Kirk Windstein has made some of the most impactful metal records to ever come out of New Orleans. As the leader of Crowbar and part of local supergroup Down, Windstein has spent most of his life traveling the globe to deliver cathartic, heavy sounds to an audience that follows his projects with cult-like devotion. He avoids calling Crowbar a sludge metal band, but has long been respected worldwide as one of sludge’s pioneers. The River Ridge guitar ripper first hit the local scene in the mid-‘80s with the thrash band Victorian Blitz, following New Orleans rockstars Zebra and Lillian Axe’s proven formula of mixing beloved covers with originals to create a fanbase. As Victorian Blitz petered out, Windstein received the call to join local punk legends Shell Shock during their late crossover days and even played on an unreleased album. After Shell Shock guitarist Mike “Hatch Boy” Hatch’s suicide, the band changed its name and members, becoming Aftershock, Wrequiem, the Slugs, and ultimately Crowbar. As the band metamorphosed, speedy thrash tempos gave way to a fusion of unrelenting doom riffs that moved at a slug’s pace and hardcore executed with the intensity of a crowbar to the face. Windstein gave up metal’s trademark lengthy locks when he started Crowbar, but he is a lifer who wears his influences inked on his arms, back, and even head. At 60, his body now serves as a walking visual encyclopedia of heavy metal logos, including multiple pieces each for Motörhead, Saint Vitus, and even Crowbar itself.
Although Windstein’s fat riffs and sorrowful screams have long captivated a dedicated following, many young people have recently discovered Crowbar for the first time, thanks to a resurgence in interest for the band on social media. Crowbar’s Spotify now boasts 1.2 million monthly listeners with the previously overlooked 2001 cut “Repulsive In Its Splendid Beauty” overshadowing longtime fan favorites like “Planets Collide,” due to heavy use on TikTok and Instagram. Crowbar seems to be doing better than ever before in their three-and-a-half decade long career because of the enduring power of a 25-year-old song.
While new fans are diving into Windstein’s past, he is keeping plenty busy in the present. Just before Mardi Gras, Down dropped a video for a cover of hometown hero Dr. John‘s “Right Place Wrong Time.” On April 1, Sun Dont Shine, a Crowbar-meets-Type O Negative supergroup, will release their debut album From Birth to Death. And if that wasn’t enough, Crowbar has hit the road again with lifelong BFFs Eyehategod for a month of sold-out performances that culminate with a joint appearance at Tipitina’s this month. I met up with Windstein at OCD Recording and Production, hidden deep in an unsuspecting, quiet residential part of Harahan. On a cozy couch, he opened up about his spandex-clad thrasher days, a lifetime on the road, and the unexpected anti-white power origins of his band’s name.
I think it would be really cool to look back at the ‘80s in the underground scene because it’s really underdocumented in terms of New Orleans music.
That’s when it started. Everybody was either in punk bands or metal bands or hardcore bands and then it all started coming together and crossing over. Crowbar has a lot of, more New York style, but hardcore influence. All the aggressive songs have what I call Motörhead speed. [imitates drums] It’s the hardcore beats. We don’t do blast beats and that kind of thing.
How was the UK / Ireland run you just did?
It was the best run we’ve ever done. We did 15 shows and every one was sold out or upgraded, sometimes upgraded twice and still sold out. Except for the last show, which was in a town I had never heard of that is just starting to do shows… The merchandise was through the roof. It was amazing. The weather sucked, but we do that intentionally because there’s no traffic out there. Try going out on a tour in summer, there’s stuff for everyone. That’s why people do big packages, to try to bring more attention. If you try to go on tour by yourself, it’s like, good luck man!
This will be the second year in a row that Crowbar and Eyehategod have toured together. Tell me about last year. It seems like it was really well received.
It’s a perfect combination of stuff. Most fans like both bands at least enough. We definitely have our crowd and they definitely have theirs, but it still works together. To me, we sound nothing alike, which is a great thing. But there is enough in common to keep people’s interests. Some Eyehategod fans may have never heard Crowbar. We would flip flop in a lot of cities. Both bands want to go on first so that we’re done! [laughs] We get up early now. The late night shit is over. I could play at six in the evening and that would be my deal.
You’ve reached the age where you’re not fighting over who gets to be the headliner, but who gets to be the opener!
