Sevendust guitarist Clint Lowery interviewed March 14, 2010, while in Phoenix.

What’s up, Clint?

Hey, what’s going on, man?

Not much. You guys in Arizona today?

Today, we’re down in Phoenix. Sorry about the delay, my brothers flew into town today and we just sat down to eat and I wasn’t aware there was a thing here.

No problem at all, man. I’m in the increasingly warming state of Montana. Not close to where you’re at though.

Yeah, it’s pretty nice here, man. Phoenix. It’s cool outside, like 70-degrees. Perfect.

You guys just played here at the Wilma in Missoula. I didn’t get a chance to go to this show but I was at the one about five years ago when you played with Cold and Atomship. I’m sure you remember that gig. There was some crazy shit where you had to stop the show because people were getting crushed and throwing chair backs and whatnot. I’m guessing the latest show was a little better.

Yeah, the last show was great. I can’t really remember the details about it because we play so many shows.

Yeah, the one I went to, Lajon had to stop the show about three times and you guys actually left the stage at one point. You don’t remember that?

Not specifically. I don’t remember the details. It sounds familiar I guess. We’ve played a thousand shows, man. (laughs). A similar thing has happened before.

I’ve interviewed John a couple of times and I’ve talked to Lajon a few times. My interviews with Lajon were split with your departure. The first one was while you were away and the second one was after you returned. I could tell there was a buzz and a feeling of comfort in having you back in the band. Now that you’re back, how happy are you to be with this group of dudes and moving forward?

Man, I’m thrilled. I feel very grateful every day. I get to play music for a living. I’m grateful being here with these guys, it’s like being home. We have our problems like any other band but we know how to deal with our problems. Other entities outside of us that we struggle with. With us, we’re completely home with one another. I love it. I love being back with the guys more than anything.

Congrats on the new record. It starts off with ‘Splinter’ and has a really cool Maiden-esque guitar riff going on. It’s an unexpected start to this record. Talk about the experimentation you guys had while writing this, your eighth studio album.

Yeah, this is our eighth one. We wanted to get a little more technical with the musical aspect of it and we just wanted to make sure we tried some different things. That particular song ‘Spintler,’ and that gallop metal kind of thing I call it, I love that. I wanted to have a really metal oriented song and I think starting the album with it kind of gives people a fresh … that first song that people hear is usually what creates the opinion of the whole record no matter what you do after that first song, it always hinges on that first impression with people. We wanted to come out with all guns blazing. That’s a different kind of tempo and groove for our band. That’s a cool way to start out fresh but it’s still Sevendust all the way.

Right. It continues with ‘Forever,’ and that chug-chug-chug kind of guitar riff. Some really bad ass things thrown into the mix musically. Was there an X-factor in the studio as far as bringing out these things in you guys?

Na, for me personally I put a lot of pressure on myself because I’ve been gone for three records and I didn’t want anyone to think that because I was coming back, people generally credit me with the more melodic side of Sevendust. I write some heavy stuff as well. I wanted to make sure that every song was a sincere kind of effort. If it’s gonna be heavy, let’s make it heavy, if it’s gonna be melodic, let’s make it melodic. Let’s embrace all elements of our band instead of saying ‘Well, we’re just gonna make this a heavy-ended record,’ We just wanted to make it all and do everything.

Sevendust is one of those bands that writes a record, tours, writes another record, tours, it’s a nonstop cycle. I wonder how many mainstream metal bands have released this amount of material in the past decade. How do you guys stay fresh as a band with eight records in this short amount of time?

It’s hard. Luckily we’ve got different voices in our band. Lajon is obviously the singer for the band but I sing, Morgan has a voice he does. We’ve got our different kind of voices where we can split it up. If you have one guy singing all the time, it’s hard to kind of change up the vibe. With us, we get the chance for me to sing a line or two. It breaks up the monotony of the vocals. It’s hard to stick around this long. We realize exactly how hard it is to be a band like this and to have this many records. A lot of bands we’ve seen open up for us and they have these huge records and then they kind of go away. I’d rather have a flat, basic, across the board career that didn’t have any huge peaks because you don’t get the dips. With us it’s been a pretty constant thing. We’ve had our little dips and our little ups here and there but it’s a pretty consistent career. Our fans are consistent, which is a good, secure feeling to have. Especially in a business that isn’t secure at all. Very fickle.

