DOWN Bassist Says ANSELMO's 'Vision, Focus And Patience' Made 'Over The Under' What It Is

Roger Lotring of Metal Edge magazine recently conducted a lengthy interview with DOWN/ex-PANTERA bassist Rex Brown. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Edge: Was there a conscious point in the process of getting back together and putting this record together that you can remember as a turning point, as far as the things you went through, personally? Was there a moment that was the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak?

Rex: Yeah. I had my webmaster stream four songs, and it really kind of hit me that it was a really, extremely hard fuckin' process, because of all the shit that went down. I don't want to dwell on all the bad stuff, [but] this record has some very, very special moments on it. [Chuckles] It was streaming over MySpace, and I was going, wow. To come from where we came from in two years, in leaps and bounds, learning to walk again, and then learning how to kind of jog — you know, the band's playing as good as we can...[pauses] well, you're only as good as your last gig. But we're learning to run again, as far as a band, because we were five individuals from four different bands. The whole conception of the DOWN thing was just like, you know, just jam for the holidays [and] put it out. And now it's become this fuckin' monster that fans want. And what a blessing it is to have it twice, man! I'm blessed, basically.

Metal Edge: Is it a blessing as well, that you get to experience that aspect of starting up and seeing success as you go along? When you reach a certain level of success with any band, there's always the expectation to sell this many albums, this is what's going to happen on tour. Does it recapture some of the youthful spirit to not know what's going to happen?

Rex: You know, expectations, I don't have any anymore. It'll make you jaded; I don't want to be that cat. It's kinda like karma, [chuckles] you know what I'm saying? I've been in the situation, you know, #1 records and the whole bit, selling out sports arenas. Man, I'm ready to go back and play the clubs and get back to the fans. And this record couldn't be a better opportunity for where my head is at, at this moment. When you put expectations into it, you're setting yourself up to fall, and I don't want to do that. The whole point of this thing is about the fans and the jams, man, and that's it. We want to keep it that simple, you understand what I'm saying?

Metal Edge: You talk to kids who have aspirations of becoming professional musicians and making a career of it, it's too bad somebody couldn't convey to a 17-year-old kid that they'll go full circle and probably get the most enjoyment when they get back to where they are right now.

Rex: You hit it right on the spot when you say full circle. That's exactly what it's come back to, and that's a great feeling, you know? A lot of people don't get that chance to do that. That's why I'm saying I'm blessed, because it took me six years to even get my foot in the door in the music business, coming out of Texas. All of a sudden, we were an overnight fucking sensation with "Cowboys From Hell". I couldn't imagine a band coming out now, trying to promote their shit, with the industry the way it is. Trying to promote that, it's just a totally foreign ball game to me. But, like I said, when it comes down to it, it's just nothin' but about the jams and the reaction of the kids. As long as you write good fuckin' songs, which we do — between all of us, collectively, we've written hundreds of songs, or thousands, who knows. With this band, we had all these special little moments, without sounding all sappy and all that kind of bullshit. That really is truth. I wouldn't be doing it if that wasn't the case.

Metal Edge: When one of those moments hits, especially during the writing and recording of this album, what do you recognize first? What goes off that you say, hey, I think this is one of those moments?

Rex: Like the first time I heard the vocals to "On March The Saints" with Phil singing. It's just some little ditty that Kirk had come up with, and Phillip had another part — a little heavy part — during the middle of it. When I heard that song, it sent chills up [my spine] the first time. This is a year ago, just demo shit. I'm going, yeah, we're on to something here. If you listen to a record like "Back In Black" or "Physical Graffiti", or something like that, you know those tracks, man, and you wanna listen to the whole record. You can't just listen to one song. We wanted to make this a cohesive, from start to finish, goddamn just knock you out of your socks [album]. Put on some headphones and do whatever you gotta do, man; you know, smoke a fat one, [chuckles] drink a beer — even though half the band's fuckin' sober [laughter] — do whatever you gotta do. It's one of those deals where, that's the kind of record we wanted to make, and I think we did a pretty damn good job of it. And that has a lot to do with Phillip Anselmo.

Metal Edge: In what sense?

Rex: In the sense that, his vision, and his focus, and his patience and energy on this thing, I hadn't seen that in a long time, and I've known Phillip for a long time; we've done many a record. To see that growth in him — and growth in all of us, really — Phillip, he definitely had this...[pauses] this is the record he needs to put out right now. And there's not going to be any of these other bands. This is DOWN. This is the band we can grow old in. If we want to pick up banjos and the whole fuckin' bit, dig it. If you don't like it, fuck it. But it's still fuckin' heavy, man.

Metal Edge: At what point did you collectively realize that, for all intents and purposes, this is a band now, rather than, like you said, home for the holidays?

Rex: Kind of like the "Down II" thing. I had got a call in '98, [and] Phil said, "Dude, come down. Come hang out for a week or so." I was like, yeah, cool. I need to fuckin' get out. So I told the old lady, look, I'm going to shoot down to Phillip's, we're going to write some songs and shit. And little did I know that, here's Kirk, a buddy I've known for twenty years; there's Pepper in the room, there's Jimmy. We start writing songs, man, and we wrote, like, six in fuckin' four hours, put it on some little shitty cassette, and then we didn't know what was going to happen with it. They funny thing is that PANTERA, on "Reinventing The Steel", we got [CORROSION OF CONFORMITY] to open up for us over in Australia. [Drummer] Reed [Mullin] had just left the band, so Jimmy's playing drums, so the only guy that was missing was Kirk. It just kind of took its own form, and we did the "Down II" record. It was more of a jam record, not so much structured, but it was a chaotic blend of what we were all hearing in our heads at the time. Of course, Elektra [Records] shitcanned the fuck out of it, because they wanted their quarterly fucking reports for a PANTERA record. You know, the business side will sometimes leave you really fucking pissed. But, with this band, it's one of those grass roots kind of deals. We keep the ticket prices low for shows; we want every kid to have a shirt, [so] we try to sell those as low as possible. It's about the music, man, 'cause all this other corporate horseshit — you know, text so-and-so at Verizon — I'm just not into it. Call me old-fashioned, or call me stupid, but I would rather go see a band jam live and get into the music, than worry about texting on a fucking phone, you know what I'm saying?

Read the entire interview at www.metaledgemag.com.