Room Thirteen recently caught up with one of Corrosion of Conformity's founder members, bassist/vocalist Mike Dean on the evening of the band's gig at Camden Underworld.

R13:: How's the tour going so far?
MD: The tour's going nicely. We started off with an unusual festival, Roadburn in Tilburg, with an interesting line-up. The only thing I regret about that was that we had to move on to out next show. There probably would have been about 20 more bands at the festival I would have liked to have seen...like Voivod.
R13: It was a shame about Piggy (Voivod guitarist) passing away
MD: Yeah, that was terrible, but I think it kind of brought Blacky back into the band.

R13: You're currently on tour with your original line-up, what made you decide to go on the road as a 3 piece?
MD: We actually were trying to arrange it as a four piece, and Pepper had suggested we do some festivals, including last summer's High Voltage. And then he was kind of, not in contact, and we didn't know what was going on, and then Down ended up doing it. Same thing with Hellfest. We thought "well, maybe we should not be waiting on him all the time and go do some things ourselves." We started the band originally so...
Reed Mullin: Sure did!
MD: Basically, we're open to doing stuff with Pep.
R13: Regarding Pepper, does it annoy you that he spends so much time with Down leaving you at somewhat of a loose end regarding COC?
MD: Maybe a little bit. It's perfectly understandable if you're looking at things in terms of economics. It's understandable...I guess (laughs). Depends what floats your boat and who you wanna hang out with! (laughs). I anticipate we're gonna do another record with Pepper. It's a question of 'when' not so much 'if'.
R13: Does the Down situation benefit you at all regarding publicity?
MD: That's hard to call. I don't know, perhaps. It really only benefits us if he's actively participating in the line-up.

R13: Reed Mullin is back in the line-up on drums after a pretty long absence, how did that come about?
MD: Well, Reed invited me to his wedding, so I showed up. That was the first time I'd seen him in a while. A couple more years went by and he mentioned he was playing with a guitar player and was looking to start a band and he asked did I wanna come and play. So we started this other band we have now- 'Righteous Fool'.. It's another power trio type band. That was the first time I'd played with Reed in a long time and, y'know, it was clicking pretty nicely and, last we'd heard Pepper had said we should do these festivals (High Voltage, Hellfest), so we talked Woody into that and, when that didn't happen, we decided to proceed with the 3 piece. I really missed playing with Reed, I think he's a really neat drummer. It's great to be back with him. Having the original 3 of us.

R13: You mentioned Righteous Fool, which features 2/3rds of the original COC line-up (Mike Dean on bass , Reed Mullin on drums along with Jason Browning on guitar), how's that going?
MD: It's been going well. We did a run of shows with Clutch and I like their audience; they're really open to new things. We got a good reception, which bodes well for any breaks in the schedule of COC. We just started recording a Righteous Fool LP, which should be out soon. We're at about the same place with the Righteous Fool recording as we are with COC where we have everything down but the vocals.

R13: You seem to divide opinion regarding the two very different incarnations of the band, with many people liking one line-up and hating the other. Does this bother you at all?
MD: It doesn't bother me; it's just part of the landscape. I did get a kick out of last night in Bristol -There were some stern characters in Down shirts who ended up coming up and congratulating us on a good gig. That was good. If it doesn't go that way then, y'know, everyone has their opinions and sometimes those opinions are already decided, and there's not much you can do about it...Bastards! (laughs)

R13: You're playing Hellfest in France along with Down later this year. Will your performance involve Pepper at all?
MD: We asked pepper if he wanted to play a couple of songs on our set, so we'll see what comes of that. I think the initial response was favourable, but I can't guarantee anything's gonna happen. It's been put out there and it wasn't summarily rejected (laughs), so we'll see. Stay tuned!

R13: The three of you have been writing some new COC material lately, how's that coming along?
MD: It's coming along, coming to fruition. Last summer when we put this together we played some gigs in the States as a 3 piece for the first time in 20-something years. We didn't wanna be another one of these old washed up, nostalgia type of acts going out there without anything new, so we started coming up with some new material with the idea of putting out an album. We actually released a single so as to have something new out there. That was the start of it.
R13: (As traffic warden slaps something yellow on the band's van) I think you just got a parking ticket.
MD: Oh, really? Alright! What a great guy...awesome! Anyway... earlier in the year we started recording and we basically have a full-length album, all the basic tracks. Basically, what we need to do is the vocals and the mix, and then we're done. We're thinking the month of May. We're not working with any label; we're gonna shop a finished product and let people make an offer. We're thinking by October we should have something out.
R13: Will this be a return to your hardcore roots, or a mix of all that you've done?
MD: It's a mix of everything, but with an emphasis on, sort of, picking up where we left of at that point; Animosity, Technocracy. From there we'll mix it with a little of everything that we've done and that interests us. It's not contrived, not a calculated rendition of that idea. I think it'll be surprising, but it'll make sense. It'll be COC.

R13: You were involved in Dave Grohl's Probot project and contributed the track 'Access Babylon'. Is Dave a COC fan?
MD: He's a COC fan and he's grateful that, when he was a kid, before he was even in Scream, and well before he was in Nirvana, he was in a band called Dain Bramage in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and, basically, Reed gave him someone's phone number who put out a record so he (Grohl) never forgot that, and also I think he was a fan of Mullin's playing at the time. So, consequentially, when he was reaching out to different people for the Probot project, he reached out to us.
That track (Access Babylon) just fell together. Dave sent me some music and I wrote some lyrics in about half an hour. I worked on it and then went into his studio and in another half hour had it recorded and sent it back to him. That guitar noise is Bubba Dupree who used to play in a D.C. band called Void who were really influential to us. I'm not sure if anyone in the UK or Europe has really heard of them, but they were pretty amazing. One of the better D.C. hardcore bands, with a hint of metal and total chaos. Also, we just did our recording at Grohl's studio in LA and it's a nice facility, modelled after the room where he recorded the drums for Nirvana's Nevermind. There aren't many recording faciltities like that left y'know, since the average consumer doesn't really pay for music they can no longer really support that kind of production structure.

R13: That's about it for my questions, unless there's anything you'd like to get off your chest...
MD: (Laughs) Nah, I don't really have an agenda at this time. I should be more prepared.
R13:Thanks for giving up your time and good luck with the rest of the tour.

Corrosion Of Conformity are currently on tour with the original, three-piece line-up