It's All Gravy

When a gaggle of good ol' Southern boys trade pick-ups and pitchforks for guitars and drumsticks you know the shit is on. Sevendust's very own string-scratching southern guitarist, Clint Lowery, filled me in on the deets in his distinct down-home drawl. Their 1997 self-titled debut album landed just in time to bring life to the fading metal culture. Frontman Lajon Witherspoon's sweet and powerful voice is a rarity amongst metal bands, like tying a big pink bow to a double edged sword.
Being family men by day and stage heroes by night has taken a positive toll on their habitual angry lyrics. Their brand new album, Animosity, swapped song titles such as "Bitch" and "Denial" with "Beautiful," "Praise" and "Trust" - signals that life must be sweet. In a black and white tornado of sound-alike bands and a jigsaw of summer tours, Sevendust emerges in vivid color.

So are you just a bunch of southern boys?
We're probably the most redneck band that's out there right now, in this type of music anyway (laughs)!

What's your favorite southern food?
I like grits...or collard greens.

Where are you right now?
In Kentucky. Three of the other guys live in Atlanta, and one of the other guys lives in Orlando.

You guys tour your asses off. I read that you did 462 shows in 21 months.
Yeah, some years we tour really hard and we don't really pace ourselves. We're just so happy to be doing it and basically that's our favorite thing to do. We know that it's really the only way to guarantee that people will see us and hear us, and just to be in people's faces like that is what we like. We'll always hit the road really hard - that's just the way we are.

How do you think you stand out from other bands in the scene?
Every band would like to say that they're original, but I think that we have a different kind of category with Lajon's vocal style. We're still a heavy band, but there is a melodic presence on top of that aggressive music that kinda separates us a little bit.

How have you evolved since your first album?
I think we wanted to sound more mature and get a lot of vocals going; the change was kind of a natural progression. We have a lot more melodies, but also tried not to back off of the heavy part of our band. We hired Ben Grosse to produce this record, and he brought a lot, sonically, to it and just simplified a few things that we were doing that was going over people's heads a little bit. We felt like everything we wrote on the record is an honest portrayal of where we're at right now.

Who are you touring with right now?
We're on a two and a half week break and then we're gonna start in Vegas. I guess it's gonna be called Locabazooka. It has a pretty unique variety of bands: Filter, Mushroomhead, Audiovent, a bunch of different kinds of bands, so it'll be interesting to see how it's gonna go.

Who's your favorite band that you've toured with?
On a personal level, and probably musically, Snot was one of my best as far as bonding with another band. That was probably the best time we had. There were all kinds of bands I just thought were incredible. To see Tool in Ozzfest was amazing.

Who are your influences?
I'm 30 years old so it stems from the old school metal to NIN, and Soundgarden is actually one of my favorite all-time bands. Chris Cornell's melodies are amazing. Some of the newer bands coming out are really inspirational.

How do you work on lyrics?
Sometimes it will just be Lajon, but for the most part everyone is really active in the lyrics. Everyone has different things to say and usually we'll sit down and do it together and we'll come out with a basic structure of a song and everyone else will put their two cents in and kind of help me through it if I'm hitting a brick wall. Morgan and John have wrote a lot of lyrics in the last record.

How'd you all get together?
We were all in different bands in Atlanta, Georgia and Morgan and Vinnie just wanted to get together with a bunch of guys that they enjoyed playing with and hanging out with. There can be a lot of attitudes with different people, and if you pick the wrong type of person to play with you can end up hating each other.

So it worked out?
We love each other. We're all brothers and we pull together a lot.

Do you think you have some responsibility for keeping the mosh pit alive?
We kinda get frustrated with ourselves if there isn't a lot of activity in the crowd. It doesn't have to be a mosh pit - just jumping up and down and crowd surfing. We just love to see that kind of energy in the crowd and we're always gonna play music that's geared towards that for just that reason. The "Angel Son" vibe is a really cool vibe 'cause in the middle of that energy, it lets everyone take a breather and just kinda listen to the music. We definitely feel that we gotta keep that going.

Do you still get to check out other people's shows?
Yeah, ordinarily if there is a band I like, and I really wanna watch, I don't like sitting on the side - I like watching them in the front where you get the real perspective. I love watching bands and seeing how they work the crowd and do different things.

What's your favorite song on the album?
I have a bunch. On the last record, "Christmas Day" was a real personal song to me.

Have you played music your whole life?
Everyone in my family plays music. My older brother is in a band and my younger brother just got signed with Roadrunner and he's a singer. My mom and dad played music.

So you're like the Partridge Family!
Yeah, we're like the evil Partridge Family; we're not quite as hunky dory as those guys!

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