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Dive Right In
08/10/2001 5:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
David John Farinella
They might not appreciate it, but Drowning Pool's singer Dave Williams is about to pull the covers off his metal brethren. "The other night me, Coby from Papa Roach, Corey from Slipknot, and Bryan from Union Underground were cranking Ratt, jamming our assess off," he says with a bit of laugh. "Everybody was into it. I mean, dude, everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when Ratt was the sh-t."
Turns out the Drowning Pool tour bus is the place to be thanks to Williams's collection of all the best '80s heavy metal. "Everything from Faster Pussycat to Judas Priest," he says. "They usually come to our bus and relive their glory days, because a lot of them don't like to admit it, but they all listen to Motley Crue and Faster Pussycat. I love that stuff. I grew up on that stuff."
The Drowning Pool lads--drummer Mike Luce, guitarist C.J. Pierce, and bassist Stevie Benton join singer Williams--have had a chance to entertain on their tour bus these last few months since they've been playing Ozzfest's second stage. As their catchy-as-hell anthem "Bodies" climbs up the charts and the video hits power rotation status on MTV, they're reaping the rewards. "The crowds are getting bigger, the response is getting out of hand. It's really, really cool," Williams says.
These guys are no strangers to the road or to hard work. While "Bodies" and the Ozzfest dates have pushed them into the mainstream, this quartet of Texans has been striving for five years. Williams expected the "overnight success" tag, though. "That's just the way some people are going to perceive it," he shrugs. "We've been working really hard at this for a long time. I think the success of the single has happened very quickly, and whenever you have success with a song or a video, you're just flooded and put into so many different mediums."
If Williams has anything to do with it, resting on their laurels is not in the cards. "I don't ever want to be completely validated or satisfied, because when you feel like you are, that's when you start getting lazy," he reasons. "I want to always not be satisfied. I want to be happy for what happened yesterday. I want to be happy for what's going to happen tonight, but tomorrow is another day, and I want to meet that challenge also."
Sinner, the band's debut release, features a bevy of tunes such as "All Over Me," "Reminded," and the second single, "Tear Away," that will keep the band front and center for the rest of the year. The success of "Bodies" has surprised Williams. "I thought it was a good song, but I never thought it would catch on like it has. I'm being honest. I never would have thought that would have been a breakout single, but hey, that's the cards that are on the table now and that's what we're going to deal with."
"Sermon," the album's closing track, is a Williams favorite because he gets a chance to flash his beliefs. "That's my baby, just because it's heavy in music and it's heavy in lyrics. That's the song I put my foot down on the religious issue: 'Tell me what you believe.' That's just it. I get off on singing that song because I know why I'm singing it and why I wrote it."
That said, Williams explains there is not explicit Drowning Pool message. "There is a message without having an outright message," he explains. "Basically, it's just this whole thing that we're doing is not so serious that you can't have a good time. It's not a bad thing to come to a rock show and just go nuts, have fun, knock back a couple of beers. I grew up with Ratt, Motley Crue, and Van Halen. Those guys played music and had a good time. If people get some kind of message out of it, that's fine. But our whole standpoint is that we're just a rock band. We're just four guys from Texas that like to have a good time, and we'd like you to be a part of it."
The line forms to the left.
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