MUSIC

Warehouse Live presents Down.  With Cavalcade, Warbeast.

Down is an American southern stoner/doom metal band formed in 1991 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The band is a supergroup, comprising current and former members of Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, Crowbar, Superjoint Ritual, Eyehategod, and Kingdom of Sorrow.

Since its inception, Down has released three studio albums and has gone on hiatus twice to focus on the members’ respective bands.Down formed in 1991 with vocalist/songwriter Phil Anselmo of Pantera, guitarist Pepper Keenan of Corrosion of Conformity, second guitarist Kirk Windstein of Crowbar, bassist Todd Strange of Crowbar, and drummer Jimmy Bower of Eyehategod. All of the band members were long-time friends and were known from their respective bands, making them a supergroup. The band made a three track demo for underground trading.

The band members would ask heavy metal fans if they have “heard of this band Down” and give them a copy of the tape without telling the person that they were in the band.Eventually, the tape was distributed throughout the United States and Down played a small concert in its hometown. A record executive from Elektra Records was attending the show to find out who the members of Down were. When he found out the members of the band, he signed Down to a recording contract.

- By MIKE IX -
Most typical southern band bios start with the cliché and overused phrase "from the murky swamps" or "bayou born and bred".

Those sentiments, while holding some air of truth, are too redundant for Down. Down isn't your typical 'Southern' band. This is a band, however, molded and twisted by their environment. Passionate, focused, hanging on to their NOLA pride and upbringing, much like Louisiana's Spanish moss drifting and swaying from hurricane and termite damaged Magnolia trees.

The war torn history of the brotherhood is a tribute to stubbornness and retribution that belies all combined groups before and concerns an introspection in rock, blues and metal as an inspiration/instigation for the ages. Down has risen a certain flag high for every piss poor jealous fool to see. They wear their influences on their ragged sleeves as well as personify despair and display agony very accurately. Imagine early Southern Rock squeezing through a Geezer Butler strainer in these post punk modern days. There is no label for what Down does, as are there no labels for the "thousand miles from New York" bands that share members with them; Crowbar, Corrosion of Conformity, EyeHateGod, and Pantera. This is chemistry. This is the solution. This is the band people will lie about and say that they were into from the beginning.

I don't know if anyone remembers there's a war going on in Iraq, but there's a war going on here on the home front, in your head, with late night reconnaissance missions called "Temptation's Wings" and "Losing All". The southern hemisphere, primarily New Orleans, has much to offer by way of paralyzing roots music these days. In these dark times of cookie cutter paint-by-numbers wastes of recording contracts, an air of originality unseen anywhere else lives below the Mason-Dixon line. This is post-Katrina New Orleans. Through the wreckage and wretchedness, the third Down--Over The Under is poised fanatically on the edge.