DROWNING POOL Guitarist Discusses New Album

ARTISTdirect.com editor Rick Florino recently conducted an interview with DROWNING POOL guitarist C.J. Pierce. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

ARTISTdirect.com: What does this [new self-titled DROWNING POOL] album mean to you?

C.J. Pierce: Each song individually definitely has a strong meaning for me. We've all been in the band for so long, and we all communicate really well. I think these songs are better than anything that we've written before. They actually come even easier now, which is great.

ARTISTdirect.com: It sounds like Ryan [McCombs] is really locked in with you guys — this being his second consecutive record.

C.J. Pierce: Yeah, he's locked in with us, and we pushed him out of his comfort zone a bit here. I'm really proud of him on this record, man. He sings on it like he's never sung before, and he's also got a lot of heavy moments. We truly pushed him from both directions. It's nice to see him grow and how fast this all happened. He'd come in at noon, and I'd see him there at midnight, singing his ass off for twelve hours. I'm like, "What the fuck? You know?" It's incredible.

ARTISTdirect.com: He's a part of the family now…

C.J. Pierce: Five years now…so he's actually been singing with us longer than anybody else has. We all have solid ground, we all know each other really well and, honestly, we get along better than we've ever gotten along before. We're all having fun with it.

ARTISTdirect.com: Is your musical dynamic with Ryan really flourishing more than ever?

C.J. Pierce: Yeah, that's important. When he joined the band, I said, "We're either going to be Jimmy Page and Robert Plant or we're going to be George Lynch and Don Dokken. We're either going to love each other or hate each other, dude. Which one do you want to?" [Laughs] With the songwriting process, I always start out by writing exactly what I feel. From there, I bring it to everybody. I always keep in mind what would open up the door for Ryan so he could really shine and I also keep in mind what Mike and Stevie enjoy. I have everybody's interest in mind when I'm writing a song. It opens up and everybody puts their two cents it in. And thus you have a DROWNING POOL song.

ARTISTdirect.com: "Feel Like I Do" is such a great anthem. Is that one of your favorite songs?

C.J. Pierce: It's funny how that happened. When I first came up with the riff, we were on tour, and I really didn't think it was a song that would make the record. It's a fun song, it had a cool like groove to it, but I was like, "Is this DROWNING POOL or what is this?" Whenever we played it, everybody was in a good mood. From there, for whatever crazy reason, it moved to the front seat. It was one of the first tracks that we recorded in the studio and the first one that the label jumped on. So, with that being said, we set the bar really high where everything else that we did afterwards had to beat it. Since that was the first one, everything after that had to beat it. If you like "Feel Like I Do", you're going to love the rest of this record.

ARTISTdirect.com: You guys have always stuck with it through everything. Do you feel like you're stronger than ever?

C.J. Pierce: It's been a rollercoaster ride. I think you get a lot out of it sticking together instead of saying, "Fuck it," and throwing in the towel. It would be easier to say that, and again, either we love music or we're gluttons for punishment [Laughs]. It's one or the other but, yeah, sticking together and knowing each other this long and this well has definitely been an advantage music-wise. We all love music and we all work really hard on it together. So, I really hope everybody enjoys the record. There's a story behind every song and every song was thought out.

Read the entire interview from ARTISTdirect.com.