Thrashpit: Given that so much time has passed, what is it about Down that keeps you coming back time after time?

Jimmy: Everybody in the band is like a best friend of mine, ya know? You get to travel all around the world and do stupid sh*t with them. I couldn't ask for anything else! I'm touring with my best friends and it's like my family. Download Festival in 2006 was insane. There was like 80,000 people. The most I had ever played in front of before that was when I played with Pantera on a New Year's Eve show a couple years back---that one had like 25,000 people. I thought that was a lot of people, but Download was insane. It was a monumental moment for the band, to prove we could do something like that and pull it off and still be Down.

Thrashpit: There's an old saying that the musician is his own best critic. With this in mind, what is your favorite song on III and why?

Jimmy: I got two. I like "N.O.D." just for the pure straight-up savageness of it, and "Nothing in Return," which is really cool and has this great vibe to it. The lyrics mean a lot and hopefully it will be what you call a single. It definitely sounds like it could be a radio song.

Thrashpit: I find myself intrigued by the album artwork for III in a way I haven't been with earlier covers. Can you tell me what (if anything) the artwork on the cover signifies?

Jimmy: The album is called "Three Suns and One Star." It isn't written on there. It has this dark, strange theme. I'd call it Masonic. That's all I can really say about it [laughs].

Thrashpit: Onto some more general questions. You've not only played in Down, but a slew of other bands including Eyehategod, Sourvein, Crowbar, Superjoint Ritual, Debris Inc., and more. How do you approach your work with Down differently from some of these other acts?

Jimmy: Down is more of a swing thing. With that one, we kind of all got into the same heavy music together---stuff like Witchfinder General, Sabbath, and St. Vitus. We all got into that together, so when we jam it's like that vibe ya know? It is that same interest which got us into this music in the first place. With say Eyehategod, it is a whole different vibe. You have to turn that one on or off. You just do that. Generally if I get a couple of days of practice in I'm all good. It is hard remembering all the songs though [laughs].

Thrashpit: Many of the aforementioned bands you've played in (including Down) are part of a distinctly "Southern" brand of heavy metal. What impact do you think you've personally had on that scene and its style of music?

Jimmy: I was really in to Sabbath and Skynyrd, so I think with Eyehategod and The Mystick Krewe of Clearlight we really fused those two together. People call that "Southern Metal"---man, that sh*t was around way before I was! So, anything anybody says is to me nothing but flattery. I think we have lots of blues elements in my bands and lots of bending strings in the guitars and techniques like that. It is just a real groove like feeling. Going down into New Orleans you have something like Mardi gras, right? I remember when I was a kid I'd go see the parades and there would be these marching bands just really getting into it. The drums from that used to blow me away and it was really HEAVY man. Those things you feel when you're young you should keep when you're older and use to your advantage. I guess it's just a little funk with some love for Lynrd Skynrd, country music, and Sabbath. That's the New Orleans sound. You go any year and you see these high school bands that get down and dance and groove and its total heavy energy. It's really cool stuff.

Thrashpit: Down is forever linked to New Orleans, LA. The horrible tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 still affects that city and many others today. How do you feel about this, and how can the people in areas hurt by the storm rebuild their lives?

Jimmy: The one thing that really upsets me about Katrina is the displaced people who didn't want to be displaced. Mandatory evacuations are mandatory, but some people just couldn't make it out of there. Some people didn't have cars. A friend of ours who used to sing for Soilent Green passed away because he and his mom didn't want to leave the house without their dogs. The Fire Department was like "you can't leave with your dogs." They wanted to stay with them then, and they drowned. They died! A lot of the culture of the New Orleans got pushed out when the city was evacuated, and now it can't just come back. Either they've gotten a taste of a better life or financially they just can't make it back. You can kind of feel it in the city if you're real familiar with it. There are certain people that aren't there. Obviously, it is coming back. But a lot of that deep-rooted culture---something some people elsewhere just might pass off as ignorance---is gone now. That was one thing that New Orleans has always prided itself on---being the only city of its kind in the United States. There was 12 feet of water over my dad's house. We just had to redo the insulation. It sucked but you can't let something like that bum you out forever. A lot of people reached out and donated money so that was cool too. I do remember watching stuff back then on TV and crying like a baby. Stuff like "my baby's got no formula" or "my mother's got no insulin for her diabetes." As a human being, things like that should bother us. It's some heavy sh*t man.

