Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Drowning Pool

The title of Drowning Pool’s third album, Full Circle (July 24, 2007), says it all. With a new singer (Ryan McCombs, formerly of Soil), new record label (Eleven Seven Music) and new management (Tenth Street Entertainment), the band is in the midst of a rebirth. Bassist Stevie Benton recently chatted with Greg Maki of Live-Metal.net about the band’s new beginning, performing for the troops on USO tours of Iraq and Kuwait, and more.

Live-Metal.net: How is Drowning Pool with Ryan McCombs different from Drowning Pool with Jason “Gong” Jones or Dave Williams?

Stevie Benton: After Dave passed, Ryan was the original singer, I think, we wanted, the reason being we knew the guy, we were friends with the guy. We just thought he’d be a great fit, both musically and personally. Unfortunately, he was still working in a band, so we didn’t want to go in there and break up that whole rig. So instead, we held auditions and just wound up getting a total stranger in the band. We’ll always be proud of the record we made with Gong. That was never a problem. It was once we got on the road touring together every day that we realized the personality conflict was not gonna allow the band to continue that way. With Dave, we had always been such a tight-knit group, such a family—brothers, basically. So we weren’t used to having to deal with these personal issues that we had with Gong, just the personality conflict. I would say probably he didn’t handle that very well and neither did we. So that’s what ultimately led to us parting ways. By the time that happened, luckily Ryan had quit his former band, so we didn’t have the guilt of breaking that whole rig up. We called him one day, you know, “Hey, bro, you wanna tour? You wanna make a record?” It all fell together quite nicely after that. The situation is just so much better because we do have a past with the guy. We toured with him lots of times before, done a hundred shows with him in his old band. So we had that tight-knit circle again.

So two years ago, when it came time to get a new singer, you didn’t consider anyone else. He was the guy.

Oh yeah. He’s always been the guy. As soon as he was available, we swooped in and snatched him up.

Not really because Ryan’s a pro. He’s a vet at all this. He’s been on the road plenty. He wasn’t green at all. I can tell you when Gong first joined the band he had to suffer through quite a bit of hazing because he was kind of a rookie at the whole touring process. So we gave him a hard time at times.

Now, with a new singer, new record label, new management, does it feel like the band is almost starting over again?

Yeah, very much so. That’s kind of where the whole title of the record, Full Circle , came from ‘cause it does [feel] just like starting over, as they say. Brand new label, brand new management, brand new singer. So, yeah, it does feel like new life.

Are the new songs that we’ve gotten to hear so far—“No More” from Saw III and “Soldiers”—are they an indication of how the rest of the new material sounds?

One thing with this record, we wanted to try to make it as diverse as possible, go a lot of different directions that we hadn’t had the opportunity to do yet. At the same time, there’s a lot of stuff on it that’s gonna sound like old Drowning Pool stuff. You can’t change who you are. You can’t just one day wake up and decide to make a record and be a complete 180. But we did try to throw a few curves in there and kind of pursue some avenues that we hadn’t had the opportunity to do so far. But I’d say the two songs you’ve heard so far—“No More” and “Soldiers”—those are two completely different ends of the spectrum, as far as the record goes. That’s definitely one thing we were going for with this record, so hopefully that comes across once you have the entire collection of songs together and are able to listen to it from start to finish.

Ryan’s been in the band for about two years now and you did a whole lot of touring before actually finishing the new album. What effect did that have on the finished product?

It gave us the opportunity to test a lot of these songs out live before actually going in and recording them. When we did Desensitized, it was one of those situations where you jump into a studio, record the songs kind of in your own world, in your own bubble. You never get to have that fan interaction with the songs. We were fortunate to do those tours. I know when Ryan first got in the band we were all very excited, very anxious to get in and make a record. And we almost did that, but then the opportunity came up to do those USO tours and different little things like that, things that we didn’t want to pass up. So we jumped in the middle of that. Hopefully, having those songs tested live so much, hopefully it’s made them better and made them more audience-friendly. We’ve been able to test them and get that immediate feedback. There were a number of songs that we played live that we just never felt like the connection and vibe were there on the songs, so we just put those on the shelf for now and really just focused on the ones that really got a great response night in and night out.

You collaborated with Nikki Sixx on a couple songs. How did that come about?

