CORROSION OF CONFORMITY Cancel Tucson Show; Talk About Collaboration With STANTON MOORE

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY cancelled their previously scheduled July 6 appearance in Tucson, Arizona. No reason was given for the cancellation.

In other news, The Times-Picayune recently conducted an interview with CORROSION OF CONFORMITY guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan and part-time drummer Stanton Moore (of GALACTIC fame). A few excerpts from the interview follow:

On the unlikely collaboration between CORROSION OF CONFORMITY and Moore:

Pepper Keenan: "We had these killer (guitar) riffs, and the drummer would come in and do exactly what you would think a drummer would do. (Most) drummers can mimic something, but finding a true identity is not easy."

Stanton Moore: "I knew the problem Pepper was running into, the problem of drummers maybe having checked out (LED ZEPPELIN's) John Bonham, but not what John Bonham checked out. There was no such thing as rock 'n' roll drumming until LITTLE RICHARD and CHUCK BERRY started playing straight eighth notes on piano and guitar. Then you've got drummers like New Orleans' Earl Palmer playing with those guys, coming from jazz. Earl's putting a slight swing to it, a slight lope.

"John Bonham, (THE WHO's) Keith Moon, all those guys grew up listening to Earl Palmer. When Pep came to me, I was like, 'I know how to hit the drums with some velocity, and I know how to give it that lope.' "

On recording the new CORROSION OF CONFORMITY album, "In the Arms of God", at GALACTIC's Warehouse District studio:

Pepper Keenan: "[Stanton] didn't have enough time to really think about the songs, and we didn't have enough time to decipher what was really going to go down. The first song we did was 'Never Turns To More', which is eight minutes long. (The final version) is a first take. We did that and we were like, 'Man, this is going to work.'

"It felt like we were on the edge again, doing something cool, the whole time we were making the record. It's a pretty dense album. It's definitely not a spoon-fed, shopping mall album. It doesn't sound like anything else out there right now, which is important. You play that thing 10 years from now, I think it will still hold up."

On Keenan's newfound realization that music can be heavy and loud without being negative; cathartic but not corrosive:

Pepper Keenan: "The way I was living my life wasn't working. I was tired of the negativity in a lot of music. Using negativity as a tool to sell records is a dangerous thing. Anger without having a focal point is a dangerous thing. And unbridled anger is even more dangerous, especially in the heavy metal world and the hip-hop world. It turns into trouble."