Down recently released its 3rd album (III-Over The Under), to unprecedented critical acclaim & respectable 1st week sales landing then at #26 on Billboard (10-3-07). This interview with lead guitarist, Kirk, was conducted over the phone just after the CD was released in October.

METAL HELL: It seems like Down III is getting a good response. How does that feel?

KIRK  WINDSTEIN: Yeah, the reviews & the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We knew the importance of making a really strong record & we’re very proud of what we did accomplish with it, but it makes you feel good when all these reviews are coming back positive.

MH: How are the new songs working out live?

KW: They’re actually working out real well. Obviously there’s certain ones that probably wouldn’t be great for live, for whatever reason, but we’re doing about 5 or 6 of the new ones live & they’re fitting in the set real well. We hadn’t played any of them live ever before obviously, until we started this tour, so it’s getting where they’re becoming second nature & they fit in and feel comfortable.

MH: How would you describe the writing process for III compared to past records?

KW: A lot of the riffs have, basically the main difference in this one than Down II, which was written & recorded literally in like 28 days, with that everything was spontaneous. It was boom-boom-boom, lets try this song out-lets record it, (&) go on to the next one. And that works fine, but on this one we were able to take our time. I’m glad we experienced Down II the way we did but on this one we took our time. The biggest difference was that we demoed everything ahead of time & went back & re-worked them & re-arranged them & Phil worked super hard on the lyrics & kept changing things. We were able to fine- tune the songs before we went in to actually record ‘em, which was kind of cool.

MH: In terms of progression, was it conscious to explore more dynamics?

KW: There obviously are dynamics but it just came out that way. It’s just a situation where we just write what we feel. We don’t have a game plan really, & it just seems that it’s a pretty hard rocking record. It’s just the way that it came out.

MH: I read there were some extra acoustic songs?

KW: Actually there are a couple of acoustic things that we still have. There’s quite a few riffs & even complete songs that were demoed, some that were recorded in the studio that we just didn’t have a chance to use because we had so much material.

MH: Do you think they might surface on an EP or something?

KW: There’s talk of a couple of different possibilities. I think we’re definitely going to use this stuff. We’ve been talking for quite a while now about actually trying to do an acoustic type thing, so I’m that that’ll happen at some point in time.

MH: How did it feel to record in L.A. this time as opposed to in New Orleans?

KW: It was cool. One thing with New Orleans (is it) was really limited with studio choices because of the storm, one thing that was good was having the opportunity to just live & breathe the record. Basically we just went straight to the hotel & to the studio. There were no outside distractions; day after day it was all about work, which was cool actually.

MH: Did you experiment with guitar tones a lot?

KW:  We did a bit-yeah, I ended up using a Bogner amp on most of the stuff that I did but we had Marshall’s, we had Bogner’s, we had Fender Twins, we had everything you could think of really, (Mega) Boogie stuff. It depends on the song & what the song calls for & what we feel like as far as what kinds of tones we go for. We just want a good warm rock tone. We’re not trying to be metal or super heavy. We just want a good, warm tone.

MH: What do you go for live?

KW: Right now we’re just using Marshall stacks, JCM 800’s.

MH: How would you compare your guitar style to Pepper’s?

KW: We actually play very different from one another, which is cool. Our styles are very different but they compliment one another, which is really important.

MH: Do you still practice much?

KW: Actually, I’d say in the last year I’ve really gotten into practicing, especially warming up a lot before we play & running through different scales & exercises, I used to just put the guitar on & go for it live but I’ve really been getting into warming up & I do it sometimes more than other nights but I make sure I at least get in an hour or so over the course of the afternoon & the evening, before we play. I’ll go through a lot of stuff that I have to do in my solo stuff & I have a lot of exercises I  use to loosen up, so I’ve actually gotten into playing a lot.

MH: Do you leave room in the solos to improvise live?

KW: They’re pretty close to the record but there’s some improvising too. It’s a little bit of both.

MH: Do you change songs around night to night?

KW: We change it up a little bit here & there. There’s a couple of songs we move in & out from time to time. It’s usually a work in progress, trying to find something where they all flow through one another. We’re up there for a good hour & 45 minutes, or sometimes up to 2 hours, so we want it to flow well. We don’t want there to be a lull in the show but we wanna mix up the styles too, so it’s a situation where I think right now what we’ve got going on is working out well.

MH: Are you still doing ‘The Evening With’, with the film opening?

KW:  Yes it is, we updated the film with different videos & mostly all different footage of us in between the other videos. It works good for us to do the evening with Down thing. The movie leads into the gig & it just works out cool.

MH: I read you had a project with Jamie Jasta called Kingdom Of Sorrow?

KW: Me & Jamie started this thing back in early ’05. It’s been completed for a while, we’re just waiting for the right time to put it out. He’s been super busy with Hatebreed, I’m obviously super busy with Down, & that’s my priority. It’ll come out at some point next year some time but we’re just waiting for the right time to drop the record. It’s been completely finished. It’s heavy shit, it’s a little bit of a different thing for Jamie mainly  as far as vocally & whatnot, on some stuff that he couldn’t really do with Hatebreed. For me it’s cool cause a lot of it’s slow stuff, like Crowbar(?) style but a lot of it is really fast shit too, which I don’t get to play all that often, so it’s fun.

MH: Speaking of Crowbar, is anything going on with that?

KW:: Yeah, I’ve got 4 new Crowbar songs written, I’m just waiting to get a little break of time to get back on it, but I will always do Crowbar, it’s just that Down is my main priority now.

MH: Do you think you might do any live recording on this tour, for a DVD or something?

KW: It’s possible, the thing is, we had done a European tour in 2006 & we recorded the whole (thing), we’ve got tons of film footage & we also recorded a couple of shows professionally, like in London, we did 2 shows & recorded those. I think it’s a situation where at some point we’d like to try to put that whole European tour experience together as a movie, like a proper 70’s type movie, like The Song Remains The Same or AC/DC Let There Be Rock type thing, (to) have like a movie, it won’t be a home video, it would be like a proper movie.