REBEL MEETS REBEL: JAMEY JASTA INTERVIEWS KIRK WINDSTEIN
Hatebreed’s vocalist chews the fat with the Crowbar/Down sludgemeister turned Kingdom of Sorrow cronie.
By Jon Wiederhorn
Illustration by Robin Eley
Given that their bond developed over years of heavy drinking and goofing around backstage, it’s not too surprising that neither Hatebreed singer Jamey Jasta nor Down guitarist and Crowbar frontman Kirk Windstein take the idea of interviewing one another terribly seriously. In fact, they end up talking about pretty much everything—drunken misadventures, random acts of violence, celebrities they’d like to bang—except their side project Kingdom of Sorrow. Two minutes into the phone call it’s clear these guys are total bros, and they probably hooked up ahead of time to come up with good one-liners and discuss the non-music-related path their conversation would take. Fortunately, Revolver had the foresight to talk with both jesters in advance about the history of their friendship and the creation of Kingdom of Sorrow’s bruising self-titled debut.
12 years ago, Jasta and Windstein’s relationship was one of devoted fan and hard-working musician. At the time, Crowbar were touring for their third album, Time Heals Nothing, and Hatebreed had just released their first demo. Since his band’s meager T-shirt sales weren’t covering the rent, Jasta was earning extra bread booking hardcore and death-metal shows at clubs in Connecticut. When Crowbar and Napalm Death came through town, he paid out of pocket to book the gig just so he could open for Crowbar, one of his favorite bands. “We were unsigned, and I thought it would be good exposure for us, but I also wanted to hang out with Kirk,” Jasta explains.
“When we played that show, I didn’t know who the fuck Hatebreed were,” admits Windstein. “But when I heard them, I went, Jesus, they’re badass. This fucker’s good.”
Over the next few years, Jasta caught Crowbar every time they came through Connecticut and booked whatever shows he could for them, and the two musicians forged a genuine friendship—to the point where Jasta would often hop in the Crowbar van after shows and travel with them for a couple of debauched days.
Jasta’s obsession with Windstein’s group is a little perplexing. He grew up a hardcore kid and has always performed fast, energized songs influenced by the likes of Slayer and Sick of It All; by comparison, the down-tuned sludge of Crowbar seems a touch—well, slow.
“They were doomy, yeah, but they also had a hardcore influence,” Jasta says of Windstein’s band, which will celebrate its 20th birthday next year. “They listened to Biohazard and Carnivore and had a sound of their own. Plus, they were so down to earth. When I first met Kirk I didn’t expect someone who had been on Headbangers Ball and Beavis and Butt-head to be so normal and cool.”
When Hatebreed started taking off in the late ’90s, Jasta was frequently on the road when Windstein passed though town, but the two rekindled their friendship on Ozzfest 2002 when Hatebreed opened for second-stage headliners Down. In fact, they had such a good time that Down were put on probation (more on that later), and afterwards they vowed to tour together again when Crowbar returned to the road.
They got that chance in 2005 after Crowbar released Lifesblood for the Downtrodden and Hatebreed were at the tail end of touring for 2003’s The Rise of Brutality. The subsequent Brutality in the UK tour set the stage for Kingdom of Sorrow, but in the beginning at least, the collaboration was merely an idea they’d bring up after too many beers and not enough sleep. “Back then we were drinking all day, every day,” Jasta says. “I’d drag him to my interviews and radio shows and we’d boast to the UK press about doing this thing together. And these days, stuff spreads so quickly with the Internet. I wasn’t home from the tour a week and everyone’s emailing me asking, ‘Are you and Kirk really going to do a band together?’ People were calling it Crowbreed and Hatebar.”
Enthused by the response, Jasta and Windstein decided to start working on Kingdom of Sorrow right away, since both of their main bands were taking a break. So, on May 2, 2005, Windstein flew to Connecticut to start jamming with Jasta and some of his friends at a space above one of his friend’s parents’ garages.
