Kirk Windstein: A New Voice

It’s been almost 30 years since New Orleans sludge metallers CROWBAR released their debut studio album, and frontman Kirk Windstein has since cemented and re-cemented his position as a titan of the scene. Now, for the first time, Windstein is releasing a solo album. “It’s something I wanted to do for a long time, and it just got to the point where about two and a half years ago I was like ‘I think it’s time to do a solo thing’, because I believe this record is totally something that sounds like me, but it’s a different side of my writing personality.”

A deeply personal release, Dream In Motion may not be what CROWBAR/DOWN fans were expecting from the Louisiana multi-instrumentalist. “I don’t really think any of these songs would fit in with CROWBAR. I’m a songwriter, and that’s what I love to do so for me, I guess because I listen to so many different styles of music, I needed an outlet just to do something a lot more mellow than what CROWBAR is doing and has done for our whole career. It’s such a heavy band that I wanted to do something a little lighter.” Writing in a band, after all, is an exercise in compromise. “All the decisions were really mine. Not that there’s pressure being in a band, it’s just a different situation doing it yourself as opposed to being in a real band, a real group of guys who all contribute to it. You have to bend and the other guys have to bend as well and you have to come to agreements on things when you’re in a band situation, whereas with a solo situation I could do whatever I wanted. I had the final word and that was that.”

All instruments on the record apart from drums were tracked by Kirk Windstein himself. “It actually took me about two years, I never had a time limit, there was never any time pressure to hurry up and finish. It was just when I felt like doing it, when I had the time to do it. I would go in the studio with Duane Simoneaux, the producer, who also did the drums on the record, and we’d do a song and we might not get back together for two months, then we’d do another one. It was a very long process, but it was fun.” This lack of pressure combined with a freedom in the songwriting has produced an album filled with thoughtful melodies, slow grooves and soul searching, illuminating Kirk Windstein as an artist in a wholly new light.

A cover of Aqualung closes the album in a superb display of Windstein‘s technical ability. “I’ve always been a JETHRO TULL fan,” he explains. “Aqualung has always been to me one of the great classic songs. When you break it down and actually pick out the riffs and everything, it really opened up a whole new world. I was like ‘wow, this song is a lot deeper than I ever even anticipated just casually listening to it’. So it was a lot of work to break it down and really try to nail it. I added a lot of my own, to the middle section I added quite a bit of harmonies on guitar and added a little bit of a CROWBAR feel to it. The the guitar solo was quite a challenge, it’s a very very long solo so I just took it one little section at a time.” As a fan, it was important to get the song right. “Honestly if I didn’t think the cover of Aqualung came out great and if I didn’t think I was paying a proper salute to JETHRO TULL and Ian Anderson I would never have included it on the record.”

Recording a solo album in the current climate is rarely for financial gain, and rather a labour of love. Changes in the music industry over the past few decades have been felt by artists of all experience, and Kirk Windstein points to recording and touring as undergoing the biggest shifts. “You now have a situation with Protools where, I’m not talking about in terms of bands who are out there recording that have records on labels and are touring or whatever, but just in general, literally anybody can play any instrument. It might take forever, but you can do it. For our bands, it was a different approach. You had to be so well-rehearsed and there was no way to fix anything. If you fuck up something you go back and start over or you’d punch it in and that was it. So the recording process has changed drastically. Then the biggest change as well is every band is out there pounding the pavement touring, because that’s where the money is. The money’s not in selling records.”

With the possibility of another solo album in the future, it’s first back to CROWBAR in the studio. For now though it’s an important moment of freedom in Kirk Windstein‘s long career. “I hope that my fanbase of CROWBAR, DOWN, KINGDOM OF SORROW fans will love it, but if they don’t I totally get it because it’s not like any of those bands, it is different. But at the same time if you’re a fan of my writing and what I do, I think that, hopefully, the same fans will be able to appreciate it. I’m just lucky and blessed to have it come out and say ‘hey I did a solo record and I love the way that it came out, I love the music, I love the production, I love everything’ so I’m lucky in that sense. I hope the fans dig it and I appreciate all the support.”

Dream In Motion is out now via eOne.