very different things, and that’s where the fun comes in, doing the guitar stuff, the harmony stuff. And also vocally, I don’t know what the lyrics will be. I leave the studio, and I have a disc. And I wake up in the morning and I listen to the song, and I write whatever I’m feeling, and I go to the studio and sing it, and that’s pretty much on the fly. I build my vocals with a pen and paper, scratch stuff out, change lyrics, I don’t know what my melody’s gonna be, I experiment with different things, and the final outcome is what I think is best.
Examiner: So I was driving my sister the other day, and I put the Broken Glass album on in the car. And she grew up listening to me blast Metallica, Megadeth, but nothing this heavy, and she listens for a minute, and turns to me and says “Why is he so angry?” And I was gonna give the usual generic ‘this is what heavy metal means’ but then I said “you know what? I’m interviewing him in a couple of weeks, so I’ll ask him.” So Kirk, why are you so angry?
Kirk: Well I’m not...
Examiner: Well, why is your music so angry?
Kirk: It’s therapeutic. For me and the people who listen to it. The lyrics are therapeutic for me and the people who listen to it, I met a guy in Virginia Beach the other night who’s been to Afghanistan three times, and he’s like “I just want to thank you for your music, for helping me get through some of the weirdest parts of the world, some of the craziest things, and the only thing I could relate to was Crowbar. And it really helped me get through it. And that’s what it’s really all about. I mean, I’m not angry, I’m talking to you right now, do I seem mad? ** Kirk throws a playful punch at my face ** It’s the type of music we play. It’s heavy, it’s aggressive, it’s emotional, and it’s a perfect venue to let out what’s bugging you.
Examiner: I spoke to Phil Anselmo a month ago, I spoke to Pepper Keenan a month before that, so you make three out of the five Down guys for me. Pepper promised some Down shows this summer, any word on that?
Kirk: Well yeah, I’d expect so. You gotta understand, 90% of my musical life has been Down, and all of ours, since the beginning of 2006, up until this late, late summer of 2010, it’s been nonstop touring, recording, whatever with Down. And you need a little break. But at home, me, Jimmy and Pepper get together two, three times a week if I’m not out with Crowbar and Jimmy’s not out with Eyehategod, and write and demo and whatnot. I saw Phil the day before Thanksgiving, hung out over there, he’s ready to hear what we’ve got and he’s got tons of great ideas. He doesn’t stop, you just need a little break from time to time. It’s one of those things, I don’t care what band you are, how great you are, how popular you are, when you spend that much time around each other, doing that for so long, you need some time to step away and let the creative juices start to build up with Down again. We’re doing it right now, and I’m loving what we’re doing, and I’m loving the stuff we’re doing with the writing, but obviously the clock’s ticking on us, we’re not kids anymore, but we’ve also built a solid foundation worldwide with Down, and when we all feel really excited, then it will come together overnight. And we’re really getting close to that right now.
Examiner: So you juggle Down, Crowbar, and Kingdom of Sorrow. How many bands can you actually be active in at once?
Kirk: That’s it. Just three. I tried four a couple of times, but it’s too much. Even with Kingdom, me and Jamey Jasta really want to do something proper with it, as far as doing a legit tour at some point, because sure it’s a side project, but at the same time we love it, we think it’s a great band, our fanbase is there, if we really push and do things right it can really take off. But three’s the limit for me, I’m too old, that’s enough.
Thanks-Stay Metal, Stay Brutal-\m/ -l-
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