Drowning Pool sprout up in the mid-’90s but didn’t gain national exposure until their hit single “Bodies” became one of the biggest hit songs of the summer in 2001.
The Early Days of Drowning Pool
Drowning Pool was formed in Dallas, Texas in 1996 by guitarist C.J. Pierce and drummer Mike Luce. The band took its name from the 1951 novel.
CJ and Mike were originally from New Orleans and had played together for almost a decade before moving to Dallas. CJ told Designer Magazine that New Orleans was a difficult city to get gigs in because bar owners wanted bands to play cover songs and the pair wanted to perform their own original material. They also found it difficult to find like-minded players.
CJ told Just A Rock N Roll Junkie, “Mike moved to Dallas for like 2 years and that’s where he met Stevie. Mike came back to New Orleans and we were looking for a bass player and a singer and Stevie was looking to put a band together as well and it just made sense to move to Dallas in 1996. The music scene was kicking ass with Pantera tearing it up.”
Dave Williams Joins the Band
The band played with a few different frontmen before Dave Williams entered the picture around 1998. Williams was a veteran of the Dallas music scene, having performed with numerous bands for almost a decade.
Drowning Pool’s influences included a broad spectrum of old-school rock bands including Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Ratt, Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses, Skid Row, and Cinderella, as well as Black Sabbath and more current acts at the time, including local heroes, Pantera. There was another band the quartet. Williams revealed to Hip Online in 2001, “I think the one bonding question that brought us all together was that was if we liked Faith No More. After that, the rest is history and we’ve been together for 3 years.”
“…We were just playing during the weekends for beer money…” – Stevie Benton
Bassist Stevie Benton told Ghost Cult magazine about how the band started out just as a fun project with not too much foresight. “We’d just been a club band in Dallas for a couple of years before it all started. We never thought we would do anything more than that, to be honest. We were just playing during the weekends for beer money. All of a sudden more and more people were crowding the venues where we were playing and then it felt almost like a blink of the eye.”
Before the band even got their first major record deal, they attracted the attention of German liquor company Jaegermister, who sponsored the group. Williams told Billboard magazine, “It boosted our confidence quite a bit because all of a sudden it was like, ‘Wow, somebody likes our band.’ It felt good and then right after, we signed with Wind Up so it was like the machine is rolling now. ”
Mike Luce revealed to Designer Magazine what came next, “We did a demo at a friend’s house back in Dallas and we were just playing local gigs. Then one of the guitarists for Sevendust was living in Dallas, saw us and we kept bugging him to let us do a couple of openers for them. We did 3 or 4 shows in a couple of states down south.”
Drowning Pool Hailed by MTV as the ‘Next Big Thing’
It wasn’t too long after these dates that Drowning Pool started touring with groups like Kittie and the demo they recorded started to get radio airplay. It was during this time that the band also cut a pair of EPs. The band was soon hailed by MTV and rock radio as the next big thing, thanks in part to their second EP, Pieces of Nothing.
They signed with Wind Up Records and their first major release was the album Sinner, released in June 2001. The album’s popularity was boosted by the band’s best-known single “Bodies”.
The track became one of the biggest songs of the summer, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and the band got a further boost when they were added to the 2001 lineup of Ozzfest. The group played their set at 10 am on the third stage at Ozzfest, but by the end of the tour, they were considered the breakout act and they moved to the main stage.
The success of both the group’s single “Bodies” and their spot at Ozzfest had a lot to do with raising the band’s profile and pushing their debut album to sell over 1.5M copies.
Sinner was peppered with Williams’ thoughts on organized religion and its shortcomings. While many people point to the scripture as being flawed, Williams wouldn’t see it that way. He told the Orlando Sentinel, “It wasn’t so much focused on a belief so much as a single man, the preacher. All of a sudden, that guy becomes the focus, and that’s not the way it is.”
“I have nothing against religion–I just have a problem with some of the messages that it promotes.” – Dave Williams
Williams revealed to Hit Parader, “I have nothing against religion–I just have a problem with some of the messages that it promotes. Religion doesn’t seem to have much flexibility. They have to recognize that all people can’t follow the same set of rules. We’ve all broken some of the rules at one time or another. In the eyes of religion, that makes us all sinners.”
Because of the religious themes on the band’s debut album, they were sometimes compared to Creed but Williams pushed back against these comparisons. He told the Sentinel, “I’ve never met Scott Stapp, but my take as a listener and as a fan is that Scott, through his lyrics, is still looking for an answer. I’m throwing my hands up and saying you need to show me something. I’ve made up my mind.”
