Rock My Monkey: Hello, you are listening to the Rock My Monkey netcast on RockMyMonkey.com. Today we are speaking with Kirk Windstein of the band Crowbar and Down. How are you doing today?
Kirk Windstein: Doing good, man. How about you?
Rock My Monkey: I’m doing pretty good. How long has this cd actually been in the works, from writing to actually having it on the shelves?
Kirk Windstein: I would say we actually began-it took about a year, from the inception of writing it, demoing it, to actually recording the record, the whole process was about a year.
Rock My Monkey: What does Over The Under mean to you?
Kirk Windstein: Basically, to us it means that we’re over all the negative stuff. We went through a lot of personal stuff, and obviously Hurricane Katrina and whatnot. And it was a couple of years that were really trying on us personally, and as a band, I guess, as well. To us, it’s kind of like looking forward, looking to the future with a positive attitude and putting all the negative stuff behind us, man.
Rock My Monkey: The last Down cd, A Bustle in Your Hedgerow, was recorded with an admitted excess of drug use. But this time Phil has talked about being very clear headed and very sober. Is everyone in the band clear of heavy drug use and focused on getting healthy?
Kirk Windstein: Heavy drug use, yes. I mean, there’s still a lot of beer drinking on my part. Nothing heavy. We’ve all come a long way. I mean, Rex is completely sober, basically. Phil is, I mean, he might smoke a little herb or whatever, but other than that, you know, basically-me and Pepper like to drink our beers, so we’re on our own bus. And then Phil, Jimmy and Rex are on another bus, which is like an alcohol, basically alcohol and drug free bus. So, it’s just you get to the point where you get older, man, you just can’t-number one, it’s bad for you, number two, it’s stupid, number three it’s just, it gets old. I mean, I think we’re all in a lot better place as individuals now. We’ve all grown up a lot. We’ve all been through a lot of hard times, and it’s time to look forward and to and have a positive attitude, a positive outlook on life, and as a band.
Rock My Monkey: Sweet. How many years do you think it will take to release the next Crowbar cd?
Kirk Windstein: Hopefully I can get it out next year sometime. I mean, I’ve got four or five songs written. I just spoke to our drummer last night for a bit, and our bass player. I have about a six, seven week break before this tour is over here in The States. So I’d like to probably get together with the guys and jam a little bit after I’m home. You know, after I kind of spend a little time with family I’d like to probably try to get on some more stuff. I got a lot more Crowbar riffs happening. Our goal is definitely to get it out sometime next year.
Rock My Monkey: Will Kingdom Of Sorrow ever see the light of day, and when, and what’s the holdup?
Kirk Windstein: The holdup was really, we’re waiting for the right time to drop it. Jamey just put out a Hatebreed record and toured for a year with it. I just put out a Down record. It’s complete. It’s done. In fact, I saw Jamey the other day. We did some interview stuff for the website. And we did a proper shoot for the record finally. So the artwork’s getting wrapped up. Everything really. So I mean, it’s pretty much, we’re just waiting for the right time for it to drop. We’re doing it with Relapse, it looks like world wide. Everything’s in place. Jamey is pretty much done with the artwork. It’s just a matter of finding the right time to do it. I mean, we don’t want to put it out-Down just came out. We don’t want to put it out right on the coattails of Down. We want to wait for a time when we’re going to actually be able to get out and play some shows to support. But I mean Down is of course my priority, and Hatebreed of course is his priority. But it will see the light of day.
Rock My Monkey: I have heard that there’s going to be two guest appearances on The Kingdom Of Sorrow cd. Who are they?
Kirk Windstein: Actually, we didn’t get any. Eric Bloom of Blue Oyster Cult was actually going to do something. And I don’t know. Jamey had a couple of other guys in mind that we were going to try to get on there, but we ended up not doing it. He said timing wise it just didn’t work out right.
Rock My Monkey: There is a rumor that the next Down cd has already been recorded, and that it is all acoustic. Is there any truth to that?
Kirk Windstein: There is some truth, only in the fact that we do have material. We’ve talked about doing an acoustic EP maybe, and maybe putting some of the other songs that we’d written and recorded that didn’t make the Over The Under. It’s not that they’re not good songs. It just didn’t flow as well with these other songs in there. Phil was really a stickler about having the record flow correctly from front to back. But as far as-it’s not already recorded. That’s not true. And it’s not necessarily going to be an all acoustic thing, but we have talked about doing a lot of acoustic stuff coming up. There’s no acoustic guitar on this record. It’s primarily just a heavy classic rock record, basically.
Rock My Monkey: When talking with MetalRules.com, Jimmy talked a little bit about the DVD that’s in the works. How far along is that, and when can fans expect that to be out?