“We were partying so hard that the partying kind of came before the actual music,” Jasta explains. “We were just going crazy and having a good time, and we thought, Oh, we’ll just send these songs to some mixer and it’s gonna be this killer live jam kind of record. But then we went home and listened to the recordings, and we were like, ‘Dude, we can’t release this.’”
Realizing that the nine songs they’d written didn’t match their inebriated enthusiasm, the musicians put the project on hold and Windstein started working again with Crowbar and making plans with his bandmates in Down. Then Hurricane Katrina hit. Crowbar’s band room was flooded and Windstein, like most New Orleans residents, was temporarily homeless. So he flew back to Connecticut to take a second stab at Kingdom of Sorrow. By that time, Jasta had sobered up, and the two musicians became much more serious about the project. They recruited drummer Derek Kerswill (Seemless, Unearth) and booked studio time with Zeuss (Hatebreed, Shadows Fall).
“That’s when we really found what we wanted,” Windstein says. “We kind of developed our own sound that wasn’t Crowbar or Hatebreed, but was really cool. And I think we made a very strong, very heavy record that’s gonna surprise a lot of people.”
What’s most surprising about Kingdom of Sorrow is how smoothly it blends together Jasta and Windstein’s disparate worlds: Anvil-heavy Sabbathian passages intertwine with aggro-punk riffing, and the vocals for a thicket of near-tender singing, Anselmo-style howls, and pugnacious hardcore rants.
As tight as Kingdom of Sorrow (Relapse) became musically during the session with Zeuss, Jasta and Windstein became even tighter as friends. In the past they’d go months without talking; now they keep in touch like close family members. “It’s not unusual for me and him to get on the phone and talk for three hours,” Windstein says. “We’re like two teenage girls or something.”
Or maybe teenage boys, judging from Jasta and Windstein’s sophomoric sense of humor. During their 60-minute conversation they mention Kingdom a mere three times, preferring instead to joke about Kiss, non-alcoholic beverages, how totally hot chicks fall for deadbeat musicians, and Jasta’s undying love for Britney Spears.
JAMEY JASTA Let’s start by talking about Ace Frehley.
KIRK WINDSTEIN Sounds good to me. Have you seen my T-shirt online?
JASTA No, I haven’t.
WINDSTEIN Every night I wear a T-shirt that says “Ace Frehley ruined my life,” because if it weren’t for Ace I wouldn’t have picked up the guitar or a cold beer or probably gotten into any of the trouble I’ve gotten into in my 85 years of life so far.
JASTA The “ruined my life” thing isn’t because Ace refused to guest on the Kingdom of Sorrow record, right?
WINDSTEIN No, I mean it in a good way. I hope his people don’t take it negative.
JASTA Yeah, I mean it kinda sucked that he wouldn’t be on our record, but I just tell everyone it wasn’t Ace’s decision. It was his manager, and she just didn’t like us.
WINDSTEIN She probably hated both of us and didn’t tell Ace. I guess we were fucked from the beginning.
JASTA Dude, when we were doing preproduction for Kingdom of Sorrow, do you remember we drove in a drunken stupor down the Merritt Parkway to the area where Ace crashed his car?
WINDSTEIN Yeah, I heard that when that happened he was popping Valium and one got stuck in his makeup. And he was tanked out of his brain and he got off the freeway the wrong way. We wanted to see where that happened, but on this particular night you were behind the wheel, and you could have easily mimicked Ace’s accident. This was back in, like, June of 2005 though. Now, you’ve been sober for two and a half years or so, but back then we were partying pretty heavily.
JASTA Have you ever done anything Ace Frehley–like onstage—say, pour out the O’Douls and fill it with Becks or Coors Light?
WINDSTEIN To be honest, I’ll just guzzle O’Douls, but if want a real one, I’ll crack it and guzzle that as well. Sometimes I’ll double-fist—half fake, half real. That hybrid mixture helps me if I want to slow down.
