In the fickle music business of today, Drowning Pool has emerged as a survivor. The band pressed on after the passing of singer Dave Williams in 2002 and an unsuccessful attempt to replace him with Jason “Gong” Jones. Former Soil frontman Ryan McCombs came to the rescue in 2005, and it’s been relatively smooth sailing ever since. Heavy touring preceded and followed the 2007 album “Full Circle,” which spawned the hit single “37 Stitches,” and now Drowning Pool is back with a self-titled release that at once recalls its early days and moves into new musical terrain. McCombs and bassist Stevie Benton recently checked in with Live Metal’s Greg Maki to discuss the new album.
LIVE METAL: Today, the new album is out. Do you guys have any traditions, rituals, things you like to do on release day?
RYAN McCOMBS: We burn witches. And small children.
STEVIE BENTON: I’m sure we’ll do a little celebrating tonight. The build-up has been long and excruciating [laughter], so it’s finally good to have it out. It’s kind of like when you’ve been building up inside all morning—
RYAN: Where you going with this already? [laughs]
STEVIE: You drink a lot of coffee, and then finally you get it out there, man. It’s a great feeling.
RYAN: It’s like when you put it out there, and they don’t tell you to put it back.
Ryan, this is your second album with the band, and Stevie, for the rest of you, this is your first time working with the same singer for two albums in a row. How big a factor was that increased familiarity in the writing and recording of this album?
STEVIE: It was a big difference, man. This time around, we got to go from touring straight into focusing on songs and making a record, as opposed to searching for a singer, trying to decide which direction we wanted to go in, trying to find a label that’s gonna put the record out—all that chaos that has always come with making a record for us. This is the first time where it was a really stable situation. So that is a real relief, man. We’re gonna start trying to do that more often from now on. [laughter]
RYAN: It was a big difference. I’m not really sure if it was liked or not. [laughs]
And Ryan, for you, I know you guys were together for a couple years before the last album came out, but are you feeling more comfortable writing with the band and recording and all that?
RYAN: Absolutely. We really took off pretty well, when you talk about a new experience, on the first record I did with them, “Full Circle.” Everything went really well, and it was cool to see how quickly we did gel on that one. To be sitting here on the second album, having that fast start on the last one just allowed us to pick up where we left off and I think went above and beyond anybody’s expectations.
Why did you decide to make this album self-titled?
STEVIE: There were a lot of factors, really, that went into it, not the least of which was the fact that we wanted to have an album title that no one else could possibly have. [laughter] So hopefully no one else out there will call their record “Drowning Pool;” that would be a little awkward. But ultimately, I think, it was because we were really proud of all the songs on there, and I don’t think any of us would’ve felt right if we dressed it up with some crazy concept or a contrived, if you will, album title, and all this. We just wanted the songs to speak for themselves and we just put it out there just kind of naked, really—“Hey, this is Drowning Pool. This is who we are. Love it or hate it.”
RYAN: And “buy it.”
[laughter]
STEVIE: Yeah, we’d prefer you bought it.
To me, it sounds like maybe the most mature Drowning Pool album so far, definitely the most diverse. There are some times where you seem to really push yourselves out of your comfort zone. Was that something that was intentional and was a conscious effort you made going into this album?
RYAN: It was cool. We’ve all got so much experience behind us now, and when you look at the last record, we traveled down a path that I don’t know if we would’ve done before when we threw “37 Stitches” on there. That was kind of a new direction for us, a little bit of a new flavor for Drowning Pool. I remember at the time thinking to myself, you get caught in that adolescent musician’s mentality, sitting there listening to a tune and questioning to yourself, “Is this Drowning Pool enough?” Which is silly ‘cause we wrote it, so of course it’s Drowning Pool. But having the fans accept that song, having them stand behind it like they did and championing it really allowed us then to walk into this record and feel even less restraints, feel like there wasn’t anywhere we couldn’t go.