Kirk Windstein: I really don’t know how far along it is, because we’ve done some ridiculous amount of hours of footage that we’ve done. We shot everything on real film. It’s basically going to be a movie about our 2006 tour of Europe that we did, which is the first thing we had done since touring in ’02, and kind of going our separate ways for a couple of years. There’s a lot, a lot of footage to go through, so I’m sure it’ll still be a little while before it comes out. But what we want it to be is an actual like classic movie, like a Song Remains The Same, or Let There Be Rock, AC/DC, type thing. It’s not going to be some behind the scenes party DVD or anything. We want it to be like a real movie.
Rock My Monkey: Awesome. A big deal has been made about Witchcraft and how they inspired the band Down to get back together. So what are the chances of Down bringing Witchcraft on tour across America anytime soon?
Kirk Windstein: I don’t know if it would happen in America, but it’s possible. We’re fans of the band. I think it would fit well as a bill, you know? Right now we don’t have any opening acts. Just Down. We have a movie that we show before, and with a bunch of old videos. Some outtake stuff of us, you know, jamming and on tour in Europe and whatnot. And I think if we do take a band out that they would be a possibility, that Witchcraft would be a good choice.
Rock My Monkey: I would love. Freakin’ amazing band.
Kirk Windstein: Yeah, they’re killer.
Rock My Monkey: How does the writing process go? Do you just jam songs out together, or do you write separately at your own houses and then bring it to practice?
Kirk Windstein: A little bit of both. Some shit’s written on the spot. Usually people just throw around riffs at each other. Most of my riffs that I write I’ll write at the house, four track ‘em, and just let the guys-I’ll just play some for them. Or Pepper will have a riff or something, or Phil, and I’ll go ‘Dude, I got something that will go with that.’ And we’ll kind of work together. As a five man unit, we kind of arrange everything and write everything and throw ideas at each other, and kind of come up with the whole thing. Kind of have everybody put a little bit of their own flavor into it.
Rock My Monkey: Does Phil write all the lyrics?
Kirk Windstein: Yes, he writes all the lyrics.
Rock My Monkey: Did it feel strange to record a Down cd in Los Angeles instead of New Orleans?
Kirk Windstein: Not really, because everything was written and demoed at Phil’s house in ??? (8:54) Folsom, which is right on the north shore in New Orleans, which is where we recorded Down II. So we still had our New Orleans vibe for all the writing process. Then the studio process, I mean the schedule was so doggone busy, it was like, you know-all we did was go to the studio at two o’clock in the afternoon, and get dropped off at a hotel in a shuttle at five o’clock in the morning, and get picked up at two o’clock in the afternoon and drive eight minutes in the studio, and get dropped back off at the hotel. We didn’t really see the light of day. We could have been in Beijing for all I care. We lived in the studio. We slept at the hotel room. That’s all we did. The L.A. thing didn’t really come into play as far as having any kind of vibe or anything at all.
Rock My Monkey: In talking to Blistering.com, you recently said that Down is not a metal band. Do you think that some might find it shocking that you say that?
Kirk Windstein: No, because just listen to us. I mean, we can be metal at times, but we don’t consider ourselves a heavy metal band. I think we consider ourselves a hard rock band more or less, because the bands that influence us-and really, we’ve got a lot of heavy riffs, but so does Led Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy. It’s like, the sound that we’re going for is more of a classic sound. I don’t think we sound, our sound, our actual tones and everything, not just the riff writing, but the tones and everything really don’t sound anything like what’s going on in modern metal today.
Rock My Monkey: What is Todd Strange up to these days, and do you still talk to him?
Kirk Windstein: I really have no idea. Basically when he quit Crowbar, I made an attempt to stay in touch with him for a bit, and we talked here and there for a little bit. But we really didn’t, he really kind of just went on and did his own thing, and pulled away from all his friends, really. Got married and got a family, or whatever. So I really don’t know, man. I don’t wish him well, but I don’t really know what he’s up to.
Rock My Monkey: For this release Down has their own indie label within the Warner Bros. umbrella. How do you find that is different that being totally on a major label?
Kirk Windstein: Well, it’s different in a way, as far as distribution and stuff. You know, the first few weeks, pre-orders weren’t what they-let’s just say I think maybe the demand was a little more than what the pre-orders were, because we got tons of friends and kids we’d meet constantly that couldn’t get it. The first week they’d go get it and it was already sold out or whatnot. So it’s a little bit different in that sense. But at the same time it’s a much better deal for us I the sense of us controlling things, and in the back end as far as the money thing goes, it can potentially be a lot more lucrative than just signing a deal to a label, since we kind of have our own label, basically.
