REX BROWN On New KILL DEVIL HILL Album: 'It's One Of My Favorite Records I've Done In Recent Years'

Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal of Metal Assault recently conducted an interview with former PANTERA and current KILL DEVIL HILL bassist Rex Brown. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Assault: The new KILL DEVIL HILL album, "Revolution Rise", came out on October 29th. First of all, in your opinion how much has the band developed over the past couple of years since you guys started out?

Rex: As far as this band is concerned, we basically put out a record last year and did about a hundred shows up 'till the ALICE COOPER run in December. At that point, Mark [Zavon, guitar] had some riffs and we had both been writing a bit on the road. We decided to go into the studio in January. Vinny [Appice, drums] is friends with Jeff Pilson who played in DOKKEN and FOREIGNER for a long time. He has a really nice studio with a great drum sound there, and as it turned out it worked perfectly for us. Jeff's really good at producing vocals. The band pretty much produced itself, but as far as doing the vocals, Jeff did that and Dewey [Jason Bragg] sang his ass off on this one. This record is just bigger, better and bolder. It's more of who we are now, and it just kind of ties into what we started with the first record. It's starting to take off and people are starting to listen to us, you know.

Metal Assault: I interviewed you and Vinny at the first ever KILL DEVIL HILL show at the Key Club in Hollywood, and at that time you both said that this is going to be a legit band, not just a side project. I think you've achieved that.

Rex: You know, what is great about this band is, when we get together we all do our parts. Mark and Dewey are may be not as recognized in the public as Vinny and myself as members of this band but they are just as talented, if not more. We bond together as a group. I initially didn't know about Dewey, but when I heard him, I thought it was cool, but when we first got together in the rehearsal room, he just killed it and blew me away. I can't say enough about how wonderfully he has emerged as a person and as a singer.

Metal Assault: In the shows that you played when the band was starting, I think you threw in a couple of covers in the set as well because you just didn't have enough original tracks. But I guess now you're just going to focus on the original stuff?

Rex: Yeah, we played songs like "Lady Evil" or something like that. But there are no covers in the set now. We as a band are proud of our own stuff, we're not a cover band and we have enough of that now with the two albums we've released so far, so we're not going to be playing any more covers. Once in a while, we might do something. You never know. May be at some point we'll play an old DEEP PURPLE song. We'll see!

Metal Assault: You mentioned also that you toured with ALICE COOPER last year for a few shows. What was that like?

Rex: Oh man, that tour was just amazing, and that's the kind of stuff KILL DEVIL HILL aims to go for. We played on some of the biggest stages and venues on that tour, dealing with crowds of 15-to-68-year-olds that never heard of us before, and by the end of the night, people were out of their chairs. That's basically what it was. It was towards the end of the touring cycle and the momentum from that tour definitely inspired us to go back in the studio and do something like that, to have that spontaneity, and it was a great feeling going into the studio, writing what we did. It's one of my favorite records I've done in recent years. Lyrically and everything else, this record ties so much into my life and where I am at right now. This is exactly where I want to be.

Read the entire interview at Metal Assault.