The heavy metal supergroup DOWN, which consists of vocalist Philip H. Anselmo, guitarists Pepper Keenan and Kirk Windstein, drummer Jimmy Bower, and bassist Pat Bruders, is continuing work on the songwriting process for a new release. It has been a while since the band released any new material, with their last EP, Down IV – Part Two, released in May 2014.
In the past few days, Bower has posted several photos from Nodferatu’s Lair, the barn studio located on Anselmo‘s rural south Louisiana property. Additionally, a picture of the entire reunited band has been shared, capturing their latest sessions. “Office for the next few days!” Jimmy captioned his post.
In December 28, Windstein shared a photo of him and Keenan in DOWN‘s rehearsal studio in Louisiana, and he included the following message: “So…we kinda wrote 2 DOWN songs today!!!”
In a recent interview with Scott Penfold of Loaded Radio this past October, Windstein discussed the potential of himself and his fellow DOWN band members embarking on the journey of writing and recording new music in the near future.
He said at the time: “I talked to Phil a pretty good bit… Phil‘s attitude is kind of just like, ‘Look, fellas, I’m doing what I’m doing [with PANTERA]. I love it. We’re killing it.’ And boy, are they. We [CROWBAR] had the pleasure of playing with PANTERA in Poland in early June. It was unbelievable. I mean, I laughed, I cried. My emotion was something else, because I was very tight with [late PANTERA guitarist] Dimebag. It’s real — what they’re doing is real. But what Phil said, ‘Hey, man, in the big picture of things, dude, I really don’t have a band. I’m doing a PANTERA reunion thing.’ And of course they’re gonna do it as long as they can. I mean, I don’t blame them. Who would? You do what you’ve gotta do. And they’re killing it and doing it heartfelt for the right reasons, and I love it.
“But like he said, ‘Look, you are the guys.’ And I talked to Pepper about two or three days ago. I think he’s got a few shows in early November with C.O.C. and he’s off for a while. CROWBAR‘s next gig is in Ireland in late February, so we’re off for a good bit. And when you have five guys — well, Phil, of course, will be kind of out of the picture for now but me, Pepper, Jimmy and Pat — in a room together, when you’ve got all these guys writing riffs off of each other… And that’s the way I like to write — I like to write spontaneously off the cuff. I don’t like to [go], ‘Okay, this is my new song. Boom. Here y’all go,’ or whatever. I like to write off the cuff, on the spot. I feel what the other guys are giving me vibe-wise and whatnot. And that, to me, is a winning formula. It really is.”
In a 2020 interview with Ghost Cult magazine, Windstein said that the band is planning to release a six-song EP of “obscure” cover songs.
“A lot of people have been asking about that yet; that’s true,” he said. “We just need to get our butts in a room together and pick the sh*t out and DOWN it up a little bit, so to speak. But that’s the only thing in the future as of now. But it’s something.”
