The music business isn’t fair in many aspects – here’s Drowning Pool’s perspective

The career of Drowning Pool hasn’t quite gone as expected. The band achieved their first platinum record in August of 2001 after their debut album, “Sinner,” exploded into the scene. Its breakthrough hit, “Bodies,” earned a platinum certification in early 2019 and is still a favorite in the nü-metal canon. But in 2002, while on tour, the band’s vocalist Dave Williams died of an unidentified cardiac illness, just as they were starting to gain significant traction. The popularity the band experienced with Williams never came again, even though they would later reassemble and play with vocalists Jason “Gong” Jones, Ryan McCombs, and Jasen Moreno. C.J. Piece, the band’s guitarist and singer, recently took the opportunity to express his sorrow about the struggles the group has had over the years. He was discussing with Brudne Brzmienie how the music industry is moving toward streaming and how this has affected the overall experiences that contemporary music provides.

It’s a love-hate relationship with it. I mean, it’s awesome to have the means to get everything out, and everybody can see everything. It’s all tangible. You can get to anybody’s music no matter how big or how small you are; if you look, you can find everything. So I love that. But I did love the idea of the album, a literal record is tangible, a CD is tangible, something they can hand you, something you can sign and you have it and get in that moment where you put it in and you’re listening to your favorite band. I love those moments, ’cause now you can just flip through 20,000 artists and 20 songs in 20 minutes. I don’t know if you could soak in the full art and idea of a song ’cause you’re not sitting there concentrating as much as, like, ‘Oh, I like this part. I like that.’ It’s just a whole another world, man, to see. It’s never been a fair game, and I play music because I’m passionate about it. I think if anybody’s watching this conversation, they know that. But there’s [a need for musicians to make] money. We all have to pay bills and [pay for] electricity and whatever. But it’s just wild to me. We have [sold], like, seven million records total maybe, with all our records, including the ‘Sinner‘ record, and I’m in a rental car and a rental house, ’cause the music business has not been fair to us in any way, shape or form, man. It’s been wild. But I can’t walk around with that kind of frustration and hate, ’cause it’s gonna take away from just me, who I am, writing a song, although some songs may have reflected that in the past, deeper tracks. I mean, it’s an ever-evolving thing, so it’s never a dull moment. So I’m always curious to see what happens next. So it’s just life. So I’m enjoying the ride

Following their reunion with former frontman Ryan McCombs in 2023, Drowning Pool has been making a resurgence, most notably with the release of the song “Madness.” Additionally, preparations are underway for a 25th anniversary edition of “Sinner.”