We are! It’s the same money. We get paid—down to the penny—the same money for the shows. It’s up to both bands to sell merchandise but we both do great in merch so it’s a financial success. I started jamming with [Eyehategod guitarist / Down drummer] Jimmy [Bower] 39 years ago and he’s one of my closest friends. I’ve known [Eyehategod vocalist] Mike [IX Williams] since he was a kid. He and I share the same birthday, but I’m one year older. On tour in Lynchburg, Virginia, I’ll be 61 and Mike will be 60. It’s crazy because we’ve known each other literally since we were teenagers. Jimmy and I started jamming together in Shell Shock in 1987. What became Crowbar was just Jimmy and I in a room alone. He used to pick me up for rehearsal. We would jam on Trouble, the Melvins, and Carnivore on our way to rehearsal. We didn’t really know what to do, and then one day we were like: Dude, let’s just tune down and start doing more doom shit. Because neither one of us are really great thrash players. No one could compete with Exhorder! It was like good luck for that style of music, the real technical thrash stuff. Nobody could touch ‘em so Jimmy and I were smart enough to say we’re not going to try!
You had been doing thrash with Victorian Blitz and then the crossover stuff with Shell Shock. What was the scene reaction like when, all of a sudden, Kirk starts playing this slow stuff?
At first, people didn’t really know what to make of it, which is natural. Jimmy started Eyehategod around the time that Jimmy and I started the Slugs, so he was jamming with both bands. It’s never been any competition or anything. When you really analyze the music, they are punk-blues and we are doom metal with a bit of hardcore. It’s two different styles. We go for completely different tones. Mike and I couldn’t sing any more different. It’s two great paths. When we first started the Slugs, we would open up for Exhorder and shit like that. Our biggest thing for the Slugs was opening for the Melvins at Storyville.
I was actually going to show you that flyer!
Wow! Ten bucks advance, 12 at the door.
I’m assuming the Tipitina’s show is more than that. [laughs]
We try to keep it low. I think Eyehategod sells their shirts for a little less to try to be more punk, but the price has gone up.
And you’ve also made this your life, which is a big difference between now and then.
We try to keep ticket and merchandise prices reasonable. But I’m not going to sell a t-shirt for 20 bucks when it costs 11 to make it. It used to cost five so you could do it for 20 then it got raised to 25 because the costs had gone up. After COVID, everything went sky high. It’s kind of leveled off. It started to get to where a $5.50 t-shirt was costing 12 bucks so we had to go up to 30. Then you see some bands that are bigger than Crowbar and some bands that are not as big as Crowbar selling them for fucking 40 and 50.
Melvins/Slugs flyer courtesy of Pat Roig (From Staple Guns to Thumbtacks: Flyer Art from the 1982-1995 New Orleans Punk & Hardcore Scene)
And people forget that t-shirts help offset the hidden costs of touring, like backline. A lot of that stuff has gotten a lot more expensive post-COVID, right?
Sure. That’s why Matt [Brunson], the other guitar player, and I and even Pat [Bruders], our bass player, use the same type of stuff that [Eyehategod bassist] Gary Mader uses, which is Darkglass amps. They’re these little amps that sound amazing. I use the [Neural DSP] Quad Cortex and the Kemper and Matt uses a Kemper because we can fly with these things. I can carry on my guitar rig, the same guitar rig that Gary Holt uses for Exodus for his fly dates. I have a power amp in a case in one hand and I have the Quad Cortex in the other. Robin, my wife, tour manages us and does the merch. My whole rig is her overhead luggage and my overhead luggage. When you fly to Europe, all you have to do is switch out the plug and the voltage is different, which actually makes it sound better. The second you plug it in, it switches to the proper voltage. If you bring an American Edison plug thing over there, you have to rent power converters. The convenience and the tone is better. We have tried everything on Earth with every amp ever made and it’s not any better. I always tell people to listen with your ears and not your eyes. If I put some beat-up Orange head up there, you’d be like, God that thing sounds amazing! But I’m really running the Kemper behind it. [laughs] I can speak for Eyehategod with this as well, but bands either go for it with production or they don’t. Even Down, which is much bigger than Crowbar, we just stick to the old school: Jimmy’s four piece kit, a bass cab on each side of Jimmy, me and [guitarist] Pepper [Keenan] running three cabs with heads on the inside cab, and that’s all we need. We try to have a nice light show but it’s about the music and the energy. We don’t need the moving light shit. Nobody uses [indicates in-ear monitors], but Philip [Anselmo] uses it because he’s the singer. His voice has gotten so much stronger from it. But us and Eyehategod, that’s why we’re all deaf! [laughs] Crank the shit up and go for it! But yeah, the cost of everything has totally gone up. We went from 25 to 30 on a t-shirt but, thanks to everybody else selling their shirts for so much more—no disrespect, people go, Oh my god! Thirty dollars for a shirt! I’ll take two, and you end up selling more shit in the end. You’re still making a nice profit but people don’t realize the cost of the shipping and printing. We have 37 boxes of merchandise, good sized boxes, coming to our house Wednesday and we leave Wednesday night for the tour. The bill is a lot! Our merchandise bill for the 15 shows in England was like 32,000 pounds, which is 40-something thousand dollars. Granted, we killed it in merch but…
It’s still a big up front cost.
