Crowbar Bio

Personifying heavy is a simple way of describing the wall of sound that the band smothers its listeners with. Kirk defines his meaning of heavy, "Well, we tune down to B, and on some of the songs we drop tune to A. Something that is heavy doesn't have to be fast or over-driven. Take BLACK SABBATH for instance. I think that one of the heaviest songs they have is Solitude off of "Masters Of Reality". It has a clean guitar sound and a mellow feel, but it's real dark. To me, that's a lot heavier than some speed metal band playing ten thousand riffs a minute. I'm not saying that's not heavy, but it's just the feel of it. One of the newer bands that has the heaviest shit out right now is TYPE O NEGATIVE. Even though they use keyboards and the vocals are mellow, the mood they create is heavy as fuck! A heavy sound doesn't come from an amp or whatever, it comes from your feelings."



CROWBAR formed in 1989 out of the ashes of The Slugs which featured Kirk and drummer Jimmy Bower (also the guitarist for EYEHATEGOD). They recruited Todd and guitarist Kevin Noonan, forming the first incarnation of CROWBAR. Jimmy left New Orleans and was replaced by Craig Nunenmacher. The band recorded their debut "Obedience Thru Suffering" for an independent label in 1992. (This once hard-to-find gem was later re-released by Pavement Music in late '95). In 1993, Matt Thomas joined the group replacing Noonan, and they signed with Pavement Music. That October they released what Kirk refers to as "our first real album", thus their decision to title it "Crowbar". This album has sold over 100,000 units world-wide and was produced by PANTERA vocalist Philip Anselmo. Matt reveals, "Phil was an obvious choice for our producer. We've all been hangin' out for years. So, he's been familiar with CROWBAR's sound since we started. I played in a local metal band with him for two or three years when we were younger. He's a talented musician, he has a great ear and he knows what's going on in the music business. Most producers will come in and try to change a band into what the market has already accepted, we didn't want that. Phil new what we were trying to do."



In March of '94, CROWBAR released their live EP "Live + 1". It was recorded during a show at the New Orleans Music Hall and features live songs from "Crowbar" and a bonus studio track Numb Sensitive (which was re-recorded for "Time Heals Nothing"). 1995's release "Time Heals Nothing" showed a markedly progressed songwriting style. According to Kirk, "There are a couple of songs on the record that are unlike anything we've done before. I "sing" on a couple of the songs and I'm surprised by the way it turned out, it sounds real good. We just wanted to progress, to make our fast aggressive shit to be faster, heavier and more aggressive, and we wanted the slow stuff to be slower and more melodic. Kirk continues, "We had more time to prepare for this album. Our playing became a lot tighter and we became better musicians. We learned a lot more about the studio. "Time Heals Nothing" is much brighter and cleaner sounding than our last record. It sounds better when the kids blast it on their stereo. Our main goal was to grow as a band and write better songs than last time. I think we did.



Right after the recording of "Time Heals Nothing", Craig had informed the band he wanted to play music with his brother, Stevie Blaze of LILLIAN AXE. Jimmy had been living back in New Orleans for a couple of years and CROWBAR asked him if he wanted his old job back. Jimmy said "of course", and so, they were reunited with their original band mate. Kirk comments, "Jimmy definitely adds something new to the band. We have some new songs that we wrote with him and they're a lot heavier and more like our original style."



CROWBAR's career has been nurtured by its large and loyal fan base, support from rock critics around the globe, MTV's Headbangers Ball (R.I.P.), Beavis & Butt-Head, MTV Europe & MTV Latino, local video shows, Battlecade Extreme Fighting Soundtrack, European tours including PARADISE LOST and most recently NAPALM DEATH and five full US tours, most notably, the sold-out theater tour with PANTERA. When not busy with their respective groups, Kirk, Todd, Jimmy, Phil Anselmo, and Pepper Keenan of COC are members of the band DOWN. Matt Thomas also contributed his production skills to this project. This long awaited album entitled "NOLA" was released in late '95 for Elektra Records in which the band completed a short but successful US tour.