Rock My Monkey: Are there any plans for a video single for this release?
Kirk Windstein: Yes, we’ve already done a video. It should be done very, very soon. It should be finished for "On March the Saints”, and we’ll probably be trying to do a second video pretty quickly, probably for the song “Never Try”, would probably be our choice for the second video.
Rock My Monkey: What song on here is the most personal song to you?
Kirk Windstein: None in particular, but I guess in a way on "On March the Saints”, because we were actually working on that song when my sister called to tell me that my mother had passed away. We were in the middle of jamming it when the phone rang. So it kind of has a special meaning in that sense. Other than that they’re all-at one point or another I think each song individually-like when we first wrote each song, it’s my favorite. It’s like at one time or another they’ve all been my favorites. I’m just really proud of the whole thing. I think we did a really good job from front to back of putting together a very, very solid, diverse record.
Rock My Monkey: What do you think producer Warren Riker added to this cd that would not have been there without him?
Kirk Windstein: Well, he’s just kind of got an old school approach. A lot of these new breed of producers are a lot more into having everything polished. The tones that they’re looking for are a lot more-like I was saying earlier, we’re looking for a classic rock tone. We don’t want to sound like a nu-metal band, or new breed of metal type band. So I think, I just think he brought like an old school approach to it. We used a lot of old tube pre-amps, we did all the drums on ???. (4:06) We just ????? Of course we used modern equipment as well. It’s got the sound up to date, yet classic. I just think his recording approach is kind of old school, and that’s what we like about it.
Rock My Monkey: Blake from the band Northwest Royale wants to know if Phil’s massive improvement in the vocal area is due to his health getting better, or was there a conscious effort to change the way he sings?
Kirk Windstein: I would say a little bit of both. His health and his being drug free, really, has obviously made him in a clearer state of mind at all times. And there’s also been a conscious effort. He decided that he wanted to get away from-the last few Pantera records is a lot more of a scream type vocal, and Superjoint was pretty much all screaming. And he just decided he wanted to go back to really singing melodically. He really worked with his voice, worked with his voice, warmed up, proper warm ups and everything. But it has been a really big improvement over what he’s done in the past. I’m really proud of him. I think it sounds great, man.
Rock My Monkey: I missed catching the band when you hit Seattle a few weeks ago, but I hear you will be doing another full tour of the United States again early in 2008. Is that true, and when will that happen?
Kirk Windstein: Yes, it’s tentatively, I would say late January we’ll probably start, tentatively. We’re looking at trying to hit all the markets that we did not, that we weren’t able to get on this one. Although this one ended up being like 38 shows total. I’m sure the next one will be a little shorter. Maybe like 25 or something. Total that would be 50 something, freakin’, 60 shows, whatever. So I think we can hit-that’s a lot of cities.
Rock My Monkey: Because of time restraints, we’re going to call the next seven questions The Lightening Round. I’m going to name something in popular news or popular culture. You come up with your thoughts in one short sentence as quick as you can. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Kirk Windstein: Don’t know who he is.
Rock My Monkey: The NBC show, Heroes.
Kirk Windstein: Never saw it.
Rock My Monkey: The iPhone.
Kirk Windstein: Would like to have one.
Rock My Monkey: President Bush.
Kirk Windstein: Idiot.
Rock My Monkey: Fox News.
Kirk Windstein: Maybe a little too right wing. I kind of hang down the middle.
Rock My Monkey: Recording Industry Association Of America.
Kirk Windstein: Not really sure what it is, even though I’m a recording artist.
Rock My Monkey: (laughs) I do have one final question. Every year we choose one final question that we ask to every single band from classic rock legends to the most extreme death metal bands at the end of every interview, partially to stump people, but also to see who wusses out. This year I’m asking people to look into their crystal ball and predict what political figure, world leader, musician, celebrity, anybody world wide famous, who do you think before the end of the year?
Kirk Windstein: Might die before the end of the year?
Rock My Monkey: Yep. Could be a political world leader, celebrity, anybody.
Kirk Windstein: Gene Wilder. I was watching Blazing Saddles the other day. We were wondering if he was still alive, because he’s got to be getting a little long in the tooth. But I hope not, because he’s very funny.
Rock My Monkey: I thank you very much for doing the interview. Anybody listening to the audio version can go to RockMyMonkey.com for the full featured version with clickable links, readable text and many more wonderful features. I’m asking people to click the album cover above and below this interview to purchase Over The Under by Down. And I hope you do get back to the Northwest again soon. And I promise I will make it this time. Work be damned. And thank you very much for the interview.
Kirk Windstein: Great, man. Thanks. Appreciate it.