JASTA It’s too bad they don’t make a non-alcoholic vodka, ’cause then I would be more keen to stay sober.
WINDSTEIN The sodium will make your gut burst into flames like the Hindenburg on the Jersey Shore and you may die from salt intake, but virgin bloody marys are damn good.
JASTA I agree, but what if you want to pound straight vodka and have the taste of vodka, but not have it be vodka…
WINDSTEIN No, they don’t make that.
JASTA Yeah, well, I might have to go with a virgin bloody on my flight to Germany later today, but you’re right, the sodium can turn your face into a balloon.
WINDSTEIN The last time I did that, my head looked like the Superdome with eyes. Even though I was well below 200 pounds. That old sodium will get you.
JASTA I hear you. I think at my highest real bloody mary intake I was probably 203, and now I’m back to a lean, mean 174.
WINDSTEIN I tell you what, that’s damn good. For me, to be in the 195 range is literally the parting of the Red Sea or something, being that my all-time high was like 260. That was back when I ate three Red Baron pizzas and drank 20 beers a day and just lay on the couch and didn’t do anything.
JASTA Dude, when we did Ozzfest 2002—Hatebreed and Down—do you remember, on the first night of the tour, we got all these flavors of Ben & Jerry's that we had in the refrigerator? And at about two in the morning, [Down drummer Jimmy] Bower and [singer Phil] Anselmo come over and go, “Do you have anything sweet?” And they walk up and look in the fridge and they’re like, “Is that cookie dough!!?” I thought that was fuckin’ hilarious. So, what would be your dessert of choice?
WINDSTEIN I like cheesecake, and I’ll eat apple pie or pumpkin pie around the holidays. But I’m the type of cat who doesn’t want ice cream. I’ll order two large pizzas and 27 hot wings and just devour them. I’m more of a salt guy than a sweet-type guy.
JASTA So [laughing], do you remember on Ozzfest when you smacked up the guy from Adema?
WINDSTEIN Yeah, the singer [Mark Chavez] was [Korn singer] Jonathan Davis’ half brother, so he thought his dick was 10 feet long and he was tough as fuckin’ nails. He was a drunk-ass and, to be honest, he actually wasn’t a bad guy in hindsight, he was just a bad drunk. We were splitting a bottle of Crown and getting tanked, and he got up and pushed [Down bassist] Rex [Brown], who at the time weighed all of 87 pounds. So, I full-on knocked into him. And his guy tried to stick up for him, which is what you’re supposed to do. But the singer was the one who actually started it, and the other guy was the one I ended up forearming. I had him by the neck and I kicked him and threw him out the door. And it escalated into the Watts riot or something. They were throwing shit at the bus and there were 200 people outside flipping us off. All of security was there and we got put on probation the next day.
JASTA Let’s talk about Crowbar/Hatebreed Brutality Across the UK.
WINDSTEIN That was one of the funnest tours I ever did.
JASTA Remember Ireland? All I’ve got to say is, Irish fans are the best.
WINDSTEIN The first show we did in Dublin was my first time in Ireland, and we played this little bitty pub for 350 people. It was packed to the gills and people were throwing beers from the top balcony. Kids were coming onstage and the mic was busting in my face—if Riddick Bowe hit me with a right hook, my mouth would probably have been in better shape than it was. They tore the cymbals off the fuckin’ drum kit. It was awesome. They were so hyped up.
JASTA In Dublin there’s always a crazy story and the women there are out of control. There was a time we played there on Halloween and this person came up to me with a George Bush mask on and was grabbing at my crotch. I was ready to level this person in the face. And when the mask came up, it was a hot chick.
WINDSTEIN Well, look. I’m all about gayness…well, I’m not all about it, but I have no problem with it, but I guess it’s better that it was a gal.
