In music, it's all about survival. It's about stayin' alive,
stayin' relevant, stayin' crucial. In heavy music--where
trends come and go more often than johns at a busy
brothel--it's all about honesty, truth, and following
your heart. For Corrosion of Conformity--who are
releasing their sixth album, the devastating
WISEBLOOD--if it's not about honesty, it's about
jack-shit.
"We really try hard to be true to what our hearts tell
us to do," says New Orleans-bred Pepper Keenan,
guitarist and songwriter for the band. "We do what
we feel and we don't want to get caught up in any
'90s-style production bullshit, 'cause when we look
back at what we've done we want it to sound
timeless. So many bands are gonna laugh at
themselves in ten years. We don't want that."
COC has been hurtling towards a "timeless" rock
sound since their humble-but-turbulent beginning as
a hardcore band way back in 1982. Back then, the
band -- guitarist Woody Weatherman, bassist Mike
Dean and drummer Reed Mullin (Keenan didn't join
until 1990) -- searched desperately for a voice, an
identifiable way to vent the spleen that has continued
to haunt them through a full six records: 1983's
vociferous Eye For An Eye, '85's phlegmatic rant
Animosity, '87's drop D-tuned barrage Technocracy,
'91's awesome, menacing Blind, and the album that
serves as WISEBLOOD's most direct sonic ancestor:
'94's breakthrough platter, Deliverance.
Since those hardcore days, it's been quite the trip, a
phenomenal climb, in fact, that has seen the band
successfully fuse the gaps between punk, thrash and
metal with a power and skill rarely seen in other
high-decibel bands. WISEBLOOD, the latest rung on
their climb and the first time ever the band has
recorded two albums with the same line-up, is proof
that Corrosion of Conformity has finally nailed the
profound "timelessness" they've been searching for.
"We began carving our niche with Deliverance," says
Keenan with a hint of the South in his voice. "Now
that we have that niche we should stay in it. I often
wonder what makes good bands take sudden left
turns. Why would you work hard to develop a sound
and then just abandon it? It makes no sense."
What does make sense is the band's tight-fisted
focus. WISEBLOOD is a raw 'n' nasty, in-your-face
record exploding with "big rock songs," full of
knuckle-busting riffs and sophisticated (but not
entangling) arrangements. It's a record that will surely
vault COC to the forefront of rock and one that could
become a standard by which future rock albums will
be measured.
"We've always tried to make albums that have highs
and lows and midpoints," says Keenan, "records that
you can listen to from beginning to end. We've got no
interest in ramming ten songs in the same key down
your throat."
Gritty and diverse tracks like "Man or Ash" (featuring
Metallica's James Hetfield in his first-ever guest role),
the chainsaw-powered "King of the Rotten," and the
hardcore-rooted "Wishbone (Some Tomorrow)" show
a COC virtually reborn, a band with a crystal clear
vision. Musically and lyrically, the band has outdone
themselves. Their dense and full-throttle
performances seem like too much music to fit onto
two-inch studio tape.
"Bottom Feeder," a torrid instrumental that closes out
the record, is a good example of where Corrosion of
Conformity is headed. Drummer Mullin explains the
song's inspiration: "We all go catfishing with our
friend Thedford B. Sampson. He's about 68, got
eighteen kids spread across the country and he
takes us catfishing in the middle of the night. We
stick chicken livers on a hook, put a bell on the end
of the line and if the bell jingles you know you got
something. Thedford would say, 'We gonna get us a
big cat, Poppa!' That song's about him."
Elsewhere, Keenan recounts the musical birth of
"Drowning In A Daydream," the album's first single. "I
would see all these people around me with big
dreams, guys who were hopin' to get their lives
together. But they'd get so discouraged they weren't
makin' it that they forget that getting there was half
the fun."
Both Keenan and Mullin point to producer John
Custer as the catalyst for the band's intensity on
WISEBLOOD. "The kudos all go to John," Mullin
admits. "He's responsible for making us run through
the mill. None of us would have accomplished what
we've accomplished without him. He's been a part of
our vision for a long time."
Though it has nothing to do with either Flannery
O'Connor or Jim Thirlwell, the term "WISEBLOOD"
does have a story behind it. The idea stemmed from
Keenan's oddball experience at a Raleigh boarding
house, the place where he escaped to write the lyrics
to most of the band's new songs. Keenan lived there
for a few months, reducing the material objects in his
life to a desk, a two-channel TV, a radio and a Black
Sabbath poster on the wall. He'd write a lyric, then
tape it to the wall, so by the end of his stay he was
surrounded by white sheets of paper.
"These guys at the boarding house would come in
and think I was some kind of freak or burned-out
poet. I was the only white dude in the whole building
and they thought I was crazy anyway, so they started
calling me 'Wiseblood.' 'Hey, Wiseblood! Wha's
up!!!'"
But like Keenan's pals at the boarding house,
Corrosion of Conformity stands alone, a rebellious
group pitted against the establishment; in COC's
case, against today's musical climate. "We can't be
lumped in with a lot of other bands," Keenan admits.
"We're not part of any movement or trend. Being
alone doing your own thing can be kind of
uncomfortable sometimes, like my buddies are. But
we love doing our music our way and we wouldn't
change it for anybody."
