Former STEREOMUD Bassist Joins SW1TCHED

Ex-STEREOMUD/STUCK MOJO bassist Corey Lowery has joined Cleveland's SW1TCHED. The band, who were previously signed to Immortal/Virgin Records, have announced plans to change their name to SKY FALL DOWN at the end of the year before recording new material with a view towards landing a new record deal.

In a recent interview with Edge Magazine, Lowery explained the circumstances behind STEREOMUD's break-up and his decision to hook up with the SW1TCHED guys.

"[The STEREOMUD split] was a mutual thing and I still love those guys, so there's no bad blood to talk about," he began. "What happened was we had a lot of record company troubles for our last album. Sony had just lost 1,200 people the week before our [last] album came out, so you know, we were fortunate enough to have at least forty-thousand albums go out and for people to buy them up. We were also fortunate enough to have that music that we worked so hard on get a chance to go out, but going into a new album with that crazy of a situation was kind of… [Guitarist] Joey [Z] wanted to go jam with LIFE OF AGONY, [guitarist] John [Fattoruso] wanted to move in a different direction, and [singer] Erik [Rogers]… We were just all going in different directions. That's really the story. It was Clint [Corey's brother from SEVENDUST] and Morgan [Rose, SEVENDUST drummer] actually, who were like, 'You'd be really great in this band called SW1TCHED,' and I said, 'Really?' So, I called Brad and Chad from the band and they came down to Atlanta where we wrote a song together. Then, I went with them up to their hometown of Cleveland and I hung out with the guys. We jammed together and the next thing I know, I end up playing a SW1TCHED show! After getting to know the guys, and all of us feeling each other out, it was just chemistry. So, now we're gonna take over the Earth together!"

"With Erik [from STEREOMUD] going for more of a pop-sounding thing, I just had to do something that was heavy," Corey continued. "That's what I'm about. I mean, everyone wants all of us guys in STEREOMUD to be enemies and talk smack about each other, but it's not like that. We were never that kind of band when we started, and we shouldn't be that kind of band when it ends up being over. I support all of those guys in everything they do. I just had to do something that was more like what I'm used to, which is touring like 300 days out of the year and just going out onstage and tearing it up. That's kind of what we're going for with this new band, SKY FALL DOWN. We're gonna get back to that grass-roots touring kind of thing like I did back in the STUCK MOJO days."

Regarding SW1TCHED's decision to change their name to SKY FALL DOWN, Corey said, "[SKY FALL DOWN is] the name of the new band. It's kinda like, the name of the band is SW1TCHED right now. We're playing SW1TCHED songs. The new songs that we're working on, which we'll be playing and recording at the beginning of 2004, that's the SKY FALL DOWN stuff. When we play our shows in November and December, it will be as SW1TCHED. We're doing three shows in North Carolina, which I chose to do since it's my home. Those will be as SW1TCHED and we'll be playing all SW1TCHED songs. The band has a lot of fans and we don't just want to leave them hanging without some kind of send-off, so until the New Year, everything we do will be as SW1TCHED.

"SW1TCHED was already maturing into something different before I even started playing with them and what it was becoming was nothing like what it was before. The bottom line is that, with me, you know I'm always going to play heavy music. I'm not going to go form some pop band or anything like that. Everything I'm involved with will be heavy, so you don't have to worry about it sounding really different from what I've done in the past. I hate when people label things into different categories of rock, like death metal, rap-metal… you know, all that shit. I have always just played heavy rock and I will always play heavy rock, and whether it is SW1TCHED or SKY FALL DOWN, it will be heavy rock. That's what direction I've always gone in. With members of SW1TCHED and STEREOMUD, you're gonna get the best of what both bands pull out. It's gonna be like if SW1TCHED and STEREOMUD had a baby. I'm not gonna say who the mother is (laughs),but that's pretty much what you're gonna get." Read the rest of the interview here.

Upcoming SW1TCHED shows:

Nov. 14 – Fayetteville, NC @ Jesters Pub
Nov. 15 – Winston-Salem, NC @ Ziggy's