So at the end of the day, what you’ve got with this record is, you have the classic Drowning Pool elements. A lot of our family members and old-school friends that have been around forever, they’ve listened to the material, they can point at different songs on the album and go, “Man, that’s reminiscent of the ‘Sinner’ days, of the beginning of Drowning Pool.” And then there’s other songs that are gonna take you to some of the elements of “Full Circle,” such as like your “37 Stitches” direction. But then there’s even some more areas that because of having that success with “37 Stitches” we felt like there was no restraints. We could do anything that we felt was natural for us. So there’s even some more flavors on there that you wouldn’t have gotten from us in the past. It was a fun album to make because of that. When you’re trying to throw it out there, when you’re trying to create the music and pull it out of yourself, to be able to do that and not worry about is this this way enough, is this gonna fit this way or that way—to not have any of those restraints, just throw it out there and just worry about, is the song the best that it can be, that’s awesome to be in that position as a musician.
The song that really jumps out at me the most is “Alcohol Blind.” Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired that and the writing and recording of that song?
RYAN: This album, vocally speaking, you’ve got some really high highs on it and some really low lows. There was so much going on in all of our lives the past few years and in mine personally there was definitely some crazy times wrapped up in this record. Part of that for me was dealing with the realization that, you know, drinking problem, alcoholic. That song is, I think, the beginning of a story. I don’t think that story’s done being told yet. Actually, I know that story’s not done being told yet. That’s definitely the first step in that book of dealing with the alcoholism, having the old bottle talk back to you every night.
Do you see having space in a live set for a song like that or would you stick to the more up-tempo stuff? I guess you’ve played “37 Stitches.”
RYAN: We’re talking about doing a little bit of a breakdown in the live set, in the headline set. We’re gonna take a couple songs and just kind of give the crowd a little bit something different from Drowning Pool than they’ve seen before in our live show, really break down a few songs and break ‘em down bare bones to present ‘em in a completely different light.
I know it hasn’t been too long since you guys were on the road, and you get back out there this weekend, right?
STEVIE: That’s right. I think our first show is Saturday.
So what are the plans? Do you have a target for how long you’ll be out on this album?
STEVIE: Man, it’ll probably be a long time. We’ve got pretty much every radio festival between now and the end of summer. I guess we’ll roll into a fall tour, and after we’re done with that, we might take a break, not from playing but from the States and maybe go push the record overseas a little bit, probably come back early next year, do it all over again. It’d be well into working a second single by that time. So today is really just the kickoff of a lot of work.
RYAN: Yeah, we’re really at ground zero at this point. It’s really hard to tell sitting here today what’s gonna happen tomorrow and the next day. “Full Circle” is a perfect example of just how hard it is to predict anything. We were sitting at home writing material. We finally came off the road after a few years on the road supporting the material that we’d done for “Full Circle.” Came off the road, started writing material for this (album), and all of sudden “37 Stitches” blew up. And boom, we’re right back on the road supporting it again. So it just depends on really just how the fans champion the record and how long we’re allowed to stay out there and reaching out to them.
I live kind of in the middle of nowhere in Maryland, and we never get big rock shows over here. But a few years ago, you guys came and played a show in a small town called Cambridge. I was just curious if you have any memories of that show or if that stands out at all. You’ve played so many you probably don’t, right?
RYAN: It’s funny ‘cause you do play a place like that you don’t hit every tour, and you do remember seeing that coming up, hitting it and having a good time, and it does stick in your head, probably more so than when you’re playing the same city 15 times in a year. It’s when you hit some place a little different that you don’t hit every day that automatically sticks in your head. But yeah, it is weird because you do run into every once in a while, even in those places that you hit 15 times in a year, you run into somebody like, “Remember that last time you were here and you did that one thing with that one person and there was that goat involved and all that fire?” And you’re like, “Man, I did that five or six times a week every week for like three years. Unless the fire was blue, I don’t really know what’s goin’ on.” [laughter] But yeah, the shows like that that you don’t hit every once in a while, yeah, they automatically do stick in your head a little bit ‘cause it’s a change of pace.
I think I’m about out of time, so is there anything else you’d like to add real quick?
RYAN: Thanks to the fans. Thanks for the support. The fact that we’re sitting here on Drowning Pool’s fourth studio album, fifth counting the last live album, it’s unbelievable really in this day and age and in the climate of the music business to be sitting here still being allowed to do what we do because people give us the time of day. So just a big thank you to everybody that has us still sitting here being four mindless freaks out on the road doing our thing.
STEVIE: And please, please enjoy the record. We hope you guys dig it.