Down is coming to town Tuesday, September 22. On paper, the New Orleans-based hard-rock/metal band should be playing the Quicken Loans Arena, not the much smaller House of Blues. The group’s “Stone the Crow” is one of the great classic-rock anthems of its generation, worthy of Skynyrd. It’s a haymaker of a song, with a mournful southern-rock riff, haunted vocals from a tortured soul and guitar harmonies that’ll give you goosebumps. Down should own Cleveland. Because Cleveland’s a classic rock town.
A full 35 years after Aerosmith got their wings, it’s still easy to
hear “Train Kept A-Rollin'” twice a day on local radio stations, even
if you’re just flipping through the dial. The Black Keys only recently
supplanted Pink Floyd tribute Wish You Were Here as the top-drawing
local band (and that distinction is subject to interpretation).
Classic-rock beacon WNCX 98.5 FM was the top-ranked rock station in
Arbitron’s Spring 2009 Cleveland-Akron’s ratings.
“[Cleveland] used to be a current rock town,” says John
Gorman, a media consultant and radio historian who was program director
of WMMS in the ’70s and early ’80s, when a local station could help
break a song nationally. “It still is, but it’s not reflected on
radio.”
After a golden age, Cleveland classic-rock fans decided their hearts
and ears were full. Shaggy bands like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones
and Pink Floyd helped establish FM radio, making it a place where deep
album cuts found new life. Throughout the ’70s, long-haired dudes
jammed out hot licks and let big riffs rip. Sweaty shredders like Deep
Purple and Black Sabbath owned an age when people wanted to rock and
roll all night and party every day. In 1979, the World Series of Rock
drew more than 85,000 hard-rocking heads to Cleveland’s Lakefront
Stadium for a bill that included Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Journey, Thin
Lizzy and AC/DC. The wave was cresting.
By the ’80s, big rock’s long solos — guitar, drums and bass — were becoming hard to take. Zeppelin had crashed. Sabbath
turned gray. Aerosmith went off the rails. Many album-oriented rock
(AOR) stations were concentrating on classic rock and playing maybe two
new songs each hour. In 1981, Dick Hungate, program director of
Philadelphia’s AOR station WYSP, stopped playing current cuts and went
with all old stuff. Classic Rock Radio as a distinct format was
born.
Throughout the ’80s, classic-rock and AOR stations added new acts
with increasing rarity: the Police, .38 Special, Guns N’ Roses. Today,
the classic-rock format is a nostalgia-delivery device, and it’s hard
to find anything newer than a single from the first Black Crowes album.
The most recent song in WNCX’s Top 100 tracks is Gregg Allman’s “I’m No
Angel” from 1987. In some parts of the country, classic rock —
sometimes referred to as “heritage” rock — is practically the new
folk music; kids are likely to know more words to “Stairway to Heaven”
than a trad song like “Wild Rover.”
Gorman says there are two types of classic-rock listeners: those for
whom the music was the soundtrack of the best part of their lives, and
those who can’t or won’t try to relate to modern music. “That’s the
argument the companies will always use to say why the playlist is so
tight,” he says. “If you play something unfamiliar, you’re taking a
chance of somebody hitting a button and going to another station.
Classic rock has turned into a pretty tight greatest-hits format”
Updating playlists is a tough call. Akron’s WONE 97.5 has been known
to play Metallica and Green Day on the weekends. More recently it’s
added Creed and vanilla post-Nickelback bands to the mix. But
contemporary rock radio ignores a whole scene that seems like a
can’t-miss combination with the classics. Whether you call it rawk,
stoner rock or stoner metal, many of the bands crawling from club to
club might have had a shot as an opening act on an arena tour once.
Given the chance, any number of bands could be the next Nugent.
Since hair metal died and grunge broke, the world has seen a
groundswell of groups that preferred Black Sabbath to Boston and
Zeppelin to Nirvana. (See sidebar for some of the best.) Down might be
the biggest band of its breed, but there are countless others, from
Australia’s Wolfmother to Cleveland’s Red Giant.
Red Giant records for Detroit’s Small Stone label, which specializes
in the kind of rock that used to pour out of beat-up, smoke-filled
vans. Small Stone owner Scott Hamilton thinks new classic rock-style
bands deserve a shot at the airwaves.
“I would love to hear that stuff next to Skynyrd and Led Zep,” he
says. “It makes sense. It is the same genre. It sounds right. And it
feels right. I have made many attempts [to get my bands on the radio],
but nothing seemed to work. I used to get feedback from some of the DJs
that I was friendly with around town. They all liked what I gave them,
but their hands were usually tied by the music directors and corporate
broadcast consulting firms. They can’t play what they like — just
what is on the playlist. Both Sirius and XM have been friendly thus
far. They have so many different genre stations that you can usually
slide into one of them — but never on their classic-rock
channels.”
