Hard Reign

“We had other songs, but I think we chose the ones which did show our diversity and did jump amongst the many eras of COC and kind of had a little bit of all of it in there, because that’s us – we lived through it, we’ve done the touring with so many different kinds of bands, and we just like to showcase the fact that we’re Corrosion Of Conformity and we can do it. It’s right there in the name of the band!” laughs founding guitarist Woody Weatherman on the eve of only their second ever Australian jaunt (after supporting metal titans Pantera back in 2001). “It’s just like, ‘Let’s go!’

“For years everybody’s always tossed out genres and sub-genres where we fit. Early on we were either hardcore or some hardcore crossover, and then we were punk rock and thrash metal and sludge metal. So many names have been tossed at us like doom and speed metal, and in fairness we’ve broached a lot of those styles at various times on different records. If people haven’t heard about Corrosion and ask about the band I usually just tell them I play in a ‘rock band’ – I keep it open, because you don’t want to limit yourself or paint yourself into a corner. I appreciate all the various sub-genres and that kind of shit, but I don’t really fly by those flags – all of the guys in the band just like to do what we do, and don’t want to be pigeonholed too much.”

In 2006 Corrosion Of Conformity took a break for a few years, and upon reforming they’d reverted from a quartet to a three-piece (the same trio from 1985 sophomore album Animosity) with frontman Pepper Keenan staying on as guitarist with metal supergroup Down.

“Pepper’s our bud – we’re not estranged, there’s no weird feud or anything like that,” Weatherman explains. “I think there will probably be a time – sooner rather than later – when we’ll consider doing some more four-piece stuff. He’s our buddy and we talk all the time, and we’ve had the pleasure over the last two or three years of sharing the stage with Down, and every time we did that he’d come up and we’d play songs together. That foreshadows what will probably happen in the future – we’d probably be jamming together and writing music already if we didn’t have literally a thousand miles between us – he’s down in Louisiana while our band’s based in North Carolina. So there’s a bit of distance there, but it’s just a matter of getting schedules sorted out – I think the time will come when everybody will be itching to play those songs again that we’re not playing now, and hopefully we’ll write some more songs as a four-piece. It’ll be fun.”