Right. If you look at all that stuff first, you’ll have a panic attack. The flights were how much? [laughs] Thank god, things have gotten so strong lately.
There has been a big resurgence in youth interest in Crowbar. What do you think has the kids coming to Crowbar now?
I don’t know. Crowbar didn’t change anything and I don’t want to sound like an asshole or belittle our fans. For the younger fans, it’s something brand new, even though we’ve been around. We became Crowbar in 1990 and started touring around a little bit. Our first record [Obedience Thru Suffering] came out in ‘91, I think. The first Eyehategod [In The Name Of Suffering] might’ve come out in ‘90. We were right behind them so we’ve both been on the road for 36 fucking years. Neither band has changed a damn thing. The diehards are still there but the problem is getting guys our age out to shows… It’s hard with the older crowd because most people have families and whatnot. You’ve got a few lone wolf-types who never got married or had a family, but it’s great for me to see the young kids. The passion is the same as when I was seeing Van Halen when I was 15 years old or all of the shows at UNO [Lakefront Arena] or Twisted Sister in 1984.
And now we’ve come full circle. Acid Bath has headlined the UNO Lakefront Arena, which I’m pretty sure is the first time a Louisiana metal band has headlined an arena in the New Orleans area. Down opened for Metallica but that’s not a headlining thing. Pantera has headlined but that’s just Phil in terms of the New Orleans element.
In all honesty, I don’t know how much Acid Bath’s comeback has had to do [with Crowbar’s resurgence in popularity], but I do thank them because it certainly didn’t hurt. Number one, I’m happy for them and I love those guys.
Down recently did a video for a Dr. John cover. Can you tell me about the local side of your influences, the stuff that you don’t normally talk about? We know you love Motörhead and KISS but…
It was really Phil [Anselmo]’s idea. Of course, we loved it. He was like: We could really make that song sound like Down. It’s keyboard [on the original] but he was like: Think of the [main part]. [Sings the main part] We did our own version. The video got pulled down by some Dr. John family member who didn’t approve. We’re never releasing the song. We just wanted to put out a video as a tribute because, subliminally without thinking about it… when you were at a barbeque or a crawfish boil as a little kid and the radio is on, you’re listening to Dr. John. Your grandparents put it on and you’re listening to The Meters or The Neville Brothers. When we toured together with Eyehategod in Europe in 2001 for a month-long tour, [late Eyehategod drummer] Joey “Lil Daddy” LaCaze had just finished the book, Dr. John’s [Under a Hoodoo Moon: The Life of] the Night Tripper, so he let me borrow it. At night after the shows, I would sit up at the front of the bus on the double decker and read the whole book. Then I found out my dad used to go see him when he was just Mac Rebennack at high school gym dances and shit like that. My old man used to see him at the Dew Drop Inn. My old man was a big Elvis fan but he was a huge Fats Domino fan, who is New Orleans, of course. My childhood was all of that stuff.
Do you think that type of stuff influenced the way you approach your music at all?
Sure. Jimmy Bower on drums—because he’s gotten quite good on guitar over the past 35 years or whatever—but on drums, he is the New Orleans sound. The way he pulls back the beat. He pulls it back so far, it’s almost a joke. And that’s a New Orleans thing. That’s funk. That’s groove. Mechanical bullshit is dance music. This, you can’t dance to but you can feel it. The way Jimmy pulls back and then, when it double times, he speeds up so he is all over the fucking place.
