Kirk Windstein is a riff lord and recently announced that he was leaving Down to focus on his main project, Crowbar, to the shock of fans everywhere. In a recent interview, Kirk elaborated on his decision.
Kirk spoke with the Devil Horns podcast saying there is no bad blood, just that Down requires more down time in between shows for frontman Phil Anselmo to rest his voice. The downtime causes Kirk to drink uncontrollably, which is a problem he has been battling with. Here is his full response:
“My life’s changed a lot in the last year. With being married, I wanna concentrate a lot more on my family first and foremost. And Down… has to take a fair amount of days off in order for Phil [Anselmo] to rest his voice properly, which is totally, absolutely understandable and well respected. It’s just, for me, I like to go out fifteen shows in a row and get it done. With Down, a lot of the [touring], especially internationally, is fly dates and things like that and there’s so many days off. And really, for me, to be blunt, on those off days, man… I mean, show days are great, I have a responsibility, of course I love every second being on stage, but on those off days, I have absolutely nothing to do and it just ends up turning into drinking too goddamn much and wanting to not be there…The [other members of Down] could see I was kind of not really getting into it, they could see me on the off days hitting the sauce harder than I should have been… It was kind of a mutual thing — no hard feelings or anything whatsoever like that. There’s absolutely zero drama, zero gossip that I know of, at least from my side. I doubt there’s any from their side.”
He went on to wish his replacement, Bobby Landgraf of Honky the best of luck, even mentioning that Landgraf will be coming over to jam on Down tunes to get some of Kirk's intricacies down. What a pro!
You cannot fault Kirk at all for his decision, as it's what's best for his health. Plus, this means we'll be getting a whole lot more Crowbar which is NEVER a bad thing!
[via Blabbermouth]