It was kind of funny because after the first record, we were starting to work on material with Dave for the second record before he passed, and one of the things we had talked about that we wanted to do was go do a song with Nikki Sixx. We had kinda gotten in contact with him because a lot of our live shows we used to cover “Shout at the Devil.” It kinda got back to him, and we’d just been in contact with him. So it was definitely something that we wanted to do. After Dave passed, the plans kind of fell apart a little bit. Then, in the process of recording the third record, the connection was kind of made again and the opportunity came up. He had a little free time in the studio while he was working on his Heroin Diaries record, and we kinda had a gap in our recording schedule, as well. So the opportunity to fly down and do a song with Nikki Sixx, finally, to have that experience, to be able to record a song—I can sit there and do my bass tracks with Nikki sitting right next to me—was just a dream come true.

It was a funny thing. We were doing a radio interview in Dallas with a DJ there at the local rock station, Jesse. The whole point of the interview was to kind of announce Ryan as the new singer to the hometown crowd and everything, and she had already made plans to go do a USO tour and interview the troops out there and send the audio back to the station to be played live throughout the day. There was a band lined up to go, and I guess they got cold feet at the last minute and backed out. We happened to be at the right place at the right time, and she asked us to go. We always heard about much the military guys use the song “Bodies” for getting themselves pumped up to go do their missions or whatever, and they used it for training videos and such, and we always wondered and talked about how do we get involved in doing something like a USO tour. The manager we had at the time could just really never get it together, but then there we are right place, right time, it falls right into our freakin’ lap. So, like I said, we had plans to start recording at that point, but to finally have the opportunity to go overseas and play for the troops, we were not about to let that opportunity get away.

Man, it was like absolutely nothing else. The level of intensity and enthusiasm from the crowds out there was just unlike anything I had ever seen or been a part of. They’re out there in the desert 15 months at a time just on edge the whole time, and I guess they came to a big rock show to let all that out. The energy of the crowd was unbelievable. If I hadn’t had been there, you can’t really put it into words. It was just a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity. If any other band had the opportunity to go, I would definitely suggest that to them ‘cause you will not regret it. It will be unlike any other shows you’ve ever played.

The band has now started a petition to try to help the troops out when they come home. How did that get started?

We have this relationship with so many people in the military, and we started hearing these stories about troops coming home and having to sit around six, eight months at a time before they received any kind of medical care. And then there was the whole thing on TV, the whole Walter Reed [ Army Medical Center ] scandal. With all the trouble they’re having there with getting anything done, it was just like, is there anything we can do to help them out as far as this is concerned? I guess the petition was the best thing that we could come up with that would have the most immediate effect and get the attention of the people in the government to take a look at this. It’s just something I have a hard time understanding. How can someone who’s off the street roll in and receive immediate medical care and then it takes close to a year to get it for people who have been serving the country? It’s just mind-boggling to me.

The other day I came across a story. I see these things and they always completely baffle me. It’s this one out of Australia about the two kids there. Did you hear about that one?

I saw it online the other day. There were two kids that were accused of planning a school shooting.

You know, I heard a little of that.

And then “Bodies” was mentioned in there somehow as an influence. I guess similar things like that have come up before. What do you think when you hear something like that?

We think it’s pretty ridiculous. After 9/11, it was the same kind of thing. They took “Bodies” off the air because they felt the song was about something like that. The song came from such a simple thing as being at a concert and kinda moshing around, stage diving. For people to take that song and try to stick it to a national tragedy—I guess we shouldn’t take it to heart as much as we do. If people just realize the song is about something harmless. It’s got nothing to do with violence or shooting or—

Yeah, it’s about having a good time at a rock show. I guess people just have knee-jerk reactions at times when bad things happen, so I can kind of understand it. But the song has absolutely nothing to do with anything like that.

Coming up in Dallas in August, there’s going to be some sort of Dave Williams tribute, “Stage Fest.” Are you guys going to be involved in that in any way?

We’re trying to get our schedule down so that we’re not on the road at that time so we can be there. It’s August 14. We tried to get it held on Dave’s birthday [Feb. 29]. I guess that’s not going to happen. Hopefully we’ll be able to make it. It kinda got thrown on us at the last minute, but we’re trying to do everything we can to be there.

This current tour that you’re on right now ends pretty soon and the album comes out in July. What are your plans for the rest of the summer and the rest of the year?

I think we’re going to do another U.S. run, like major cities across the U.S., and then we’re trying to put it together right now to go back to the Persian Gulf again shortly after the record’s out. So we’re still kind of waiting to hear exactly how the scheduling for that works out. All the plans for July and August and into the fall, they’re all really tentative right now because it takes a while to get clearance for those USO tours in places like the Gulf. So we’re kind of waiting for all that to be hammered out, and then once that is, then we’ll just kind of base all the touring around that time.