Just before their recent show at the Brixton Academy, Planet Loud sat down with Rex from Down to talk about the band, life in metal giants Pantera, touring the world, drugs, music and much more.

Planet Loud – Thanks for your time Rex, how’s it going?
Down – It’s going pretty good thanks. A little tired. Ha! We’ve had to change bus about four or five times and we’ve been broken down on days off but we’re doing okay. We got to sleep last night which was nice.

Planet Loud – How has the tour been upto now?
Down – Amazing. As usual. We’ve been playing three nights on, a night off, three nights on and it’s been getting better every night. We’ve just been feeding off the crowds and the vibe and it’s been good. With Pantera I used to hate coming over here and playing these big places and then we’d be done and all you’d do is drink yourself to death and I don’t remember a whole lot from those days. It seemed like we didn’t enjoy coming over but, this time, and, I think, even the last time when I was still drinking, coming over here was really enjoyable.

Planet Loud – Brixton must hold some interesting memories for you because it was one of the last UK venues, if not these last, to ever see a Pantera show. How does it feel being back here?
Down – I think we played two nights here, yeah. It’s kinda funny being back here because I was walking up the stairs and I can’t remember what room it was in but it was one of these rooms and Brian May from Queen showed up and it just fucking floored me. It knocked me out. Some good memories of this place but I haven’t been down on the stage yet so I’m sure I’ll have another flashback then.

Planet Loud – That would have been one of the last ever Pantera shows right?
Down – Yeah, shit, it probably was. Man, we toured so much that everything is just a haze for about twenty years.

Planet Loud – You’re going to Europe after this, are you looking forward to that?
Down – Yeah, we’re going to Spain which I’m really looking forward to. I’m going to spend another week over there after we’ve done Spain, just me and the wife. I love Spain man. I’ve never seen the whole of it. We’re going to spend a bit of time just doing a tour around Spain so, hopefully, it should be good weather. I wanna get out of this cold weather.

Planet Loud – You mentioned the insane amount of touring you did with Pantera, are you finding time to do a bit more sightseeing when you tour these days?
Down – Well, when the bus isn’t broken down, yeah.. Seriously, we actually played Prague with Black Sabbath and it was part of this huge outdoor festival. It was just outside Prague but we never actually got to see the city and it was beautiful. I got some night shots of the Castle and it was just incredible. Prague is actually one of my top five cities. We’re coming back in July with Metallica and we get to go to places like Istanbul, Romania and we’ve got days off in between that so I’ll be out with my camera snapping away.

Planet Loud – So you’ll be a tourist this time..
Down – Ha, yeah man, why the fuck not? We get opportunities to see places that most people don’t see in a lifetime. In this one year we’ve gone from playing all of Canada, all of Australia to New Zealand to going from Moscow to Prague to London. Most people don’t get to do that in their life, I’ve done that in the course of nine months. I’ve done it before but.. maybe I’m just being sentimental. You’ve gotta take everything for what it is. That’s pretty amazing to do it within the space of nine months.

Planet Loud – But it must have been different during the wild days of Pantera?
Down – Yeah, we did some crazy shit during those days. I don’t regret not spending more time seeing those places when we were with Pantera because I’m getting the chance to do it now so it’s all good.

Planet Loud – Okay, going back, last time we saw you at Download, you appeared as the not-so-secret secret band. How did you feel about the fuss your appearance caused?
Down – Ha. We’ve got footage of about sixty thousand kids running over the hill to the stage when we were coming in, it was crazy. I think me and Phil had been through a couple of bottles of rum and I just remember all these kids fuckin’ running down, getting out of their tents earlier and going WOW! It was pretty cool as a show starter.

Planet Loud – When word got out that you were playing the place was buzzing..
Down – Ha. We thought it was a surprise all this time…

Planet Loud – You played Donnington with Pantera a few times, what was it like going back on that stage?
Down – It was a wierd one this time. We played Donnington a bunch of times with Pantera and you’re right behind the stage. This time you weren’t by the stage, you had your own van and then it wasn’t there so you had to wait for it and of course there is no air conditioning on the bus when it comes and you’re burning up and it didn’t feel good so we drank a couple more bottles of wine with Lee Dorrian and some how made it up to the Metallica thing when, all of a sudden, the legs gave out, the head went one way, the legs went another.

Planet Loud – So, all in all, a good day was had..
Down – It was pretty fuckin’ awesome dude..

Planet Loud – How did it feel walking out on the stage after being away from the place for ten years?
Down – It seemed normal. It seemed like what we used to do. I was used to doing that but I’m sure for the other guys, it was pretty scary.

Planet Loud – A lot of kids were looking forward to seeing “the guys from Pantera” when you played at Download. Do you think that now, after three albums, Down is getting it’s own audience?
Down – Absolutely. It’s unbelievable. I watch the queues and the kids are like fifteen years old and they’re wearing Pantera shirts. I’m thinking, you weren’t even fuckin’ born when I was in Pantera and we were the Kings. We’d really taken over at that point after Metallica took that really long break. Really, that was were our dominating period and we got to the top by touring so fucking much that, by 2000, we were just really fucking burned out. We needed time off, away from each other but Vinnie wanted to keep touring. Anyway, back to the question, in Manchester, it was a whole bunch of kids who only knew the new stuff and we were playing the old stuff so it feels like we’re starting over again without having to go through that barrier because of all the other bands we played in. It’s kinda cool in its own way but you’re looking at these fifteen year old kids and you feel like a fuckin’ dinosaur.