With the kids getting into Crowbar and Eyehategod, sometimes I feel like there is a bit of a disconnect because these bands are very dark and heavy. Do you feel like the bleak themes in Crowbar reflect the way that New Orleans was during the time that you were making that stuff initially? It was a bleak city.
It still is, unfortunately. Lyrically, I didn’t really know what to write about. I didn’t want to write about fictional things like demons and wizards. I didn’t really have any confidence in my lyric writing. I basically just stole ideas from [Carnivore/Type O Negative frontman] Peter Steele, especially on [Type O Negative’s] Slow, Deep and Hard record. Phil got me a cassette copy of Slow, Deep and Hard when they weren’t even called Type O Negative yet so way before it came out… That’s the last album that really influenced me. Nothing after that really influenced me. Pre-that was some of the New York hardcore, Trouble, Melvins (of course). The self-titled Trouble album that came out in 1990 was a perfect album. Both of those were at the same time so all I really did was [say,] OK. Peter Steele apparently hates his ex-girlfriend and wants to kill himself and just twisted it into my own thing. Even now, I don’t really write stories. I wish I was a Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy storyteller or [Eagles songwriter] Don Henley. When I listen to “Hotel California,” I can see myself driving a convertible through the desert. You can picture what’s going on. That’s a true storyteller. That’s a true lyricist. That’s poetry. I don’t write poetry. I just write crazy thoughts that are therapeutic to get out so maybe I don’t do these things in real life… Now, I still try to write up dark thoughts and [Crowbar producer and OCD owner] Duane [Simoneaux] will tell you, I’ll come in with a notebook and a pen. He’ll say, Are you ready to sing today?, and I’ll go, Yeah. He’ll ask what have you got and it’ll be five words, maybe one line. I go in the vocal booth with a pen and write it on the spot… Phil [Anselmo] taught me to write that way. I used to freak out on stuff. He was like: You’ll get it. And I did… The “Repulsive In Its Splendid Beauty” song that’s suddenly a hit even though it’s 25 years old and we never played it live ever, I wrote it in five minutes. We never played it live. Rehearsed it for the album and then completely forgot about it.
How does that feel having fans latching onto songs that you sort of forgot about?
I will say this. I always thought there was something really special about that song but the way I go through the process of making an album is I live it and breathe it. We write it and record it. And then I listen to the fuck out of it for about two or three weeks and then I give my final word. Then it goes in the back of the library on the top shelf. It’s too self-indulgent to be jamming on your own shit. When you’re a kid, yeah, because wow, you did this.
You were almost in Exhorder before Crowbar got signed.
I was on bass. The funny thing that happened was Jimmy had moved to Atlanta with his mother to kind of help her out. He left and me and [original Crowbar bassist] Todd [Strange] looked at each other. I think he might’ve been thinking of moving just to jam with Jim. I was like, I gotta figure out what I’m going to do. I was friends with the Exhorder guys. [Frontman] Kyle [Thomas] came over and showed me a bunch of the stuff on bass. I rehearsed the shit out of it and I jammed with them a few times. [Original Exhorder guitarist] Vinnie [LaBella] was like: If you can get the killer bees… I think it was the “Desecrator” sound [imitates speedy plucking sound]. I couldn’t play that right now if you put a gun to my head but I could back then because of what I was playing. He was pretty much like: We’re friends. We like you. You’ve got the gig. I kid you not, probably the next day I get a call from my friend Paul Bibeau, who I went to high school with but was up in Chicago working for Relativity Records. He was like: Kirk, there’s a small indie label called Grind Core Records down the hall. I gave them a VHS video of the Slugs and I gave them your demo tape. They want to sign you. He said they’re legit. It’s a small label but they’ve got great distribution. Nice dudes and this and that. I called up Big Todd and said we’ve got a fucking record deal. He was like: What? What do we do?
Because the Slugs basically weren’t a band at that point.
