THROWDOWN Frontman: 'I Have No Qualms With Being Compared To PANTERA At All'

The Daily Rock's Stephanie Stevens (a.k.a. "Romperchic") recently conducted an interview with THROWDOWN vocalist Dave Peters before a show at The Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts. An excerpt from the chat follows.

The Daily Rock: What's the status with a new THROWDOWN record?

Dave: "We aren't writing yet but my guitar player and I have been writing some songs and exchanging stuff to each other but we haven't decided when we are going to buckle down and go into the studio to do a new record. I am thinking probably early next year. We will probably spend the rest of this year going out and doing some international stuff. We really want to go to Asia and South East Asia and those places. Especially places we have never been like Russia."

The Daily Rock: When you guys write for a new album, what is the process THROWDOWN uses, if any?

Dave: "We are not really like a jam band. We usually go in as a group and we have our own ideas that we bring in with us. Like with 'Venom' [latest THROWDOWN album, 'Venom And Tears'] our guitar player had some riffs and I would have something and he would be like yea I don't know what to put here and I would help him in that aspect. Then once the whole album is written musically then I can start over and write again lyrically. I never write lyrics, I always have ideas of subject matter and things that effect me on a daily basis and I usually don't have to write them down because its something that is effecting me that I won't forget. But I never write lyrics without having songs first. I might start some vocal patterns and establish what kinds of words belong where, what kind of vowel sounds and then it evolves from there."

The Daily Rock: So, I know with the new album you have been bombarded with "Tthis sounds like PANTERA!!!" It does sound like it, but do you think the focus on that took away from what you guys did as a band? Or do you now care?

Dave: "Well, ummm, to be honest, I don't care (laughing). PANTERA, as much as SEPULTURA and SLAYER and METALLICA, MACHINE HEAD, and a million other bands, are the bands that got me excited about music which initially got me involved with the heavy music. Those bands were always important to me and I think that with 'Venom And Tears', we were returning to our roots in a way and it was like hey we didn't write any solos on this one cause we didn't want to make someone mad, but I mean, like I said, this album it was more of us being honest and writing what we wanted to. It's hard to make a generalization of what people overall think about the record. A lot of people wrote us and say they were so blown away over the evolution of this album vs. the last album and they look forward to the next one 'cause of that. Now that is what we really looking for. If we are looking for anything, that would be it, because we put a lot of hard work into what we do. But I have no qualms with being compared to PANTERA at all. I think, in my opinion, they were the best metal band ever. Obviously they are going to influence us. It's like any bands though you take what you know and love and you project yourself into that and you have what you write. I'm not too worried about it."

Read the entire interview at The Daily Rock.