Ex-Pantera bassist Rex Brown has been a little less present than normal in the rock and metal world over the past few years. His band Kill Devil Hill's last record was in 2013, he's not in Down anymore (and hasn't been since 2011), and the last we heard of Brown was one bass track on Metal Allegiance's 2015 album.
In a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Brown says his absence is due to taking some time off from music to be a dad, and in the process he happened to rediscover his love of music again.
"I went to Nashville last summer, and I have this good friend who sits in his bedroom and writes incredible stuff. I'd found this tape with about 80 different riffs, so we started piecing together these songs. I've been going back and forth to Nashville from maybe last September. I think the longest I was there was 11 days, getting a feel for the band. I'm enjoying playing music again — and that took a while."
Brown says his solo record is inspired by 1970's rock and roll, and he's going to sing on it!
"It's a rock and roll record. It's not your standard fare or typical metal thing. I was always a big Zeppelin fan and even though it has its little fringes of it… It's a new journey that sounds like anywhere from Foghat to old Tom Waits. I'm a child of the 70s and I love those kind of songs. At this point I've hit every goddamned peak and valley that you want to hit. As an artist I don't want to be looked on as 'just that bass player from Pantera.'"
There are other things in life that I want to do, and this is one of them. It's not just a fluke — we already have enough material for the next two, possibly three, records. I'm doing a solo record, I'm fucking singing on it and you're gonna dig it!"
To the best of my knowledge, Brown hasn't ever sung on a record, though he did play acoustic guitar on Crowbar's 2005 album Lifesblood for the Downtrodden.
