Biography
An all-star heavy metal side project called Down first assembled with an original roster drawn from Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo, Corrosion of Conformity guitarist Pepper Keenan, and Crowbar’s guitarist Kirk Windstein, bassist Todd Strange, and drummer Jimmy Bower. The group coalesced in the mid-’90s while Pantera paused between the releases of Far Beyond Driven and The Great Southern Trendkill; longtime friends among the participants used the downtime to form the band, whose name directly reflected that decision.
EastWest Records released the quartet’s 1995 debut album NOLA, an acronym for New Orleans, the hometown shared by every founding member. Although observers expected unrelenting extreme metal, the record leaned instead toward classic rock textures, with Black Sabbath cited as a central influence. NOLA eventually earned platinum certification in the United States, yet once its supporting tour concluded the members returned to their primary bands, prompting widespread speculation that Down had been a solitary venture.
In 2001 Anselmo, Keenan, and Bower regrouped to write new songs, recruiting Pantera bassist Rex Brown to fill the vacancy left by Strange. March 2002 brought the long-delayed follow-up Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow. A third installment, Down III: Over the Under, arrived in 2007 and featured Anselmo and Keenan alongside Windstein, Bower, and Brown. The band issued the live audio and video package Diary of a Mad Band in 2010. Down IV materialized as a sequence of EPs, opening with Down IV, Pt. I: The Purple EP in 2012 and continuing with Down IV, Pt. II in 2014.
EastWest Records released the quartet’s 1995 debut album NOLA, an acronym for New Orleans, the hometown shared by every founding member. Although observers expected unrelenting extreme metal, the record leaned instead toward classic rock textures, with Black Sabbath cited as a central influence. NOLA eventually earned platinum certification in the United States, yet once its supporting tour concluded the members returned to their primary bands, prompting widespread speculation that Down had been a solitary venture.
In 2001 Anselmo, Keenan, and Bower regrouped to write new songs, recruiting Pantera bassist Rex Brown to fill the vacancy left by Strange. March 2002 brought the long-delayed follow-up Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow. A third installment, Down III: Over the Under, arrived in 2007 and featured Anselmo and Keenan alongside Windstein, Bower, and Brown. The band issued the live audio and video package Diary of a Mad Band in 2010. Down IV materialized as a sequence of EPs, opening with Down IV, Pt. I: The Purple EP in 2012 and continuing with Down IV, Pt. II in 2014.
Albums
