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DOWN Is Not Totally 'Down' With KANYE WEST

October 4, 2007

Steve Newton of Straight.com reports: Just before Hurricane Katrina cut a horrifying swath across the U.S. Gulf Coast in August of 2005, the members of metal quintet DOWN had gathered in their hometown of New Orleans to work on new material for their third CD, "Over the Under". Guitarist Pepper Keenan made the smart move of leaving the area before the storm hit, and apart from losing power for a month, his house was all right. But he didn't walk away from the experience unscathed, and neither did his Big Easy bandmates. "It was somethin' we all went through and are still dealing with on a daily basis," he relates, on the line from Reno, Nevada, before the first stop on a 29-date North American tour. "I mean, it was devastating, man. People lost their houses, I lost family members. Half the city was destroyed."

The fortitude of Louisiana natives in the face of Katrina's destruction is cited on "Over the Under" tracks like "On March the Saints", but as Keenan explains, the city is still terribly wounded more than two years after the disaster. And it hasn't gotten much help with reconstruction from the Bush administration. "If they did as much in New Orleans as they're doin' in fuckin' Iraq we'd be fine," blusters Keenan, before decrying Kanye West's assertion that Dubya's disregard for Katrina victims stems from his indifference toward blacks. "I don't care about Kanye West," he counters. "I mean, everybody was damaged in the storm. For Kanye West to make it a black thing was retarded."

Read the entire article at Straight.com.

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