Drowning Pool released their debut album, Sinner, in 2001. The band consisted of members C.J. Pierce, Stevie Benton, Mike Luce, and Dave Williams. Their song, “Bodies,” was widely popular and the album went platinum within six months. The band’s popularity was still on the rise when on August 14th, 2002, singer Dave Williams was found dead.

Drowning Pool regrouped and found a new frontman in Jason Jones. They released Desensitized in 2004 to lukewarm responses. Jones left the band in 2005 due to “irreconcilable differences”.

Now, Drowning Pool is on to its third singer - Ryan McCombs. This former Soil frontman has taken on the position amidst a lot of hype and buzz. Has Drowning Pool finally formed a solid team after all these years? C.J. Pierce at least thinks so.*The following interview was conducted via phone with C.J. Pierce on July 24th, 2007.Please introduce yourself.I’m C.J. I play guitar for Drowning Pool. We’ve been Drowning Pool since August ‘95.

Can you give us an introduction to the album that’s coming up?

The album is coming out August - it’s called Full Circle. The whole idea behind the record is to be a solid, good, rock record. Haven’t had one of those in a long time. I go through my CD collection and I want to hear something new. I wanna hear another rock record besides all the ones that I’ve got. There’s a lot of references to Full Circle, coming back around again. It basically pertains to us and what we’ve gone through over the past 10 years.

On this new album you guys have Ryan McCombs on vocals. How’s that working out?

It’s great man. We’ve been friends with Ryan for years. We toured with Ryan back in 2000, 2001, and just have been friends with him ever since. Certain bands you tour and deeply connect with - and we’ve been buddies forever. The stars kind of aligned about two years ago for him and us to come together; it’s been great. It’s another Full Circle reference - we’re a family again, we’re having fun again. That’s what music is all about.

Did you try anything differently this time around for the album? How would you say the sound is different this time?

Well besides the fact that we’ve had a different singer with every record? (laughs) Look, it’s our third record, third singer… unfortunately that’s just the path we had to go down. This is Drowning Pool with Ryan McCombs. This is it. We’re not gonna go through another singer change. Musically, we tried to push the limits. We definitely expanded. We have heavier songs then we’ve ever had before, and lighter songs then we’ve ever had. I actually pulled out the acoustic on this record - which i had no intentions of ever really pulling out ever - but certain songs and certain things that we’ve been through, just kind of required one. I put my iPod on shuffle and listen to all my favorite bands, and that’s the whole concept of the record - you want a wide variety with all your favorite songs.

You guys have also done a lot of shows for the troops, how has that impacted the band?

We’ve been so fortunate to go over and perform and support them. With the troops, it’s not about being for war or against war, it’s about friends and family over there fighting for peace. For us to go over there and come back… it was definitely a source of inspiration to write a song for them, our song called “Soldiers” is kind of a hats off for these guys.

*click here for the USO link to download the song “Soldiers”.

Hear C.J.’s opinions LIVE about the fine line between starving musician and gluttonous rockstar:

(rephrase)
Man, I’ll tell you a story right now - do you know what I did yesterday? We do this thing that they call “per diems” when you’re on tour. Basically they give you $15 a day … to buy food. That’s how it works. And at the end of the week that comes out to be, whatever, about $150, that you get to buy food, and that’s exactly what I live off of. I just went to the bank yesterday and put my money in there to pay my bills. And so the only time I get to eat is if I get something for free. Here I am 35 years old, playing music professionally for 10 years and I’m scrapping by. I have a record company that has… I’ve sold a million records and they tell me I owe them a million dollars. That doesn’t make any fucking sense to me. At the end of the day, if you’re a musician, you gotta understand that if you wanna be a musician and you love music, you gotta do it because you love music. You better be ready to accept the fact that you probably won’t make any money - some do, and that’s great, I’m happy for them. I would love to make money at the end of the day doing this, and I’m sure maybe I will if I stick with it. But I love music, I love performing, and that comes first. And hopefully money will come later with it.Well, going back to the love for music, any other bands you’re into right now?You know what I did last night? I kept everybody up on the bus late listening to that Peeping Tom CD, with Mike Patton singing on it. I like him. Man, Mike Patton is still, to me, just a bad ass singer. He’s awesome.Final words to all your fans out there?

To all the fans out there - just come out to the shows! Man, everybody’s working hard all week long, going to school, doing their jobs. You gotta get out of the house every now and then and have a couple of drinks with your friends. We’re always at the bar hanging out, so just come on out and have a drink with us. Listen to some rock music, and have a good time.

(Drowning Pool performs live in the Q101 studio with Pedro from: WKQXQ101)
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