Planet Loud – I was a teenager when I first saw Pantera..
Down – Really?

Planet Loud – Yeah, I saw you support Megadeth…
Down – Oh, that tour. The thing about Megadeth was that they kept asking us to go on tour with them and we’d kick their ass every night. That was pretty funny touring with those guys.

Planet Loud – Down was one of many of Phil’s much talked about projects. When did you get involved in the band?
Down – Well, they asked me to join because I did a good barbeque and played a mean bass. I’m actually a pretty damn good cook and the other guys aren’t so they needed me.

Planet Loud – That must be useful back where the weather is a bit warmer..
Down – Well, actually yeah because I’ve just moved from Los Angeles back to Texas. I had to get out of Texas first of all because of the whole Dimebag thing..

Planet Loud – Really? Did it get so bad you had to leave your home?
Down – Yeah. I’d actually planned to already leave Texas anyway. I had a friend and the idea was we’d move out, start a production company and do the whole thing which we did but, the wife didn’t really dig it and I didn’t really like LA so we moved back. LA was by far the worst place you can go to as far as the fucking ridiculous people go. It was fucking retarded. At first it was fun to watch these fuckin’ freaks but then it got to the point where you’d drive your car down to the beach twenty minutes away and it would take you like two hours and, by the time you got there, you were so stressed out that you couldn’t enjoy the beach because you knew it was going to take you like another two hours to get back through all these fuckin’ idiots to get home. 12 million people in a city – it’s fucking ridiculous.

Planet Loud – Was it hard going back home?
Down – No, not at all. I just moved out of the city I lived in. It’s only twenty minutes away where I live now but it’s good. I had all sorts of shit going on when I was there, I had people going through my trash, breaking into my house. I was like, I’d gone fucking mental anyway because of what had happened so I’d had enough and moved. I had to go back home because that’s where my family is and there comes a point in time when that’s what you’ve got to do. Maybe LA wasn’t the greatest place to choose but at least I was far enough away in this ranch.

Planet Loud – Okay, Down started out, as we said earlier, as a side-project, did you have any discussion in the way of a long term plan for the band?
Down – The thing with Down is that, as of 2006, it’s been our main focus. This is our priority. There aren’t going to be any long breaks. We have enough material to keep us going even if we didn’t tour on any of it for a year and a half. There is a lot of stuff we wrote that didn’t make the record even though they’re really really good songs. Phil just didn’t think they were strong enough and you can’t put eighteen songs on an album anymore. We’ve also got the movie/DVD coming out that might be really cool so we have an abundance of material that is still there and so we’ll take a short break after we’ve hit every fuckin’ country we can and toured this record. We’ll do it properly like we used to. That’s the only way you can do it these days is to tour every fucking city and playing live. That’s the only way you can survive doing this. It really sucks at my age but all this free downloading shit is retarted. Down is the main focus and we’ve got big plans for the future.

Planet Loud – Will the fact that Down is a major musical concern mean that you’ll have to deal with all the business side of things again rather than it just being five mates jamming in a room?
Down – There is that side to it but I’ve got some really good people around me who take care of that side of things and, to be honest, I did all the business stuff for Pantera so it’s nothing new for me.

Planet Loud – How did Roadrunner get involved with Down for the current record?
Down – We were trying to find a label in the States and so, we were trying to find the best company over here to help us do what we wanted to do. We wanted to sign a one album contract as that’s how we’re going to do things from now on. So far, Roadrunner over here is by far better than any major label. They’ve been good for what we wanted to do and if they want to take on the next project we do then fine. We didn’t want to be pigeon-holed though it this metal thing. The thing with Down is that if we wanted to come out with this fucking great, heavy-ass banjo record we could. Nothing is stopping us. This is a band we can grow old in and still love to play music in. We’ve already done the metal deal, I’ve been at the pinnacle of it. It’s still our roots but there is so much other music that is naturally in all of us that we can play, the sky is the limit on this thing. If we want to go melodic then we can do with this band whereas before, with Pantera, it just got heavier and heavier and there was nowhere else to go. We backed ourselves into a wall and we don’t have to with this band.

Planet Loud – What’s the writing process like in Down?
Down – Well, we all come in with our ideas and sit down and peice them together to make the songs. Some days someone will come in with a riff and we’ll work around that and some days we’ll just knock out two songs just like that. It really is just like a jam session. The thing about this record is that the whole thing was brought together by Phil. He had this amazing vision for this record and he pulled it all together to meet that vision. He’s just a fantastic artist. It was a wonderful vision because number one he is off the drugs and number two we’ve quit the drinking. Well, some of the guys in the band still have a drink but, on the whole, we just like to chill out now and have a good time, we don’t go wild anymore.

Planet Loud – Do you think the magic would work in Down if one of you left?
Down – I think this vibe we’ve got is starting to work and it’s starting to grow. Kids are seeing us now as a band that is going to stick around. We’re the real deal.

Planet Loud – It must be different now that the band are “clean” ?
Down – Oh definitely, it makes such a big difference and, like I said, Phil’s vision on this last record was just wonderful.

Planet Loud – Have you thought about the next record then?
Down – No and we won’t until we get there. What we’re doing with this band is taking it one day at a time and the only way we can do that is by playing the best show we possibly can and then wake up and be glad you’ve woken up.

Planet Loud – Okay Rex, thanks for your time and have a great show tonight..
Down – No problem man. Thanks for coming out, we’re going to keep coming back here until you’re all sick of us..

Interview by Graham Finney