Shortly after 9/11, “Bodies” was removed from Clear Channel-owned radio stations because of the line, “Let the bodies hit the floor”. Radio programmers judged that it was too insensitive after what happened in 9/11.
“It hurt us a little bit.” – Dave Williams
Williams responded to the controversy, “It hurt us a little bit. We were pretty much riding this great wave, then this happened, which nobody planned on. It’s about being in the mosh pit, but we sympathize and understand why people might misunderstand. We’re Americans too, so if not playing it for a week or two helps people get through it, we’re all for it.”
The Sentinel also reported that by October 27, 2001, “Bodies” was back on the airwaves. It was at this time that Drowning Pool found themselves touring with Disturbed.
Drowning Pool’s second single, “Tear Away” was a song that dealt with individualism and dealing with one’s needs. It was shelved by their label after it was decided that it was too divisive for those sensitive times.
Dave Willams Passes Away
By the summer of 2002, the band found themselves back on Ozzfest. Drowning Pool was riding high, but it was about to come crashing down. On August 14, 2002, Dave Williams was found unresponsive on the group’s tour bus in his bunk by their tour manager and guitar tech.
The band was in Manassas, Virginia, en route to play their next show. It was initially speculated in the media that his death was tied to drugs or alcohol but it eventually came out that he died from an undiagnosed heart condition called cardiomyopathy, a medical issue in which the heart muscle can’t pump enough blood to the rest of the body.
Drowning Pool’s manager put out a statement on the band’s website after the toxicology report came in. “The band and the crew were not up drinking like frat boys, taking drugs etc. We were watching DVDs and I even shut Dave’s bunk TV off at 5:00 am to the sound of his snores. It’s no secret Dave loved to drink and enjoy life but this was not a night of hardcore parties.”
Williams sadly passed away at the young age of 30. There were, however, signs that something was wrong with Williams’ health before his death.
“He was complaining about chest pains two weeks before but he thought he pulled a muscle.” – CJ Pierce
CJ Pierce revealed to Just A Rock N Roll Junkie that Williams was one of those guys who would never go to a doctor for anything. “He was complaining about chest pains two weeks before but he thought he pulled a muscle. He jumped off the stacks at Ozzfest and he ran into me and was about to push me off the stage. I didn’t realize he had jumped off the stacks and he thought he had pulled something and that wasn’t it at all.”
A public memorial was held for Williams on August 18, 2002, in Plano, Texas. At the time, plans for a DVD chronicling his life were announced. His friends, family and fans remember him as one of the most genuine and nicest musicians around.
By late 2002, that long-awaited documentary chronicling Williams’ life was released. It was announced that the first $250,000 in sales from the DVD, would be used to buy Williams’ parents a retirement home, a long dream of the singer. The band’s label, Wind-Up Records reached out to fans to provide video footage and photographs, in addition to personal accounts, to help facilitate the DVD.
“He was the sweetest man you’ll ever come across in your life.” – David Draiman
Former tourmate David Draiman of Disturbed put out a statement that summarized a lot of what his fellow musicians were feeling. “He was very much from the Phil Anselmo school but with a smile. He was the sweetest man you’ll ever come across in your life. He didn’t have a bad bone in his body. Everyone loved him.”
Despite all his success, Williams never seemed to forget where he came from. A 21-year-old fan from his hometown of Princeton, Texas wrote to MTV, “Every time he came back to town, he would visit the school and say hi to everyone. I thought that was so cool of him. I never saw him turn down an autograph or a hug from a screaming fan. He loved what his music had made him and used that to change a lot of people’s lives. He gave a lot of people the chance to say, I met a superstar!”
Drowning Pool Continues On in Dave Williams’ Honour
Following Williams’ passing, the band took about 4 months off, but there was never a question of whether Drowning Pool would continue. Benton revealed to Blabbermouth, “When Dave died, we lost our best friend in the world. The last thing that I’d like to think is that my other best friends, I’d have to leave them, too, because we couldn’t carry on together. That would just suck.”
The surviving members of the band retreated to Houston, living for a year in a suburban apartment, rarely venturing out and subsiding mainly on pizza from a restaurant on the building’s first floor.
The group decided to continue the band under the Drowning Pool name as a way of maintaining Williams’ legacy, but their initial attempts to audition a new singer proved unsuccessful. Benton told the Tribune, “We wanted to get a process started, but those first few guys didn’t have a chance.”
They ended up listening to dozens of demo tapes and eventually enlisted 3 singers to serve their own separate stints with the band including Jason Jones, Ryan McCombs, and Jason Moreno.
Since Williams’ passing, the band released several follow-up albums, all of which charted on the Billboard charts, but none of which were as successful as Sinner.
Like this story? Check out Eddie Van Halen’s Final Years
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