It fell apart and then that phone call changed everything. I called Vinnie because it was really down to me and Frankie [Sparcello for the position as Exhorder’s bassist]. Vinnie was like: I want you to do your own thing, so we’ll get Frankie, who is killer as well. That worked out. I told Todd: What are we going to do about a drummer? Because we were only a three piece. I’m such a big Thin Lizzy and Trouble fan so I’ve always loved harmony guitar work. We went to steal [drummer] Craig Nunenmacher from I think it was the Moon Crickets. They had a gig in Fat City and we went to talk to Craig about it after. Kevin Noonan, who I played with in Victorian Blitz, happened to be the guitar player… Kevin said: Do y’all have any thoughts on a second guitar player? I said: Fucking right! Two guitars is way heavier… We can do some harmony shit, which is a very big part of Crowbar’s music. We don’t have solos… I was in all this shredding shit but I wanted to do a 180 and get reborn… We all shaved our heads [in Crowbar]. We all had long hair. We said: Fuck it. We’re looking hardcore. Immediately, we’re labeled racists: southern Louisiana rebel flag-wearing skinhead band Crowbar. The ironic thing is the name of the band Crowbar was a fuck you to Skrewdriver, the [English] Nazi band.
No shit.
The way this came about was pretty much the only Black guy in the scene back then, Derrick Comeaux, this big tall Black dude. He was a friend of ours. He used to live in our rehearsal room in the old green warehouse when we were the Slugs. He goes: Kirk, I got an idea for a side band called Crowbar. It’s a fuck you to Skrewdriver. I said: You know what, bro? I’m in! I play drums a little bit so we switched instruments. Jimmy played guitar. Dude, we couldn’t play. It was terrible. But Derrick used to write lyrics. He wrote a lot of the lyrics that are on Obedience Through Suffering like “My 4 Walls.” He wrote a lot of that shit. At some point with the record company, they said the name the Slugs was already copywritten and taken so you gotta change the name. Crowbar was the best name I had ever heard so I called up Derrick and I’m like: Look dude, I want to talk to you. He’s like: Oh you got a record deal? That’s awesome news bro. Then I said: We’re never going to do anything with Crowbar. He’s laughing, knowing that ain’t gonna happen. Then I said: Do you mind if we take that name? We really need a name and I think that one is strong. We couldn’t come up with anything better. I love it. He goes: Take it. I said: What about lyrics? Because you write some sick shit. He was like: I’ll give you my lyric book. Take what you want. His thing was, You hate Black people. I hate everyone, even myself. He had a song called “666 Does the KKK” or some shit like that where Black satanic people are killing. Crazy fucking shit! But it was really good writing. The whole thing with Crowbar was a “fuck you” to Skrewdriver, to just say fuck racism. Derrick is a wonderful guy. I’ve never been a racist person. I think racism is directly linked to ignorance. Only uneducated, stupid people are racists.
I think it is so interesting that you talk about part of the seed for Crowbar being a Black member of the underground music scene. So much of the “sludge” scene is seen as a bunch of white kids in the suburbs of New Orleans. It is cool to see an instance that shows it’s a bit more complicated.
It is. He was a Black dude who was half homeless. His mother lived on Music Street. I actually went to his house one time because I was working down in that area. Then I just lost contact with him. I hope he’s OK and still out there. He was never into drugs or alcohol. He took care of himself. Hopefully, he’s doing good. He got the ball rolling with Crowbar. We shaved our heads as more of a new start in what we were doing: We’re not fucking heavy metal anymore bro. It’s still the late ‘80s or 1990 now. Fuck the long hair! At that time I started balding but the other guys weren’t. They said fuck it and we all had shaved heads. They looked hardcore. We’ve got some fat guys. We’ve got some skinny guys. Everybody’s got a fucking shaved head. What do we do? I just said, we’re Crowbar.
You touched on something. There are a lot of memes on the internet about Crowbar being fat guy metal. How do you feel about that?
I do a lot of TikTok live and people will be like: Can I be a Crowbar fan? I’m 300 pounds. In all honesty, if you’re a Crowbar fan, that’s a great thing, but I’ve really been trying to better myself. So I suggest that unless you’re seven feet tall and it’s all muscle, I would try to lose some weight and get on a proper diet. Look at your nutrition. I’m being serious about it. The riffs are fat and I get that. The sound is heavy and I love that. I like the memes. They’ve got the one big fat guy that doesn’t talk but is always listening to Crowbar and crazy shit is going on. I think it’s fucking hilarious and it doesn’t bother me. During COVID, I got into training and I went from 252 pounds to 187 pounds in about a year and a half through proper nutrition and really cutting down on the drinking.
TikTok still (@cheesysenkov.2)
You’ve been traveling to Europe with Crowbar for a long time.