JASTA Yeah, it was a cute Irish gal and it was a good thing that I didn’t pummel her face. But do you remember Manchester, England? Nile and Dying Fetus were playing two doors down at some little bar. And we went to their after-party.
WINDSTEIN Oh, my god. I tripped more times than Bob Dole during his presidential campaign.
JASTA We got back to the bus and some girl with the biggest tits ever had made a string into a shirt. There was basically a piece of yarn wrapped around her body, and she was drunk as hell. We were trying to get her off the bus and you tried to walk out of the bus shortly thereafter and you literally fell like Chevy Chase as President Ford on Saturday Night Live.
WINDSTEIN Did you see my ass cheeks a week later? They were blacker than Wesley Snipes. The catch of the whole rig was I had a beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other, and after I fell, I kept eating the pizza, took a sip of beer, and never spilled a drop.
JASTA No, and you really hit hard. You shook the whole bus. Your ass hit every step on the way down to the bottom and the beer didn’t so much as have any extra foam. Speaking of Ireland, do you remember attacking [Crowbar bassist Patrick] Bruders like a bear?
WINDSTEIN I went at him with the speed on O.J. Simpson leaving the courtroom.
JASTA I don’t know if you were blacked out or what, but you ran and Gretzky-checked him into the side of the van.
WINDSTEIN Yeah, he was trying to quit [the band] or something.
JASTA He was having a schizoid freakout. And we love Bruders, he rocks. But that was the night that you busted out the phrase, “Settle down, Buster.” And from then on, everyone on the entire tour used the expression when anyone was giving someone else a hard time. And now, even my 9-year-old daughter will say that. Everyone I know says it. A friend of mine, a very nice girl who works for a lot of bands, called me and said, “This guy I’ve been seeing is a jerk-off. He didn’t pay for dinner and I had to pay for the movie.” And I said, “You gotta stop dating these broke Busters.” This is a girl I really like who calls me for relationship advice—why me, I don’t know.
WINDSTEIN That’s pretty ironic—you giving relationship advice. But dude, what honestly amazes me is how all these lovely young ladies get stuck with these guys that sit around the house playing videogames, smoking pot, and beating off all day. Ain’t got a nickel or a name. And these chicks are diving off the goddamn Empire State building to get to them.
JASTA Hey, that’s the beauty of the world we live in. When I was a broke Buster, I was lucky to have the love of the mother of my child, so there you go. She could have been with a number of handsome, very rich, powerful men, and she chose the broke Buster that the Jasta was.
WINDSTEIN That’s kind of the pattern. Same thing with my wife. She’s a nurse. And there’s been some lean times with us, but I love her to death. Anyway, you and I are both hard workers and we’ve made something of ourselves, but I know dudes who literally have to borrow guitar strings because they can’t afford $3.50 for a cheap pack. And these gorgeous women are groveling at their feet.
JASTA We call that regular game—when you don’t have to exert any effort or anything to get laid. I know a guy that’s got such strong regular game that he literally had to siphon gas out of someone else’s car to get to a date with this chick who looked like Jessica Alba. It was unbelievable.
WINDSTEIN Now, Jessica Alba is attractive, but if I were to have a crush on an actress it would be Jessica Biel, dude. [Crowbar] guitarist [Steve] Gibb met Jessica Alba, and he’s like, “Dude, she really is pretty, but she weighs eight pounds.” I like a more athletic build on a gal.
JASTA So you like the fit and toned wide broad-shoulders.
WINDSTEIN Well, since I’m fit and toned with wide, broad shoulders, yeah. I just think Jessica Biel is gorgeous. I watched The Illusionist, and she’s just drop dead.
JASTA Right now, I gotta say I’ve still got love for Britney Spears. I think if her people wanna call my people, we can get her act together.
WINDSTEIN I tell you what, I’d be all about taking her to the damn tattoo shop. She’s very attractive, she’s obviously got an extremely wild streak to her, so let’s…
JASTA Get her sleeved up.
WINDSTEIN Crazier things have happened.
