Fans keep Drowning Pool afloat
Drowning Pool really should be dead by now. After lead singer Dave Williams died of a rare heart condition a day after the band’s performance at Ozzfest in 2002, the band’s future was in question. But after deciding that what they do was, in a sense, who they are, the Drowning Pool decided to keep their name and play on.
But after releasing “Desensitized” in 2004 with new lead singer Jason “Gong” Jones, the band parted ways with its new frontman before naming former SOiL lead Ryan McCombs as a replacement. McCombs, who named his youngest son after Williams, only agreed after first talking to Williams’ family.
“You’re looking at a band that’s three records into it with as many singers,” drummer Mike Luce said in a phone interview with The Buffalo News. “We should have been dead and gone a long time ago. Let’s be honest, I would have expected nothing less than just to pack it up and go away, but the fans are the reason we've been able to go at this.”
And so the band’s most recent album title is fitting. In more ways than one, the group had come “Full Circle.” After the tragedy and drama, Luce gives the vibe that the band is just lucky to still be out there.
Crüe Fest 2
Motley Crüe, Godsmack, Theory of a Deadman, Drowning Pool and Charm City Devils, 5 p.m. Saturday,
Darien Lake Performing Arts Center
Tickets: LiveNation.com $29.50-$101.00
“It's funny,” he said. “We always joke that we're kind of gluttons for punishment for whatever reason. We feel this drive to just continue.”
That quest continues Saturday as the band joins Motley Crüe, Godsmack, Theory of a Deadman and the Charm City Devils for a show at Darien Lake, part of the Crüe Fest 2 national tour.
Evolving approach
Luce said that drive originates in a series of highs and lows that are only bearable as a shared experience.
“[I'm] kind if comparing it to buddies dug into the trenches,” he said. “You’ve kind of been through some stuff that you can’t really put into words. It just makes you a tighter-knit family.”
The familial relationship that has developed isn’t only visible on stage or on the tour bus. Luce said it’s allowed the band to take a different, more refined approach to their work.
“We were starting to see our attributes,” he said. “We’ve all grown up quite a bit regardless of the ups and downs. Everybody’s matured, older, and we better handle what's expected of us when recording. We’re writing some of the very best stuff we’ve ever been a part of. Were starting to learn the ins and outs of Ryan and he of us. Writing [is] a more tighter, easier experience.”
Luce said that while “Full Circle” explored the band’s horizons to the max, the band has been working on an album that mirrors the newly channeled approach to recording.
“It sounds like we’re zeroing in on these attributes,” Luce said. “I think we’re diving into a more soulful, passionate delivery of it. I think people are gonna trip out. [We’re] exploring soulful melodic kind of stuff, not just hammering at you the whole time.”
The band, which doesn’t profess to pander to politics, took trips to Iraq and Kuwait in 2005 and 2006. Their hit “Bodies” drew controversy when it was reportedly used as a rallying cry against terrorists, and the band’s music has been linked to a form of music torture used on detainees.
Still, Luce said, the band visited Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, not as some right-wing political sideshow, but as a nonpartisan support of America's bravest.
“Even with the media coverage of Guantanamo Bay and it being put up there in the light it was, it’s still not to say there’s [not] thousands of troops there that deserve that rock ’n’ roll on Memorial Day,“ he said. “We didn’t go there with any political agenda.”
Fans haven’t seemed to mind. Thousands upon thousands have packed the houses at various venues for a second go-around of last summer’s largest hard rock party. That, Luce said, is why Drowning Pool keeps on rocking.
Of the fans, he said, “It’s the lifeblood of this whole thing.”
Mutual admiration
Some of Drowning Pool’s most ardent fans will most likely be on the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center stage with the band at some point. We’re talking about the members of Baltimore-based Charm City Devils.
“They’re gonna blow people’s faces off,” CCD vocalist John Allen said of Drowning Pool. “Those guys are incredible, man.”
But if the Crüe Fest 2 selection committee (see: Tommy Lee, Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars and Vince Neil) have given any indication, it’s that the Devils can bring a power of their own.
Allen describes the band’s music as “hard rock, high energy” with a less edgier song thrown in once in a while. He said the band’s ability to mix blues, rock and punk elements comes from it’s “unpolished” style.
“Leaving stuff raw gets the punk and blues edge across, [there’s] less overblown slickness of rock of days gone by and maybe [of] the slick stuff today,” he said.
Personal stories
Above all, he said the band’s songs are something that the average person can relate to.
“It’s important to show something of yourself, something of your heart and of your makeup and part of your story because I think it lets people get to know you as a person and I think everybody can relate to some of those things you have to go through,” he said. “I’m not writing about wizards and dragons and that stuff, I'm writing about real life.”
“Almost Home” is written for Allen’s mother and her struggles with breast cancer. Behind the rocking facade, this is a band that hasn’t forgotten where — and what — it comes from.
“My Dad worked in a factory his whole life,” Allen said. “Nick’s Dad worked as a carpenter. [Nick] just built this whole stage set with huge rolling racks, welded all this stuff together. The music reflects that it’s gritty, raw and sometimes in your face,” he said.
Allen described the elation of being selected by “the Crüe” to perform on Crüe Fest 2.
“Here I am at Madison Square Garden on stage with Motley Crüe,” he said. “I’ m standing next to Vince Neil and he looks at me as we’re singing the chorus and I totally lost it,” he said. “I’m like, ‘What are the words to this?’ [It was] totally surreal.”
Allen said fans will be equally blown away.
“I think it’s a great experience for fans,” he said. “The guys always pull out all the stops.”
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