Program directors at WNCX and WONE declined to comment for the
story.
Granted, while bands like Down are a perfect match for classic-rock
radio, others are a hard sell to baby boomers who listen to music to
relax. Many are closer to Blue Cheer than Blue Öyster Cult. And
like it or not, you have to acknowledge there’s something magic about
classic rock. It’s music that fans have listened to every day for
decades.
“Listen to Bad Company, something like that,” says Down guitarist
Pepper Keenan. “Fantastic songwriting skills. Musicians who had skills
and dedicated their life to playing their instrument or singing. Just a
wide knowledge of music and not so narrow-minded. You had to
play your shit. You couldn’t fix it in the studio. You
had to be good. That’s the same approach Down uses.”
But even with major-label backing — the
Warner-Elektra-Atlantic WEA group — Down play to 1,000-2,000 fans
a night. Keenan has seen veteran classic-rock concertgoers warm up to
the band, and he thinks radio listeners could warm up to new
fire-breathing groups.
“I know they would,” says Keenan. “I guarantee it. It’s just
the idea of convincing somebody to listen to it or getting it in their
hand to where they’ll play it. That’s the record label and the
industry’s job, and sometimes they don’t do it well. So sometimes you
end up being an underground band, and then people hear you 20 years
later and feel like they got ripped off.”
Another reason Down should own Cleveland: Cleveland is a metal town,
and Down is a metal supergroup. Singer Phil Anselmo is best known for
fronting Pantera, the last great, arena-packing metal band. (Bassist
Rex Brown, also from Pantera, is sitting out this tour due to acute
pancreatitis and problems with his gall bladder.) Kirk Windstein made
his bones in sludge lords Crowbar. Drummer Jimmy Bower plays with
seminal underground group Eyehategod.
Guitarist Keenan made a cameo on Metallica’s cover of Lynyrd
Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone.” Metallica’s James Hetfield is a longtime
fan of Keenan’s other band, Corrosion of Conformity (COC), a
long-running North Carolina outfit that evolved from a hardcore group
to a diesel-burning biker-rock band.
If “Stone the Crow” isn’t the best new-school classic-rock song,
then the honor certainly belongs to COC’s “Stare Too Long,” which
features stand-and-salute slide guitar by Warren Haynes of the Allman
Brothers Band and Gov’t Mule. Unlike many newer classic-style groups,
Down’s songs weren’t written as homages.
“It just kinda happened,” explains Keenan. “I was always into
melodic things. And ‘Stone the Crow’ — we were all on the same
page. We were all kids from New Orleans. We weren’t from Berlin. We
listened to Sabbath and melodic-y, blues-based kinda bands. That’s
where it all came from. We had the story to tell; it kind of made
sense. It fit the melody — just livin’ hard, piecing it all
together, there it was.”
Down qualify as classic rock whether you listen to the music or just
measure by age. The off-again, on-again band has only three records,
though it dates back to 1991 when the friends started jamming. The
group’s debut, 1995’s NOLA, unexpectedly went platinum. But
Pantera was the hottest metal band in the land at the time, and the
more metallic Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow didn’t arrive
until 2002. Anselmo has claimed that Elektra was so scared Down would
take off and cut into Pantera business that the company sabotaged the
band by under-promoting it.
The group’s most recent album, Down III: Over the Under, arrived in 2007 and sold out multiple shipments in Northeast Ohio
stores in its first weeks. It has a foundation of chainsaw-riff songs
like “I Scream,” but balances them with some album-rock moments. One
review described “Nothing in Return (Walk Away)” — a
quaking-keyboard nod to Zeppelin’s “No Quarter” — as “Led
Sabbath.”
The band has been on the road since the album’s release. By now,
says Keenan, they’re tired of the material. On this tour, they’re
concentrating on songs from the first record, the band’s most
accessible. “Stone the Crow” remains their signature song, even if it’s
mostly a live phenomenon.
“If it gets on the radio, great,” says Keenan. “That was never part
of COC or Down’s plan. We are very capable of writing songs that
should be on the radio. If it doesn’t, that ain’t stoppin’
us.”
The Options:
If
you need a break from “Baba O’Reilly” and “Gimme Three Steps,” try
these newer bands that sound just right next to your longtime
favorites. Start with Down’s “Stone the Crow” and COC’s “Stare Too
Long” (discussed in the story) — and we’ll give you 10 more.