Back in the ‘90s when I first started going, it was scary because this was way before the Euro… Everybody had their own thing… We had to go to a money exchange every day just to eat McDonald’s and the cheapest crap on Earth because all they gave us was like cheese sandwiches. We only really wanted the beer, to be honest with you. It was scary because you were 6,000 miles away and it felt like 25,000 miles away because things were so different in these countries. This is an interesting thing to show how far back Eyehategod and Crowbar go. Crowbar was invited to play five Rock Hard Christmas Festivals for Rock Hard magazine out of Germany. It was Napalm Death, Trouble, Cathedral, The Obsessed, and Crowbar. We did five shows in Germany and the next day was January 1, 1993. Eyehategod flew in and we shared a little bus and did a little tour together for 15 or 16 shows. I think we did one at a little bitty club in Belgium with 100 [capacity]. We sold out and we were like, [excited] Dude! We sold out! That was our first time in Europe. Jimmy and I would be laying in our bunks at night, just going, Dude, I want to go home! We were scared little kids looking back on it… I flew into Germany, I think it was the day after Christmas because we played that night in 1992. The wall didn’t come down until 1989. It was only three years post-communism on the eastern side so it was a different world. Now, I would move to Germany or England and I’d love it over there… Now with the phone, we’re not in Oklahoma City but we’re in Berlin but it’s the same thing, just different food and people are taller.
In the March issue, our editor-in-chief Dan Fox wrote about how, back in the day, you had to put some serious work into being a part of a subculture. That stuff wasn’t just a click away. I know that you got into music via Elton John and KISS, stuff that you could get at the department store. How did you wind up taking that extra step into the stuff that is a bit harder, heavier, and not necessarily at the department stores?
I graduated in 1983. When I was in high school, my friend Big Jerry was a total metalhead. I had just discovered Iron Maiden with Paul Di’Anno and Judas Priest… It was weird. I played football and was on the weightlifting team. At lunch I would eat real quick and then I would run and go hang out with Big Jerry. He had a jam box with cassettes. He would bring all kinds of shit: Angel Witch, Praying Mantis, Twisted Sister[‘s] Under The Blade, the first Mötley Crüe — Too Fast For Love, which was a lot more punkish. He brought me all kinds of shit. I bought Motörhead‘s No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith. I thought it was too heavy because of the rawness. My dad, I got him into Judas Priest and he loved Motörhead. We were listening to the songs and he was like: I don’t know, son. I like Priest a lot better. We heard “Iron Horse / Born To Lose” and my dad said: That’s the best one they’ve got. Then he just walked out to go have a cigarette or something. That got me so I started really analyzing Motörhead. All it is is really fast rock’n’roll. It sounds too heavy because the production on the album is shit because it’s raw and they didn’t go redo everything in a studio and make it nice-sounding. They were warts and all, literally. Just the way it is. That’s what I loved about it. With Crowbar, we’re more metal and we might go for a more metal guitar tone but it’s still just four fucking drums, two guitars, a bass, and me singing or screaming, whatever you want to call it. There’s no click tracks. There’s no backing tracks… Next thing I know, I’m buying [Metallica’s] Kill ‘Em All, seeing Megadeth [circa] Killing Is My Business[…And Business Is Good!], buying Anthrax, buying Raven and Exciter and Anvil and all this shit in the metal underground, which then led me to Agnostic Front and then [The] Age of Quarrel by Cro-Mags… I kept searching and then I found Carnivore. Retaliation is still one of my favorite records of all time. Basically, Carnivore’s Retaliation is the blueprint that Crowbar tried to steal: When we’re fast, it’s gonna be hardcore. When we’re slow, it’s gonna be Sabbath doom. What are they tuned to? B? Alright, we’re tuning to B!
We’re talking about Carnivore, which is tied to Type O Negative. You just put out an album with Sun Dont Shine which features half of Type O Negative. You have the Type O symbol tattooed on you and it is going to the grave with you.
Hopefully not soon, but it is.
Windstein at OCD Recording and Production in Harahan
(Photo by Temple Blacksnake)
Was that nerve-wracking to work with them since you love them enough to get that tattooed on you?
