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Drowning Pool |
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By Travis Tutwiler |
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The band is in good spirits as they gear up for tonight’s show at the Ridglea Theater. “It’s been a long time, probably ’99 or 2000,” says Pierce, reflecting on the band’s last appearance at the Ridglea. “It was before we had a record deal,” advises Benton. “We’ve always had a lot of fun and adventure playing in Ft. Worth.” The guys, along with vocalist, Ryan McCombs, have just finished a four-week trek with Saliva. “The tour was awesome,” says Benton. “A lot of fun and most of the shows were sold out. It was just a great crowd every night.” He admits that the tour was a little tiring. “The only thing that was tough about it was that we were playing like 13 shows every 14 days. It was a little exhausting but, once you hit the stage and see the crowd going crazy, you kind of forget how frickin’ tired you are.” The tour provided some good exposure for the band. “Most of the shows were sold out. It was awesome,” notes Piece. Adding, “I think we made a lot of new fans.” “We meshed really well, “Mike admits. “They (Saliva) are a little more melodic and on the radio sometimes, but all of us have known each other, in one form or fashion, for a while. They were fans of Davy (Williams) back in the day, and we also did Wrestle Mania together.” According to Benton, “every night there was some Saliva fans that are just fans from the little pop songs Saliva has on the radio. They’d look at us like we had two f*ckin’ heads sometimes. Until, of course, we played ‘Bodies,’ and they’d be like ‘Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.’” Since the addition of McCombs, the band has been touring and has released their third album — the first with McCombs — Full Circle. The response has been positive from the DP faithful. “I think fans see the continuity back on stage. We’ve been fortunate enough that, for the third time, people are willing to give us another honest shake,” explains Mike. “I think they see the genuine sincerity in us. The music stands for itself, I think, anyway. Essentially, for the third time, it’s a new band; we got a new guy, a new brother in the writing process. But live, on stage, it definitely works.” Benton gives some insight on how McCombs was the unanimous choice to step to the mic back in 2005. “Back in the day, when we had Dave, and Ryan was in SOiL, we did a ton of shows together. We became good friends and hung out many times,” he states. “After things went so poorly with (previous DP singer) Jason, never again did we want to hire someone we didn’t know, where things could just go south at any time. Ryan was just about one of our closest friends in the music biz and there he is, not in a band, sitting at home.” Benton explains. “Things just sometimes align and work out for us. Not often — but sometimes things come together and just click.” With things finally moving in the right direction, DP was then victims of theft, not once, but twice, in a two-month period. “With the first break-in, some of our recording gear and our rehearsal PA were stolen out of our rehearsal room,” advises Benton. “We got part of that back. About a month later, our storage room got broken into and all of my basses and one of Mike’s drum kits and a couple of bass cabinets were stolen.” “The Dallas Police Department – ‘Thank you very much’ – has stayed on it and are still looking for our stuff,” Mike relates. “The bulk of mine and Stevie’s real expensive stuff has not surfaced.” Missing are custom Lakeland Basses, a DW Custom drum kit and a black, steel-nickel drum that is one-of-a-kind. You can contact the band’s website, or Myspace page, if you have information or need more information. I’ll go with (C) – plenty of new music from the current line up. |
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FEATURES |
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