In the early 2000’s the future seemed bright for alternative metal formation Drowning Pool. They had a massive hit single with ‘Bodies’. However, with the tragic death of frontman Dave Williams things were unravelling fast. The band kept their heads cool and rolled with the punches. Marcus J. West caught up with bassist Stevie Benton and one can only conclude that everything is well in the Drowning Pool camp..
You have a new album out Resilience which marks a big come back for Drowning Pool. You have been on tour non-stop for the last three months, how is it going?
Everything has been awesome. After we were done making Resilience we were so happy with it that we couldn’t wait to go on tour. First we toured a couple of months around the US, then we came straight over here in Europe. We will then go back home in the US, have ten days off and then start another tour over there, it’s going to be non-stop. Which is great, you do not want to release a record and sit at home, your got to get out there and play it to people and hopefully win over some new fans. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun too.
That’s exactly what I perceive from Resilience, there are vibrant emotions that get to be shared with the listeners. How would you describe the recording process of your fifth studio album?
I would describe it as pretty easy. It’s the easiest record that we have made since our debut album Sinner (2001). Everything went very natural: nine times out of ten, if you are struggling to write a song, it’s probably because it’s not that good, the great work is the work that comes easy. What flows naturally is usually the best stuff. So that’s kind of how Resilience went for us, compared to our previous albums, Drowning Pool (2010) and Full Circle (2007) which felt such a grind as there had been so much work involved. It’s amazing how as a band, you may start getting used to believe that is the way things just are. We forgot how back in the days it was easy to make a record for us. Resilience represents some kind of rebirth for Drowning Pool, like going back to the beginning of what worked for us originally, when Dave (Dave Williams, rip) was the singer and Sinner came out.
The whole album has such a strong vibe. You were all very young when it all started for Drowning Pool, how did it all happen?
We had been a club band in Dallas for a couple of years before it all started, we never thought we would do anything more than that to be honest, we were just playing during the week-ends for beer money. All of the sudden more and more people were crowding in the venues where we were playing and then it felt almost like a blink of the eye, the next thing we knew was that Sinner was released and we were playing at the Ozzfest. It all happened so fast but also ended so fast with Dave passing away. When you are in the middle of it, you think it will last forever you know? We were all very good friends having a great time, we would have never expected something like that to happen, and when it did, it was the end of the world for us.
Dave is still missed, especially now that with Resilience you are going back to those days.
It’s great to have Jasen Moreno (lead singer from 2012) now. Back in the days, he used to be part of the same club area as us, we played lots of shows together. He is not only geographically from the same area, he is also from the same headspace, the same kind of vibe as the rest of us, it’s great to have that in the band again, we certainly missed that element.
I would not think of a better fit for Drowning Pool both in terms of skills and stage presence. Once you found yourself looking for a new frontman again, what were the criteria you were looking for a singer, that brought you to Jasen? Were you really trying to go back to the early days or did it just happen?
After we decided to find a new singer….. we got a bunch of demos from a lot of very good singers but the reason why went with Jasen ultimately is because not only was he a great singer but he is also a guy that we have known for a really long time. We knew that there wasn’t gonna be the problems that we had in the past when we had a guy in the band that we really didn’t know that well. When you first have a gig, you put your best face forward, you are on your best behaviour, but then after a while if you have issues, they start to come to the surface. We did not want that to happen again, we wanted a guy that we knew too long for him to be hiding anything basically. That’s kind of really how it got started. We knew that tone-wise, Jasen’s voice was very similar to Dave and then when we got together and start writing songs, we saw how much he could bring to the table, how much he could contribute to songs. That was when the vibe really started to evolve and kind of happened on its own. It was a process that started with knowing the guy personally, knowing him to be a great singer and just continue throughout writing and recording with him. Now that we are on tour with him, we realized he is so great live. It’s like finally we made a plan and it all came together, fortunately.
Did Jasen contribute to the song-writing?
Oh yes, absolutely. He is able to play every instrument, he can pretty much be his own one man band and kick all of us out! Also if you bring him an idea, he is able to shape it into a good song, which is definitely a lot of fun to see that happening.
Resilience as I mentioned, has such a good, live vibe. Any Time Any Place is a great opener. Is this also the song you are planning to open your live shows with?
You know what? It’s funny that you bring that up. We are not opening with ‘Any Time Any Place’ on this tour because when the tour started the record was not out yet. But hardly enough, we do plan starting the set with that song in the very near future. So you predicted and it’s definitely true! A lot of the lyrics on that song they are kind of in your face, I would describe them as confrontational, it’s some kind of a theme on the whole record. The song is about setting up a fight with someone, you know? Any time, any place I am ready, it’s quite aggressive, punch-in-the-face like. When I think of the lyrics of that song, they sound like a bunch of adolescence men beating the crap out of each other.
Jumping back to the past. There have been so many controversial mis-interpretations of ‘Bodies’ sometimes even with association to the brutality within the army. It’s not about violence, it’s about the strength that a healthy mosh-pit generates at metal shows as a reaction to the music rather than a replacement for anger release. How do you feel now about this song which may as well be considered as your trademark?
The mis-interpretations of the song have been really annoying. When the song came out and became huge on the radio, it was described as being about the mosh-pit. Each of us have described that song back then about a million freaking times, that it was about the mosh-pit but it just did not get through to some people, and still doesn’t. Some people just hear the line let the bodies hit the floor and they interpret it as being about terrorists and gun violence. Dave wrote the lyrics of the song thinking about him, playing a show, looking down at the crowd, being the eye of the storm, watching all the craziness in front of and around him. That’s all that the song is about. There was a shooting recently in the US, the kid who did it had the song up in his facebook page and all of the sudden it’s on the news that Bodies is a violent song that drove this kid to kill people. I hate hearing it, it’s a shame. It’s obviously a coincident that this kid liked the song as millions of other people did and did not shoot anyone.
Thank you for your time Stevie, do you have any partying message before you go and hit the stage?
Thank you guys for sticking with us throughout all these years, with the ups and downs and the singer changes. We feel that we finally got it right this time. We are very thankful that there are still people out there that allow us to come out, play live and release albums.
Marcus J. West