No… The best part of Sun Dont Shine is becoming real friends with Kenny [Hickey] and Johnny [Kelly] because they’re great guys. I remember me and Pepper were doing the Down III record out in L.A. and Type O were playing. Celtic Frost was on tour with them with that comeback record that was really killer. Peter was starting to do bad a little bit, sitting down and shit with the overdoing things. We did our studio work and a lot of guys from Celtic Frost came by. We’re all partying: blow and drinking. We went back to the venue. Meg MacRae, who is currently Pantera’s tour manager, was tour managing Type O at the time. She had lived in South Carolina when Pepper was in COC [Corrosion Of Conformity] so I’ve known her for a long time. Great, great friend. Wonderful woman. She was TMing Type O. We go back and Pepper and I were going on the bus with Kenny and Johnny. We just got drunk and were singing at the top of our lungs. KISS, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and all that shit. The sun comes up and Meg is like: These dudes have to get some kind of sleep. Peter was in the back, doing his thing. I met him way earlier than that but I didn’t want to bother him. Me and Pepper were getting off and I remember the sun coming up and us both looking at each other like, Oh my god. We were waiting on our taxi and I said: Dude. They’re exactly like us. They’re just from Brooklyn. It’s the truth. We all love the same music. I love the music that we make and I hope that it does take off. Regardless of anything, the most important thing to me was we got to make some music together that I love and write this shit sitting right here. I was sitting right here and my amp is right here. Now those guys are good friends of mine. Of course, working with Big Todd again too was a blast.
Going back to talking about bands that were really influential to you: Were you at the Motörhead riot gig in Chalmette? [pulls out flyer]
I was indeed! With Agnostic Front and Hallows Eve. I didn’t even have to look [at the flyer]. Agnostic, I think they got kicked off the tour real quick. I was there. They [Motörhead] opened up with “Iron Fist.” It was the loudest thing I had ever heard in my life. They played like two or three songs tops. Motörhead is a rock’n’roll band and there is supposed to be a barricade. Agnostic Front wants motherfuckers up there fighting each other, cutting themselves up, and diving back in the crowd. Totally different thing. Similar three chord rock’n’roll aggression, speed, volume, and rawness but not with the crowd. I was a bit bummed but I do understand it. I know they took Cro-Mags [out on tour] for a good while with [Cro-Mags’] Age of Quarrel. I think that went OK, but I don’t know how. [laughs] Motörhead was a punk band. All it is is fast rock’n’roll. They’re not heavy metal at all.
“We are Motörhead and we play rock’n’roll!”
I stole that. I say, “The good news is we’re Crowbar from New Orleans. The bad news is we’re gonna kick your ass.” Then we go right into the set. But yeah, I was there. It sucked. That was the first time that I saw them but still I love the Orgasmatron album [connected to the tour]. It was that tour and I love Agnostic Front. They played their full 40 or 45 minutes. I liked Hallows Eve at the time as well.
Victorian Blitz 8×10 publicity photo
(Clockwise from top left: Kirk Windstein, Paul Prickett, Kevin Noonan, Danny Theriot, Sid Montz)
(metal-archives.com)
I’ve heard stories about that gig. The first time Motörhead comes to Louisiana and it just gets so crazy.
What do you expect in Chalmette? [laughs] I love y’all. My drummer is from there. My wife used to live there. My stepdaughter lives in Violet. I guess it was the local punk kids who went to see Agnostic that got it rolling.
You had a band named Victorian Blitz in the mid-‘80s. How did you wind up playing in a thrash band?
That was what I liked. I was the original singer for Victorian Blitz [in addition to being one of the guitarists]. We got caught up in that ‘80s cover band crap that worked for Lillian Axe and it worked for Zebra. They would mix in their originals, because both of those bands have amazing originals for their styles of music. They were very big inspirations for me. I was into thrash. I worshipped Anthrax. I saw Megadeth open for Exciter at Bandana’s. Phil and I were there. There were probably about 80 to 100 people, tops. We were up front for the Megadeth Killing Is My Business tour. The Marshalls were cranked [on a small stage], another reason I can’t hear. [laughs] We’re up front headbanging, grabbing [Megadeth leader Dave] Mustaine’s legs and shit. It just evolved from there.
At the same time, you were into punk as well.
