Corrosion of Conformity

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY have been forced by Hurricane Katrina to postpone their scheduled U.K. tour dates and European tour with Motorhead. A New Orleans resident, C.O.C. lead vocalist/guitarist Pepper Keenan evacuated the city with his family, leaving behind his house and Magazine Street bar, Le Bon Temps Roulé. Keenan and his family are staying temporarily in Lake Charles, Louisiana and awaiting word on when they will be able to return home.

"It wouldn't feel right standing on stage singing songs at a time like this," Keenan says. "My priority right now is to get back home and help rebuild my city."

C.O.C. 's latest album, In The Arms Of God, struck a powerful chord in the hard rock world, with Billboard praising it as a "riff-fueled set that ranks with [the band's] best work" and Rolling Stone honoring it with a 3.5-star review. Keenan, guitarist/vocalist Woody Weatherman and bass guitarist/vocalist Mike Dean were joined on the album by special guest drummer Stanton Moore, a member of the highly respected, New Orleans-based jazz/funk band Galactic. Moore is a longtime friend of Keenan's and also a Crescent City native.

Written last year, the album's fifth song, "Rise River Rise," sounds eerily prescient in the wake of Katrina: "I remember you, seems like yesterday/Do you remember me? I got lost on the way/Wrong muddy road is nothing new/We stand, but this river's washing through/River rise from teardrops without warning/Float away while flooding yesterday/I'm gone I won't be back by mourning/So rise river rise/Wash this place away/Clean my dirty soul/So I can save it for Judgment Day."

Living two blocks from the Mississippi in the city's Carrollton section, Keenan often walked along the levee and contemplated what would happen if the river overflowed. He found out last month. As the storm approached, Keenan boarded up his bar, his mother's house and the house of his friend, jazz drummer Johnny Vidakovich. By the time Keenan got back to his own home, the wind was howling. It was time to go. He grabbed a duffel bag of clothes, the Grammy medal C.O.C. earned when their song "Drowning in a Daydream" off Wiseblood was nominated for Best Metal Performance in 1997, and his old National resonator guitar before joining the exodus in his truck. He has visited the city briefly since the flood; while his house and bar are still standing, the bar was shot at and looted. Meanwhile, the area remains without power, sewer or running water.

"There are a lot of songs in this experience, that's for damn sure, " Keenan says.

C.O.C. plan to tour again in support of In The Arms Of God, this time opening for metal titans Disturbed.