This September, sludgy New Orleans supergroup Down are set to release their first record of new material since 2007’s Over The Under and according to guitarist Kirk Windstein the four-EP series, which begins with The Purple EP, could represent the way that all bands release their music in the future.
Speaking to The Quietus at the recent Bloodstock festival, where he was appearing with Crowbar, Windstein said of the new EP: “Basically with the music industry the way it is, people don’t buy records, all they own is a couple of tunes off iTunes or something.
“So this [new EP] is part one of a four part series – six songs per record – showing all the different elements of what we do; I just think it’s innovative and kind of groundbreaking at this stage of the music industry.
“People are scratching and clawing to make a fucking dime these days in the music world, so I think this is a good approach to make the product cheap to buy retail, cheap to buy on Amazon or on iTunes or whatever.
“You don’t get the big budgets to record with anymore and there’s just no sense in putting out a 13/14 song album – that takes you forever to write – and for nobody to buy it because they can get it for free or listen to it for free on Spotify.”
As for the content of the new EP, Windstein says that the group have attempted to capture the rawer sounds of their 1995 debut NOLA. “We didn’t want it to be perfect,” he said. “Too many bands sound too perfect now, too polished; it’s too fixed on Pro Tools, every fucking kick drum is perfectly put on the grid and everybody plays to a click track. We wanted to be raw and old school – we wanted it to sound like the original NOLA demos.
“With Down it’s always been about the energy and the vibe of what we’re doing, not about playing each note perfectly. We wanted it to feel like the listener is sitting in the jam room with us with a beer in one hand and a joint in the other, y’know, just having a good time.”
During the interview as well as making the startling and decidedly un-metal confession that, even though he is one of the most impressively bearded men in metal, he’s not opposed to some grey cover up: “I do put the Just For Men in… people know I’m fucking 47 years old and ain’t got two hairs on my head, so I don’t expect them to think that I’ve got a black beard”, he says.
Windstein also revealed that he is already working on new Crowbar material too. “We’re not at the demo stage yet but once I get into that ‘Crowbar world’ it doesn’t take long," he revealed. "I mean, I wrote three, four, five songs in a day on that last record sometimes, so it’ll come when it comes.”
Down’s new EP Down IV, Part I – The Purple EP, to give it its full title, is set for release on September 18.