My friend Mike Hatch, who was the guy from Shell Shock, was three years older than me. His nickname was Hatch Boy. He took us to see Black Flag at the Dream Palace in 1984 or some shit. He told everybody. This was before it was cool. My friend Larry, somebody sliced the side of his face with a razor because he was a long hair. This was when it was not cool to have long hair at a Black Flag show. It was before the crossover. They were enemies. Mike Williams would purposely wear Venom or something and people would beat him up. That’s how I met Mike, was through Hatch Boy. Mike was still in some little orphanage thing and he would pick him up and take him to McDonald’s or these VFW punk shows to get him out of there.
The punk scene was VFW halls and stuff like that. You were playing in the metal scene with Victorian Blitz. What kind of spaces were you playing in?
We were playing in the metal clubs. Mike Hatch would get some punks to come see us: Look, they’re really a raw thrash band. You’ll love ‘em. Ignore that they have long hair and spandex. We never did the puffy hair.
Did you do the spandex?
Fucking right! I was in shape. I had no shirt on.
Going back to the metal/punk turf divide, did the scene tension dissipate at least a bit?
It did because you had Exhorder play with Graveyard Rodeo, which are, in my opinion, the godfathers of the NOLA scene. They were the first ones to blend punkish hardcore and horror or gore stuff with doom riffs. They really deserve a lot more credit… By that time, it was OK. I still had long hair. We all did. It was OK because the music we [Shell Shock] played was punk with a bit of thrash. D.R.I. had already had an album called Crossover. It was around the time that these things were happening and the punks and metalheads were realizing we look different but we’re here for the same reason. We’re all coming to the same shows so let’s just all get along.
You were talking about Graveyard Rodeo and that brings me to the New Orleans sound. I know you don’t like the term “sludge” but can you recall the first time you heard somebody using it?
I remember reading an article and it said “sludge metal gods” or whatever the fuck. “New Orleans sludge metal” or something like that. I was like: Sludge metal? What the fuck is this? At the time that we came out, thrash was done except for the big bands that are still going… death metal was getting huge. Death metal had a label. [There were] all the bands in death metal, the Tampa scene and Suffocation in New York. You had Obituary, Morbid Angel, and Death. They didn’t sound the same but they had the scene so they had a label for that genre. We didn’t have a label for our genre because nobody sounded like Crowbar and I liked that. The fact that nobody sounded like Crowbar is probably why it took so long for people to get what we’re doing because we haven’t changed. They just get it now. Thank the good lord. It’s a wonderful thing. The excitement and the passion and the love for music that I see in the kids’ eyes reminds me of me. Speaking of love and passion for music, I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t still the same 12-year-old kid listening to KISS records. I’m the same dude. I’m just 61.
In another interview, you mentioned that you didn’t view yourself as making it as an actual professional musician until you were 36.
That’s when I finally quit a day job, although I did work after Katrina. It took me until I was 36 years old, which included touring. When I say we’d make no money, I’m not joking. We’d go on tour for eight weeks and come home with $47 in our pocket. But we got free beer and pizza from the venue and we got to tour around the country or around the world. We were happy and we got to play music. We got home and reality hit. I was living with my mom and my dad too, then they split up. My mom was like: Well son, you’ve got to do something. You can’t sit around the house. When is your next tour? I’d be like, In three months. So she’d say: You have to find work for the next three months. I’ll support you when you’re gone, but when you get home, you need to find a job. What saved my ass was Jimmy Bower and I used to go to this place called Man Power. You’d sign up for temporary jobs. We would get the shittiest [jobs], like we would work at some warehouse from midnight to 8 a.m., doing the same conveyor belt shit for like $4 an hour. But we needed some kind of job because he was doing Eyehategod and I was doing Crowbar… It’s still difficult touring and all that shit, even at the very highest level. That’s the truth. Why do you think [AC/DC guitarist] Angus Young is still playing? He’s fucking gray haired and three-quarters bald. It’s because he still loves rock’n’roll and that’s what it’s all about.
You went through that grind until 36. You’ve gone through a lot. What advice do you have for young bands that are looking at this and want to do this for life?
The first word is not I want it. I’ll work hard. I’ll do this. I’ll do that. The first word is sacrifice. You have to sacrifice every fucking thing in life and just believe in yourself enough, regardless of the haters. Just never give up. That’s all I did. I always believed in myself and I gave up every fucking thing I ever had to play music. It’s finally paying off.
Crowbar, Eyehategod, and Suplecs play at Tipitina’s on April 18. For more information, check out crowbarnola.com.
Top photo by Gary LoVerde: Crowbar at the Joy Theater on Halloween, 2017
