SUPERJOINT RITUAL's BOWER Speaks Out On Decision To Put DOWN On Hold

SUPERJOINT RITUAL guitarist Jimmy Bower recently spoke to Bully magazine about singer Philip Anselmo's decision to put his other projects on hold in order to concentrate on promoting SUPERJOINT's upcoming sophomore CD, "A Lethal Dose Of American Hatred" (due July 22 through Sanctuary Records). "[SUPERJOINT RITUAL] passed up a lot of cool things last year because of DOWN's schedule," he explained. "It just seems to me like the fair thing to do — take a little time and put some attention on SUPERJOINT. DOWN [which also features Anselmo and Bower—Ed.] was really, really busy last year and in my eyes had a really successful year, it was fun. Like [DOWN guitarist] Pepper [Keenan] said, he nailed it, when he said DOWN is one of those bands that is just self-destructive. We do something, self-destruct, and then get back together after a couple of years. It's a really emotional band, man. A lot happened last year, you know. It was a crazy year on a personal level and a business level. A lot of changes in my life for one and a lot of changes in Phil's life. A lot of changes in everybody's life. We're just coping with it and trying to promote the stuff that we do. We're trying to be as diplomatic as we can about it, where it's fair. It is kind of rough because you are shuffling between a bunch of different bands. It's really cool to be out here. That's the one thing I really love about SUPERJOINT — it reflects my favorite period in life on music you know. For me every night to play is a blast."

Bower also spoke of the songwriting process for "A Lethal Dose Of American Hatred", which — like its predecessor, 2002's "Use Once And Destroy" — was recorded and mixed in New Orleans with producer Dave Fortman (ex-UGLY KID JOE guitarist).

"When we really sat down and figured out how many songs we had, we only had like 4 or 5 songs," Bower said. "So we had to produce some more and we had to write, which was no problem. It was a blast. We just got in the 'Lair,' you know — Phil's barn — and knocked it out. I had some stuff that I had done on four track. [Drummer] Joe [Fazzio] had some stuff that he had written. Phil had some stuff he had written. So we all just got together and it came out. We worked a good two months on the pre-production for the album." Read more here.