Drowning Pool

At the Drowning Pool press conference on Monday (Aug 6), the band spoke about what it meant to meet and hang out with the soldiers in Iraq. "We made a point to get there as early in the day, to each base as early in the day as possible, so that we could go eat lunch with the troops and just spend as much of the day with them as we could" stated frontman Ryan McCombs. "Just hearing the stories, you've got 19 year old kids sitting across the table from you and telling you his experiences over there. And you just realize that this human being is never going to be the same. I mean that's a life changing experience. You fall in love with them. You see the respect and the pride that they have for one another and for what they're doing over there, all of the crap that CNN doesn't show, a lot of the good that's going on over there. The fact that they're bettering the quality of life of the people over there, you don't see that on the news, but they see it, because they're doing it. And you hear the stories and you see that pride and respect in themselves for what they're doing. You can't help, but just really fall head-over-heels for the people over there doing what they're doing."

Drowning Pool's latest album, Full Circle was released on Aug 7. The band is currently getting ready for a US tour where proceeds from the ticket sales will be donated to IAVA. The Gauntlet has your exclusive pre-sale tickets.