Crowbar leader Kirk Windstein “back in control”

Interview by Jason Schreurs

We caught up to legendary sludge metal band Crowbar‘s vocalist/guitarist Kirk Windstein to talk about his wife’s amazing cooking, Peter Steele’s heavy legacy, and taking back the reigns of control.

Did you have a direction going into the writing of Symmetry in Black?
I really didn’t approach it any differently than the previous Crowbar albums. Just with Crowbar being my only focus now I knew it had to be killer. It had to be a home run, it couldn’t just be good; it had to be really fucking good! We all put as much time and effort as we could into making it the best record we could possibly make and we’re extremely happy with the outcome. We’re happy with all the songs individually, and the whole album as one piece of work. It’s our 10th studio album and our 25th anniversary, so we think this album is the perfect vehicle to get the momentum rolling again.

When you left Down to focus on Crowbar, did it give you some more freedom?
Yeah, it simplified my life. I’m still very busy, but now I’m back in control of my life and that’s a good feeling. Not that [Down singer] Phil Anselmo or the other Down guys are control freaks or anything, it’s just that in the end it’s basically Philip’s call. Now I’m the boss and I can control when we tour, where we tour, how long we tour, and I oversee everything. It’s not about being a control freak, it’s about having control of my life. My wife runs our Facebook page, she does merchandise on tour with us; so, to us, it’s a family business. She’s here with me now [his wife says “Hello” in the background], she comes on the press trips and she really works and promotes the fuck out of Crowbar. It’s a great feeling because before it was overkill to be in all of these bands. It was too much for one person to take on. It works out great now for me to be in control of my life and my career.

Now that you’re in charge, how do you treat Crowbar differently than other people might treat other bands?
My other guitar player, Matthew Brunson, and our new bass player, Jeff Golden, they live right across the street from my wife and I. She loves to cook and we do a lot of business meetings, well, excuses to eat, basically. We get together and talk band business and things over at our apartment and she cooks, and she’s a great cook, so it’s really cool, man. The camaraderie in the band is at an all-time high, and I might be 49 years old and I might be 25 years into Crowbar, but I really feel like it’s a new beginning. I feel hungry again. I feel focused again. I feel young again, at heart, at least [laughs], and that’s an important thing and great thing. So everything’s going well.

The metal community lost Peter Steele in 2010 and you have this one song, “Symbolic Suicide,” which you dedicated to him. Can you tell me a little about that one?
Peter was such a huge influence on me, early on with Carnivore, his band prior to Type O Negative. The Carnivore Retaliation album and Type O’s Slow Deep and Hard were huge for me and I had been listening to a lot of Carnivore and early Type O during the writing process of this album and one day I was like, “You know what? I’m going to write my version of a fucking Carnivore song and it ended up being “Symbolic Suicide.” So he kind of inspired the idea, it’s not about him or anything like that. But by him being such a big inspiration to me, that’s why I dedicated the song to his legacy. Without him and those two bands, there probably wouldn’t even be a Crowbar.

You’ve gone through some tough times in recent years getting clean and trying to stay healthy. Did some of those themes come into the lyrics on Symmetry in Black?
It’s a little bit of everything. The songs are all about life, for the most part. There are a few of them that are more stories, but from most part I’ve always written from the heart and written what I felt. Most of Crowbar’s music, lyrically, and sonically, really, it’s about going through tough times and persevering and making it through those tough times and coming out stronger than you were before. And that’s been my lyrical foundation for years and years and years now. And it hasn’t really varied from that much at all.

Any songs about your wife’s comfort cooking?
Um, no songs about her cooking, but the acoustic song, “Amarathine,” that was the first one I wrote lyrics for and that’s about her; I dedicated it to her. It’s a beautiful song, but in a, I don’t want to say dark way, but in an eerie way. It’s acoustic, it’s mellow, but it’s got that eerie vibe to it, which even though it’s not sonically a heavy song, it’s heavy with emotion and the feel and vibe of the song. But no songs about the cooking.

Maybe next album?
Yeah, she just said it too, “That’ll be on the next album.” [laughs]

Do you have any new bands that you’ve heard that have stuck out for you?
Not really, to be honest. I’m so old school and musically set in my ways, so at home I’m husband and father and stepfather, the whole nine yards, and I’m so busy so I don’t reall have time to look for new music and new bands. So I just go through these periods where I rediscover some of my older favourite bands and that’s just the way I am. And it’s not on purpose; it’s not that I’m against anything new. It’s just my life schedule doesn’t really allow me to sit back and relax and just listen to a lot of music and discover stuff. I don’t have the time. There’s not enough hours in the day.

And you need to focus on those patented Crowbar wicked riffs, like on this new album.
Yeah, to me this new one is just a natural progression from where [2011’s] Sever the Wicked Hand left off. We try to bring in a few new elements with each record and that’s kind of where it’s at. We’ve had 25 years of support from our fans and the band’s bigger, better and stronger than we’ve ever been.

Crowbar‘s Symmetry in Black is out now on eOne Music