Drowning Pool's 2001 debut CD, "Sinner", featured Dave Williams, who died in 2002 of heart failure, just a day after performing at Ozzfest. The band's music has appeared in films like "Saw III", "The Punisher", and "The One", starring Jet Li. Drowning Pool stopped by the VOA studios to introduce its new lead vocalist and talk about its latest tour. VOA's Larry London sat down with the band.
It took only six months for "Sinner" to sell a million copies in the U.S. Drowning Pool is back with its third CD, "Full Circle." The album features new lead singer Ryan McCombs, formerly of Soil.
"The band was based around a family feel. When Davy (Williams) was part of the band, it was that family, that cohesiveness of a family. I have heard the guys say it, so hopefully I'm not stepping on anybody's toes. We feel like that family feel is back again. We were just a bunch of brothers out there having a good time. Now we are actually able to have a good time for a good cause," said McCombs.
Drowning Pool's current tour is called "This Is For The Soldiers." From every ticket sold, 50 cents goes to the United Service Organization or U.S.O., a non-profit corporation that provides welfare and recreation activities for U.S. servicemen and servicewomen, and 50 cents goes to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to help them re-acclimate to life after war.
Todd Bowers, of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, tells us, "It allows us to build up our database to let all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans know to join us … to basically push forward. We are the first and the largest Iraq and Afghanistan veterans' organization. We are the ones here on Capitol Hill with groups like Drowning Pool trying to implement change. We are not here to give you a membership card or a cool DVD or anything. We are here to implement change for both veterans and their families when they return from Iraq and Afghanistan. That's our number one goal."
Drowning Pool has performed around the world and remains a favorite of the U.S. military.
McCombs says, "We have spent our whole careers doing a lot of shows and having a lot of opportunities to play amazing historical events as far as some of the European festivals and playing in front of huge crowds. I know I can speak for everybody when I say that nothing compares to those shows that we have done over in Kuwait, in Iraq, and even South Korea. You are playing on these bases for two hours (and) these boys and girls are at home at a rock show."
Drowning Pool will remain on tour for the next year to support the new CD. During their travels they will continue to work on songs for their next album.
"I think it's (the next album) really just taking off where this one stopped," McCombs says, "We are having a lot of fun I think at this point in time exploring different directions, not just being that freight train [an American expression for a ride that heads in one direction]. There are songs on this new album that are just so left turn [something out of the ordinary, totally unexpected] from where you would typically think I would have done back where I come from or where Drowning Pool would have went to. In a lot of ways, just like everybody out there, we have been there and done that, and we are changed by it and I think the music is representing it, as we grow older.
