SEVENDUST Guitarist: 'We Want To Make A Really Aggressive Metal Record'

Tim Louie of The Aquarian Weekly recently conducted an interview with SEVENDUST guitarist Clint Lowery. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Aquarian Weekly: Who is the Atlanta Falcons fan in the band? You guys were asked to create a theme song for them this season and you came up with "Falcons On Top". How did that whole thing come about?

Clint: Morgan [Rose, drums] and Vinnie [bassist Vince Hornsby] are big Falcons fans, and it came along because a friend of ours had a tie-in with a company that plays songs from bands like us, they contacted us since we were from Atlanta, and it just all made sense. Ordinarily, we would not do anything like that, but it seemed like the cool thing to do because they're the hometown team and we wanted to support. It's just really cool that they did end up on top because it would've felt really weird to write that song for them, and they ended up being the worst team this year.

The Aquarian Weekly: As a SEVENDUST fan, I have to ask: back in 2004, what made you leave the band right in the middle of a tour? I mean, couldn't your brother's project, DARK NEW DAY, wait until the end of the tour?

Clint: It wasn't as easy as that, and it wasn't the middle of the tour. It was at the end of the tour with three or four shows left. It was a nightmare, man. I was going through a lot of drugs and alcohol issues at the time, and I thought that I was going to die. I didn't just kind of leave the tour, like "Hey, I'm going to leave." I was dying of alcoholism. I needed to come home and at the time, it was a crappy way to leave, but my family was worried about me — there were a lot of things going on, and there were a lot of people that assumed that I just left. I hated that I had to leave. I have no problem talking about it now, but before it was kind of just my business. Don't get me wrong, I did want to play with my brother. I was going to do both bands, but like I said I was going through a really complex time, and my thinking was that I needed to come home and go to rehab and get my crap together. I'm glad I'm back and that's all I focus on now. I love these guys, I respect the fans so much, I never want to bail out on shows, but sometimes life happens.

The Aquarian Weekly: Since, you've rejoined the band, SEVENDUST seems stronger and more popular than ever. What's in store for the hardest working band in the business?

Clint: (Laughs) We're going to focus on this tour coming up, and John [Connolly, guitar] and I are already starting to work on some new material. We want to make a really aggressive metal record. I've been kind of nostalgic here lately and that's been kind of influencing me right now so I think that we're going to have a very interesting next record, and it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of preparation, and I'm trying to shred again, and I'm trying to get back to the more technical aspect of playing metal. It got lost for a while and I grew up on that technical era of shred guitar, and I kind of want to pull that stuff back out. I mean keep who we are, but venture out to a little more technically challenging stuff.

Read the entire interview from The Aquarian Weekly,