Do you credit it momentum? Like you were saying, a band will have a big album, they’ll tour, then they’ll take time off and have to recapture that vibe.

I think it’s an interesting point that you bring up. We never really go away. We’re always kind of there. The band never takes that much time off. Then they released three records while I was gone for those five years. I think it’s kind of cool. It’s comforting for the fans that are die hard because there’s always new material. We don’t go away and in this business you’ve gotta kind of stay in people’s faces. It’s good and it’s bad. The bad thing is we never get a chance to take a break and have a life but at the same time this is our life completely and we embrace that. It’s good to be in people’s faces but you don’t wanna saturate it at the same time and have people get sick of you. I think it’s a bunch of different variables as to why people buy the records. We’re blessed and very happy that they do.

After all that, how weird would it be for the collective group of you guys to take a year off and walk away from the band completely and start living lives. Even when you took off from Sevendust, you kept making music. You guys haven’t really experienced that in the last ten, eleven, twelve years.

It’d be weird, man. Any time we take a significant amount of time off, which is really rare, we kind of lose … we don’t know what to do. We get used to being out there a little while. By the time we do get used to getting off of it, we’re back on the road again. It’d be interesting to know what we’d do if we were away. I was away but I was still working. It’s definitely good to take breaks ‘cause you really figure out how much you appreciate it. Just a break from anything, no matter how good it is, you need a break from it to keep it fresh. Hopefully after this record, if it does really well, we’ll be able to take some time off and really plot out the record that we wanna do. This one we had a lot of time to plot it out. That’s another good thing about taking time off is you get to organize your next plan.

Has it gotten difficult to tour and make albums and sell albums in this economy? Is that affecting you guys in a major way?

I don’t know. It’s been a couple years since our last record. I’m sure it has something to do with it. People don’t buy records in the traditional way anymore anyways. There’s a lot of different outlets to get music and that affects it way more than the economy. The internet affected overall CD production a long time ago before the economy. As far as attendance, the crowds are the same. There’s no one … I think the way to remedy the downslide of the economy is to go out and enjoy yourself. People still have the money to go and release some tension and stress at a show.

After you’ve been in a band for a decade you no doubt start to experience the second generation of people coming out. Do you guys see that?

Yeah, we see it all the time. It’s a trip. We’re like ‘We’re that band now.’ There’s a lot of people coming out saying ‘I saw you guys when I was 13 years old,’ now they’re owners of clubs and stuff. It’s weird but it’s cool. That’s the benefit of being around for awhile.

Lajon told me in 2008 that he thought the worst days for this band were behind. Would you say that’s still true in 2010?

Yeah, I agree with him. We went through a lot of different phases, poor business decisions and bad management. Right now, we’re in a great place and if we continue to keep our heads on right, everything will be cool. I think we’ll finish out our careers in a healthy way with our integrity intact that we made our little small mark in music.

If you could share the stage with any bands that have ever played, past or present, which ones would you choose?

(laughs) Man. There’s so many bands that I would love to do a show with. I would love to play with Pink Floyd just because it would be a weird mix. Maybe not the best collaboration as far as music, but I would just love to be on the same bill as them during ‘The Wall.’ I would love to do a show with Nine Inch Nails as well.

It’s funny because when people answer that question, there’s a wide range of answers and there’s always like a one off in Europe with that kind of bill.

Europe’s great for that.

You wouldn’t see that in Mississippi but I could see that being a show in Europe.

Absolutely.

Clint. Nice catching up with you man.

Thank you very much, bud. I appreciate your time.

Talk to you later.

Bye.