Thrashpit: A lot of drastic changes have taken place in the world since the last Down album prior to this one. What do you think is different about the world now as opposed to then?

Jimmy: The world's changed a lot. I think we're more f*cked then we were before! It is pretty much a slow, inevitable demise. Our economy sucks for example. Not to sound like a hippie, but it would be cool if everyone could just chill out and just be cool. Love is a big word, a great emotion. Not enough people feel it. There are so many kids today growing up with guns. When I was 15, a Dio or an Iron Maiden record were the worst weapons I had! A lot of things have changed nowadays.

Thrashpit: Both Down and many of your bands (particularly Eyehategod) deal extensively with the subject of substance abuse. What are the most important things you've learned about alcohol and drugs over the years?

Jimmy: You don't need drugs to be yourself. It took me years to figure that one out. It is sad how kids get mixed up in the drugs. It all starts at home---if you're looking for drugs or doing drugs, you're looking for something you never got, a feeling you never got. If people nowadays gave their kids that sense of love when they're young, maybe they wouldn't find it in a tinfoil bag of drugs or a bunch of pills. If you know what love is, you probably have it. I don't regret all those years with drugs---it was a great learning experience---but I can write great music when I'm not loaded on them as well. My playing now is like night-and-day different since getting clean. I'm more focused and better at getting things started too.

Thrashpit: What are some of the bands/artists who inspired you growing up to play music like you do now?

Jimmy: Hank Williams Jr., David Allan Coe, KISS. I grew up a metal man but my dad liked country so I had that influence on me too. When I was 18 I was moving to San Francisco and before that I'd never been a big Sabbath fan. I was an Ozzy fan, but not a Sabbath fan. This one day I was up in the mountains out there with my volume way up in my car and I was just smoking this big joint and it hit me. I got it. It was like this light piercing into my mind---I knew right then that Black Sabbath was the baddest band ever. It was "Wheels of Confusion" and I was just cruising along and I had it then and there, just like that. I've never turned back bro.

Thrashpit: How about today's scene---are there any bands out there that you think people should know about?

Jimmy: I love Electric Wizard and I think they're great. Actually, a lot of those English doom bands are good. I like Sweden's Witchcraft too. I like Hank III of course. Oh, and Om, those dudes who used to be in Sleep. I saw them in Frisco and it was just fantastic---they're a great band. It was insane. That name is perfect for what they do!

Thrashpit: Seeing as I am an internet journalist, I just have to ask---how do you feel the internet has impacted the music world as we know it today?

Jimmy: We've seen record sales go down tremendously to a point where it is hard to sell records these days as people can just rip it. Fair enough, if you're got a jar of cookies, the kid is gonna take those f*cking cookies. That's what's going on with the internet now. I think it has made the live performance that much more popular. I don't understand it though. When I was a kid, buying a record was like something you did---you know, you could go camping or see a movie or get some ice cream or go for a bike ride or buy a record. It was such a big part of my life growing up! With that in mind, it is a bit hard for me to understand why a kid would just rip it with no artwork or sitting down in their room reading over the lyrics. I just hope in the future they figure out some way for people to recapture that vibe.

Thrashpit: A lot of people reading this at home might not get to see you guys live any time in the near future. For those missing out, how would you say the typical Down concert plays out?

Jimmy: It's a concert man! We're very energetic and you're not just gonna see a band play for 40 minutes and then take off. We play a movie before our set and it has a bunch of different bands that have influenced us interspersed with some tour footage of us. The film sets the vibe, and then we just play, and it's like this big evening with nothing but Down.

Thrashpit: Last Question! What can we expect from Down in the future?

Jimmy: We hope to still be jamming. We all say this is a band we want to grow old in. Not that we're not old now [laughs]! Seriously though, this is something we want to continue with. We've got it man. I think the things Down can do are a lot of things we haven't even tapped into yet. To have the chemistry that we do, and to know those things, and have the outlook on our future we do, is nothing but a positive thing, especially considering the past. We're going to Europe in March and we're going to try to put together a package for America this summer. Eventually we'd like to do an acoustic record, and very soon another regular record. It's a real band now, everybody's main focus. With that in mind, it makes everything smooth and flow a lot better.

Thrashpit: Anything else you'd like to add?

Jimmy: If you haven't heard the new stuff yet, go pick up the record and check us out. The artwork is cool and the lyrics are really meaningful. Just spread the word about the band, we appreciate it. Come to our shows and we'll rock your ass out. That's all I got man!

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