Various Artists
Sucking the 70s 1 and 2
(Small Stone)
A who’s-who of indie/stoner rawk cover dozens of AOR warhorses on
these two-disc collections. Clevelanders Disengage nail “Communication
Breakdown,” and Red Giant sets fire to “Saturday Night Special.” Other
rock-solid renditions include “Cross Eyed Mary,” “Walk Away” and
“Working Man.” Recommended if you dig radio staples.
Priestess
“Lay Down” from Hello Master
(RCA)
If this Canadian quartet’s mean riffs and wailing solos don’t get
you, singer Mikey Heppner’s valkyrie pipes will. RIYD: Deep Purple.
Coheed and Cambria
“Welcome Home” from Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One:
From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness
(Columbia)
Frontman Claudio Sanchez wields a double-necked Gibson like Jimmy
Page, rocks a giant afro and leads his band through space-opera concept
albums. On this menacing six-minute march, he sings like Rush’s Geddy
Lee.
Year Long Disaster
“Per Qualche Dollaro in Piu” from Year Long Disaster (Volcom)
Singer-guitarist Daniel Davies is the son of the Kinks’ Dave Davies,
but his band plays like the offspring of Zeppelin. This song’s central
riff is thunder on four hooves.
Mastodon
“Divinations” from Crack the Skye
(Reprise)
This Atlanta quartet has sharper chops than a butcher, and this
track storms like a heavy metal cover of Pink Floyd’s “Sheep.” They’re
known for elementally themed concept albums, and their latest, Crack
the Skye, makes hard-hitting nods to King Crimson and Zappa.
Fu Manchu
“Knew It All Along” from We Must Obey
(Century Media)
Known for songs about pinball, women and weed, this long-running
California quartet is the quintessential stoner-rock band. This jam’s
resonant riff has all the attitude of UFO at its baddest. If you don’t
like the tune, you don’t like rock and roll.
Clutch
“The Mob Goes Wild” from Blast Tyrant
(DRT Entertainment)
This jamming, jazz-influenced band’s high-RPM political screed
connects the dots between Iraq and Vietnam with lyrics like
“Condoleezza Rice is nice/But I prefer A Roni” and “Everybody move to
Canada/Smoke lots of pot.” RIYD: Nugent.
Kyuss
“Hurricane” from … And The
Circus Leaves Town
(Rhino/Elektra)
These Californians are considered the fathers of the stoner-rock
movement, and pundit Chuck Klosterman once accurately observed that
they sound more like Black Sabbath than Black Sabbath does.
Wolfmother
“Dimension” from Wolfmother
(Interscope)
Wolfmother spit out references to purple haze and white unicorns
between mercifully brief flute riffs and songs that climax in
Styx-style keyboard workouts. But mostly, the band flies like Zeppelin,
and big-beat songs like “Dimension” will leave a dent in your
stereo.
Suede Brothers
“Lady Luck” from Suede Brothers
(Bad Breaker)
This Cleveland trio has an average age of 20, and they’ve spent
every one of their young years eating album rock for breakfast, lunch
and dinner. Tasty riffs make seven-minute rockers like “Lady Luck” feel
half as long. RIYD: the James Gang.
This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2009.
For stoner-ish additions to the AOR playlist, we muct include The Sword.
I love Small Stone! Great call on the two /Sucking the 70s/ volumes – until now, this is the first time I’ve seen anybody else highlight these stellar gems (but maybe I don’t get out to the right places enough). I have to also give props to Dixie Witch’s “On The Hunt”, the two each from Alabama Thunderpussy (gritty) and Fireball Ministry (smooth), Spirit Caravan’s “Wicked World” (Wino sounds labored but that fits, and the instrumental break is right on), and my favorite: Roadsaw’s “Vehicle” (made me appreciate the original even more).
As long as we’re looking at labels and comps, then I submit Meteor City and the 3-disc /And Back to Earth Again: Ten Years of Meteor City/ – a comprehensive education for anyone just getting into the genre. There’s stuff on there I’ve never even seen anywhere else. Their online store allthatisheavy.com has stuff impossible to get around here or even online unless you risk used, and they don’t charge a mint for it either.
Priestess’ “Lay Down” is a logical choice since many will recognize it from Guitar Hero anyway, but I hope newcomers will explore the rest of /Hello Master/ because “I Am the Night, Colour Me Black” and “Living Like a Dog” are even better, especially that great spacey break in the second half of the latter.
And outside the stoner genre, we have to consider the newer guys in the old vein: Airbourne (“Stand Up for Rock ‘N’ Roll”) or The Answer (“Into the Gutter”), the latter a great surprise to all of us who saw them open for AC/DC in January.