INTERVIEW: C.J. Pierce on Drowning Pool’s reemergence with singer Ryan McCombs
Photo: Drowning Pool are currently touring with Saliva, Adelitas Way and Any Given Sin. Photo courtesy of the band / Provided by official site.
Drowning Pool, the hard rockers behind the hit song “Bodies,” are back on tour and ready to party with their many, many fans. This time around, the band has brought back singer Ryan McCombs to enjoy some of the fun. He joins guitarist C.J. Pierce, bassist Stevie Benton and Mike Luce on drums. Together the four guys are heading out on the SNAFU Le Tour 2023 with Saliva, Adelitas Way and Any Given Sin. Gigs run now through Oct. 27 across the United States.
“This has been awesome,” Pierce said in a recent phone interview. “It’s been a crazy, fun year for us. We’ve got Ryan McCombs back in the band singing with us, and it’s been fun because we did two really great records with him [Full Circle and Drowning Pool]. There are songs on those records that we hadn’t played live before. … [They’ll be] mixed in, of course, with all the Drowning Pool songs that you want to hear, all your favorites, all your hits, still playing those, too. But it’s been fun and exciting to redo the set list, and we have so many songs to choose from. We plan on swapping stuff out nightly, so you’re not going to get the exact same show every night, if you will. Kind of doing a Grateful Dead thing, where we don’t know what we’re going to play, but we’re going to play all your favorites.”
When McCombs rejoined Drowning Pool earlier this year — after the band’s multi-year stint with vocalist Jason Moreno came to an end — the newly formed quartet started jamming on old tunes. Pierce remembers one of the first rehearsals when Luce started playing the drums on a song called “Let the Sin Begin,” which the band hadn’t played in 13 years.
“I was just getting my guitar out of the case,” he said. “I didn’t even tune it up or anything, and Mike just started playing the drum beat for it. Ryan starts singing it. Oh shit, here we go. We literally jumped into it like that. It’s retouching some songs from a while back. But it’s stuff that we wrote; you play it once or twice, and it’s, oh yeah, that’s what we did right here. It’s been fun. We have had several different singers in the past, but we stay up on all the songs musically.”
Drowning Pool tragically lost their original lead vocalist Dave Williams more than two decades ago, but the rock band has soldiered on with other singers, still bringing their beloved tunes to fans around the world. For Pierce, it’s all about the fun of being on stage and being with his brothers in the band.
“There’s a lot of time Mike and Stevie and myself go in the room, and us three just jam and sing all the songs together,” he said. “It’s been fun, dude. It’s just been absolute straight pure fun, and you’ll see that come out on stage when the band is having a good time together. On top of that, with Saliva, we’ve been friends with them for years and toured with them off and on, and Adelitas Way as well. They did some shows with us early this year, so it’s cool when you have a tour and all the bands know each other and are all friends. You see that at this show.”
The band’s last album was the well-received Strike a Nerve, which came out in 2022, and they have been playing a few tunes off the recording, including the title track and “A Devil More Damned.” In fact, the song “Strike a Nerve” made its way into the set list before the band even finished recording it for the album, so they knew they had a solid track on their hands.
“People had picked up on it big time before we even finished the song,” Pierce said. “They were already singing along to it; that’s how we knew that was going to be a strong song on that record.”
After Moreno left the band, Drowning Pool tried to continue as a three-piece, and they actually performed a few times earlier this year in that new grouping. But then they had a bunch of festival appearances coming up, including a huge gig with the new incarnation of Pantera. That’s when McCombs received the call.
“It was Stevie Benton, our bass player, that said, ‘Hey, why don’t we hit up Ryan and have him come out for like a reunion run? We can do a couple of shows,’” Pierce said. “We hit up Ryan, and he’s like, ‘Hell yeah, man, I’ll do this.’ And, dude, that show we played with Pantera was f—ing amazing. I don’t know if anybody has seen that set yet, but they’re killing it. They nailed it, but, yeah, that’s how it came into the fold, man. And now here we are rock ‘n’ rolling again like we didn’t skip a beat.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Drowning Pool are currently touring with Saliva, Adelitas Way and Any Given Sin on the SNAFU Le Tour 2023. Click here for more information and tickets.
