Kirk Windstein: New Down Music is “Very Magical” and Similar to NOLA
Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, and Crowbar may all be doing their own thing right now, but work’s been underway for new Down tunes for a while now. In reality it feels like Down’s had shit on the back burner for more than a decade now, but that’s beside the point. Things are being committed to tape and if you ask guitarist and Crowbar frontman Kirk Windstein, it sounds kick ass — “magical,” even.
While speaking with Concrete Spew prior to a Crowbar show down in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Windstein gave an update on how things were going with the supposed new slate of music coming from the fan favorite supergroup. And what it sounds like is we could be getting some old-school sounding Down.
“To me, it sounds more old-school Down and the reason I say that is, I think we got to a point where we, like, the Nola record is so simple and it just wrote itself; it was so simple and that’s how this is coming about which is great.
“We’re not overthinking it; we’re not trying to make things too complex. Philip’s not trying to write so many lyrics and things and we’re not trying to have… You know, we just kind of got – I hate to say ‘got away,’ because anything we do is Down, but to me, we kind of got a little bit… like, we needed to go back and look at each other and just go, ‘let’s just get in the room and do it like we did from the beginning,’ and that’s what it feels like to me.
“It’s very magical. The ideas and working together just bounce off of one another. It’s a natural thing.”
This latest update falls in the same vein of what was said back in March, when drummer Jimmy Bower told Shawn Ratches of Laughingmonkeymusic that Down already has a few songs in the can.
“We got together about a month or two ago, and we were practicing with just me, Pat [Bruders, bass], Kirk [Windstein, guitar] and Pepper [Keenan, guitar]. Phil [Anselmo, vocals] lives on the other side of the lake [in Louisiana]. We got together over at his house for a weekend, and we have seven songs, man. We’re supposed to get together again in April, and then talk about recording, trying to get this thing out.”
This is some exciting news all around, though it’s confusing to see how the respective parts of Down will get the time to do anything with these new tunes. After all, Phil Anselmo’s touring the world in the Pantera tribute act; Windstein’s been busy with Crowbar and Eye Am; Pepper Keenan’s had Corrosion of Conformity shit going on lately; Jimmy Bower’s been off with Eyehategod; and Pat Bruders has played with Saint Vitus.
Either way, here’s hoping we hear something sooner rather than later.
