HELLO DEMONS.. MEET SKELETONS: METALSUCKS SPEAKS WITH SEVENDUST’S CLINT LOWERY ABOUT NEW SOLO EP

Recently re-united with his brothers, Sevendust co-founder / guitarist / background singer / musical genius Clint Lowery just released a record of his own, Chills, under the moniker Hello Demons..Meet Skeletons. The mostly acoustic record — on which Clint plays all the instruments and sings all the vocals — is a deep, dark, haunting album that reflects an equally dark time in his life. Written in spurts over the past year or so, the music on Chills stands on its own as a creative work in his own distinct style but is far different from anything Sevendust have ever done.

Lowery’s patience has been tested in recent years — after writing an entire new Dark New Day album that will seemingly never see the light of day, Lowery left the band to re-join Sevendust on the eve of a new album release he had no part in writing. Anxious to get some music of his own to the masses, Lowery elected to record a solo album on his own between Sevendust tours — with production, engineering and mixing help from his brother Corey [also of Dark New Day, Stereomud and Stuck Mojo fame] — and to self-release it on the Internet. After an online ordering snafu that was entirely my fault, I ended up on the other end of an email string with Mr. Lowery himself and he agreed to answer a few questions via email, making him the only person ever in the history of MetalSucks to be interviewed twice — about two separate bands, no less. Read the 7D interview from this past April here, and the new solo EP interview after the jump.

How and when was Hello Demons..Meet Skeletons written?

It was written starting in November of 2007 here and there until September 11th, 2008. I wrote it because at the time I was in the darkest place of my life and had to put it down through music to remember where I was and not to go back there again.

Did you have a specific sound in mind when you began writing?

I knew this particular EP was gonna be acoustic all the way through. It just fit the mood I was in most of the time.

Between Dark New Day and now your new solo CD, it seems you’ve got a desire to write music outside of just Sevendust. What fuels that desire? Is there a certain creative side that you don’t feel able to express through Sevendust’s music?

It’s a lot of reasons. One main one is I like to keep writing and don’t like waiting for album cycles to come a round. I feel like life’s too short to only have on average five or six albums [in your career]. Plus, I like doing different styles. I love heavy music and I love mellow stuff as well. I like singing from time to time. I guess it boils down to challenges.

Do you approach writing differently for your solo material than you would for Sevendust?

For sure. With Sevendust I write vocal ideas around Lajon’s [Witherspoon] vocal style. I write music that’s heavier and that fits into the 7d sound. I like pushing the boundaries with 7d, though. I still think we still can grow more.

What about the studio and recording atmosphere… Do you enjoy doing producing and playing everything yourself?

It was just Corey [Lowery] and I the whole time. It took ten days. I really had a blast playing drums. I was a drummer when I was a kid so it felt good to play in the studio. I’m not that good, but for the type of songs I was doing I could handle it.

Would you ever consider performing these new songs live either by yourself or with a backing band?

Yeah, I’m playing two shows; one on the 20th of December in Atlanta and another on December 29th in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Looking forward to the next Sevendust album, are you excited to begin writing? How do you think it will be to work with those guys again?

I’m very excited. More than I was when we did our first record. I think it’s gonna be great. Morgan and I already wrote 3 songs. It’s gonna be heavy with deep hooks.

Any timeframe on a new Sevendust album?

I think we’ll be done recording it by the end of the summer, but that could change. Maybe end of year or early 2010.

Any parting thoughts regarding your solo record, Sevendust, or anything at all?

Yeah, buy the HDMS EP from the official site or MySpace and keep supporting 7d. The fans are the best!

-VN