CLINTERVIEW: Sevendust’s Clint Lowery opens up about new

album, quitting, returning to band

	Sevendust

May 11, 2010

With no disrespect meant toward Sonny Mayo, who ably served from 2005 to 2008, Sevendust is and always will be Lajon Witherspoon, Morgan Rose, John Connolly, Vinnie Hornsby and Clint Lowery. Those five musicians—those five brothers—are the ones who made the band what it is, and recorded now-classic songs like “Black,” “Bitch,” “Denial,” “Praise” and “Angel’s Son.” Even more than other bands, Sevendust always seemed to be a tight-knit unit—it would have to be given the sheer number of live shows they played, especially in the early days.

So in December 2004, everyone knew there had to be more to the story when Lowery abruptly quit the band in favor of a new one with his brother, Corey. After recording two albums with Dark New Day, serving as a touring guitarist for Korn in 2007 and, most importantly, conquering his inner demons, Lowery came home in 2008. On Sevendust’s newly released eighth album, Cold Day Memory, which debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard charts, Lowery is back with a vengeance, his influence strongly felt across the entire record.

This summer will see Sevendust on the Carnival of Madness tour with Shinedown, Chevelle, Puddle of Mudd and 10 Years, but first they’re traveling across the country, selling out shows of their own. At a recent stop at Jaxx in Springfield, Va., Clint sat down with Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki to discuss the new album, his departure from and return to the band, and more.

Live-Metal.net: Congratulations on the new album. It sounds great, and I saw the highest chart position the band has ever had.

Clint Lowery: Cool. Thank you, brother.

Fifteen years into the band’s career and eighth album—what do you think that says about this band that you’re still growing and bigger than ever at this point?

It’s always good to get a higher chart. The main thing we want is for people to like it. If we chart higher than we ever have before, then that’s cool. Obviously, we’re going to be happy about a higher chart position, but that means whatever you want it to mean. We sold less records than we sold with a lower chart position. I guess it’s relevant to what’s happening at the time and what the competition is at the time and what record sales are like, which are a fading thing—downloads and all that are a big deal. We’re happy with that. It doesn’t define us, but it is a big deal. We’re grateful.

	Clint Lowery

Coming back, this being your first album with the band in almost seven years, I guess, since Seasons, did you feel any extra pressure?

Yeah, I did, ‘cause you don’t want to be the guy that’s missing for a couple albums, then you come back and have a crappier record. I wanted to make the best one. I wanted to make a statement, a welcome back kind of statement. I worked really hard on the record—we all did. Everyone put a lot into it. It was fresh energy, just ‘cause we hadn’t played together and recorded and written together for a long time. To us, it was a fresh energy and we were happy about it.

It seems to me, just from me listening to it, that your influence on this one is even bigger than it was on the earlier albums. Do you think that’s accurate?

I had a lot of free time. I don’t have any kids, I wasn’t married and I had a lot of extra time. The guys kind of let me put in a lot of ideas on the album. In that way, it was. I had a lot of influence on a lot of the songs because I was just more available all the time for ideas. When a producer would have ideas or whatever, I was always there, so it kind of bled through. Everyone had a lot to do with everything still. It was a collective, it’s never individual. But I did have a little more on this record. John had three records he had to do as the only guitar player, pretty much. Sonny didn’t write much, just kind of mirrored what John did. So I think they just kind of let me run wild a little bit because I was so eager to do it.

Did you play all of the guitar solos that are on the album?

No, I didn’t play all of ‘em. I played my fair share of them. John does a few of ‘em on there. I play maybe one more of ‘em than he does on the record.

There are definitely a lot more of those on this than any other Sevendust album. How did that happen?

I grew up in that shred, woodshed kind of era. I think that if you do a solo just to show how fast you are, it’s kind of pointless. But if you do a tasteful solo, it adds to the dimension of the song. Technically, it’s more challenging. I love guitar playing. I love the art of practicing and getting your technique down, good technique, good vibrato, good just guitar feel, and solos are your chance to embrace that and show off a little bit of what you’ve been practicing.

Who are some of the lead players that have really influenced you over the years?

Steve Vai. Dimebag Darrell. Ty Tabor from King’s X is always one. The Edge. Jimi Hendrix, obviously. Eddie Van Halen was a big deal. Yeah, everything.

The new album was produced by Johnny K. It also says co-produced by Sevendust and your brother, Corey. Just from looking at that, it seems like that’s a lot of producers. So how did everyone sort of keep in their role and out of each other’s way?

Corey was there to safety-net the project. We had recorded pretty much the whole record with Corey before we did it with Johnny. So there was a rhythm we had with Corey that we didn’t want to lose. Vocally, Corey was a big deal because he recorded a lot of the vocals on the record up there with Johnny. Johnny was really hands-on with everything. He would kind of get caught up in everything, so we’re like, “Let’s just get Corey up here to just aid you and produce the record.” Johnny still produced, but as a producer, his decision was to allow Corey to come in and continue the momentum we had with Corey and LJ working together, as far as tracking lead vocals and backing vocals.

The band is listed as co-producers, too, so what was your role?

I always have production ideas. We used a lot of mine. We used a lot of Johnny’s. It wouldn’t be fair just because I’m in the band, put in a production idea and not get a production credit. So as a band, we just lobbed it in. We’ve done a lot of records, so we’re gonna have our voice and how we want to do it because we know our fans, we know we want to do. Johnny’s obviously not a slave-driver. He’s like, “You got a good idea? We’ll use it.” Hence the co-production.

There’s no song on the album called “Cold Day Memory,” so where did that title come from?

