Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein Gives More Details As to Why He Quit Down

Why oh why did Kirk Windstein have to leave to Down? When the guitarist first announced his departure from the band two weeks ago, he said that “I am concentrating on Crowbar” — that would be his other, “main” band, duh — “100% FULL TIME” (emphasis his). As it turns out, though, there’s a little more to the story than that — namely, that in 2010 he joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and that Down ultimately posed a danger to his sobriety. Windstein tells the Devil Horns podcast:

“My life’s changed a lot in the last year. With being married, I wanna concentrate a lot more on my family first and foremost. And Down… has to take a fair amount of days off in order for Phil [Anselmo] to rest his voice properly, which is totally, absolutely understandable and well respected. It’s just, for me, I like to go out fifteen shows in a row and get it done. With Down, a lot of the [touring], especially internationally, is fly dates and things like that and there’s so many days off. And really, for me, to be blunt, on those off days, man… I mean, show days are great, I have a responsibility, of course I love every second being on stage, but on those off days, I have absolutely nothing to do and it just ends up turning into drinking too goddamn much and wanting to not be there…The [other members of Down] could see I was kind of not really getting into it, they could see me on the off days hitting the sauce harder than I should have been… It was kind of a mutual thing — no hard feelings or anything whatsoever like that. There’s absolutely zero drama, zero gossip that I know of, at least from my side. I doubt there’s any from their side.”

This explanation makes Windstein’s decision to leave the band that much more understandable. Windstein isn’t the first musician I’ve heard list having too much free time on his hands as a contributing factor to his addiction; when you’re in a strange town, far from home with a per diem barely fit to feed yourself and fuck all to do, yeah, drinking is an excellently un-excellent way to pass the time. Really, it’s to Windstein’s credit that he recognized the problem and got his priorities straight, even if all us Down fans would have preferred he stayed with the band forever.

Also: who’s ever gonna complain about more Crowbar? This seems like a rare case of everything working out for the best, doesn’t it?

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