It was like a working title I had for a song. Lyrically, we just kind of pieced it together and threw in these words. I’m like, that would be a cool name for the record because it’s so symbolic of what that experience was. Recording in Chicago in the winter is the worst. The whole memory of the whole thing was just dismal clouds and snow and rain and wind. So that just encompassed what that record meant to us.

I’m sure, probably, at this point you like them all, but are there any songs on there that really stand out to you?

I like “Splinter,” man, for the sheer fact that it’s just a fun song. It’s fun metal song. It satisfies that heavier appetite. But then we have songs like “Last Breath,” and I like “Nowhere.” “Nowhere” is one of the songs that no one really talks about. I enjoy that song. I think the message is good. There’s a solo in it, there’s some really good melodies, there’s back-and-forth with Lajon and me, and there’s Morgan. It’s like everything we do in one song.

Going back, do you have any regrets about leaving the band or how you left?

Yeah. I was in a bad place at the time. I feel bad the way I left. My intentions were good, but the way I executed it I regret. I treated it like a secret thing that I wanted to start this band with my brother, and in fairness to them, it wasn’t fair. They really wanted to support what I was going through, but I was just in a bad place with drinking, bad place with drugs at the time. I was not capable of being honest at the time. So of course, I have my regrets there, but I made my amends with them. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I worked so hard on this record, because I wanted to make it up to them.

When you came back, who approached who?

Me and Morgan stayed in contact for the most part. I hardly ever talked to the other guys. I’d run into them every now and then, and we’d say our piece to each other—“How are you doing? Hope all is well with the family” and all that. But Morgan, the Korn thing was over for me, so I was sitting at home and I was talking to him just on a friendship level. That’s how we started out. He would call or I’d call and say, “So how are you doing, man? What’s going on in life?” We’d talk music and we’d talk ideas, and then naturally the subject comes up, “What would it be like if we got back together? Is this the right time? Should we do it now? Should we wait? Should we do it all?” It was one of those things where we thought life’s short. Let’s become brothers again first, and then let’s talk about being in a band.

Two years ago, your first show back with them, what was it like stepping out onstage again?

It was cool. I forgot how hard it was to play in this band as far as exhaustion and energy and all that. The fans rev you up. You can rehearse all day long, but when you get there in front of them, they make you excited. I was tired, man, but I was up for it. I was really exhausted just because we just kill ourselves up there—we try to. I remember it being a really emotional night, because I was back, you know?

Do you find that playing shows and touring takes more of a toll on you as you get older?

I take care of myself now. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I work out a lot. I do things to offset that, so condition-wise, I’m in better shape than I was when I was younger. It seems like it was harder back then to do it than now. But you get ailments as you get older. There’s little things that hurt that you’re like, “What the hell is that? Where did that come from?” It’s nothing overwhelming or anything. I’m not in that part yet where I’m like I can’t, crawling onstage. But it’ll happen. It happens to everybody.

Are there any songs from the three albums they did without you that you haven’t gotten to play live yet that you would really like the chance to tackle?

Yeah. “Confessions of Hatred” is a cool song. Man, there’s a lot of songs I wish we would’ve played.

Yeah, you can only fit so many. It must be hard to put the set list together.

Yeah. The songs that they played a lot that I didn’t get a chance to play with ‘em, they get tired of. I’d like to play “The Last Song” because they were jabbing at me.

The last thing that was released before you left was the acoustic album and DVD. Do you think you’ll do more of that in the future?

Yeah, just because it’s a way to break the monotony a little bit with us and it’s something that we can do that a lot of bands that are heavy generally can’t do. They can, but they just don’t really do it. It’s one thing that offsets us from the other bands. To translate such aggressive songs to an acoustic nature, it’s cool to me. I think it’s a cool contrast. It kind of leans more to what Lajon is as a singer. He’s a very soulful singer. It works really good because of him—I think it’s easy to pull off. And we’ve got other singers and stuff. We all love the acoustic and chill vibe as much as we like the aggressive, so it’s good to solely focus on being acoustic for a little while.

Do you think you might do more of your solo acoustic stuff?

Yeah, I want to. But it’s like a priority list. (Sevendust) is my priority, and I don’t want to do anything that’s gonna shortchange these guys. I did that before and it was not fair to them. But I always want to do it because I don’t think I’m always gonna have this much free time. Between Sevendust records, I like to have my own little personal release just because musically I want to write as much as I can.

You’ve got the big tour this summer, the Carnival of Madness. It seems like it’s been a while since Sevendust has been on something that big. Are you looking forward to it? Do you know all those bands?

Yeah, we know ‘em all. It’ll be cool ‘cause they’re all on the same management company, and we all know each other from tours before. It’ll be cool. It’ll be exposure to fans that usually don’t see us.

One more, and maybe you won’t have anything new to say, but will we ever get to hear the second Dark New Day album?

Yeah. You can go online and basically find it. Go to YouTube. They’ve got pretty much everything on there. I’m gonna say, it’ll eventually just be leaked out. It’s a sad thing that it didn’t get released, but Warner Bros. is a huge industry machine, and they didn’t see fit to release it, and they didn’t want to just give it back to us because they spent so money on it. Because we were all in different bands, they were like, “You guys aren’t gonna support this, so we’re not gonna put it out.” It was kind of an unfortunate thing. But we’re glad that we recorded it. If you really want it, you can find it. It was fun to do, man. It was a good record. I liked it.

Anything else you want to add?

Just thanks to everyone for supporting the band and we love everybody, man. We’re thankful to be doing it.

LINKS:
www.sevendust.com
www.myspace.com/sevendust
www.facebook.com/sevendust
www.twitter.com/sevendust
www.twitter.com/clintelowery