Rex Brown confirms he is no longer in Down.

Sad news in metal as Blabbermouth has reported that Bassist Rex Brown has confirmed that he is no longer a member ofDOWN. Speaking to Patrick Musumeche of 8countnews.com over the weekend, he said, "I'm officially out of the band. Things came to a head and they're better off doing what they're doing. They've got Patrick Bruders [from CROWBAR] playing bass and I kind of lost my passion after a while. There were some other problems that we had to address and it just turned out better that we just parted ways."

According to Brown, he will focus all of his attention on KILL DEVIL HILL, the new band featuring Vinny Appice (HEAVEN & HELL, BLACK SABBATH, DIO) on drums, Brown on bass, Mark Zavon (RATT,W.A.S.P., 40 CYCLE HUM) on guitar and Jason "Dewey" Bragg(PISSING RAZORS) on vocals.

Brown stated about KILL DEVIL HILL, "It's awesome. It's got a huge bottom end on it. It's coming on really well. It clicked and turned into a really cool project and it's gonna be a full-blown band. He added, "This is old school meets new school — it's got the heaviness of [BLACK SABBATH album] 'Mob Rules', with some ALICE IN CHAINS thrown in, some LED ZEPPELIN thrown in. There are a lot of different tunes on this record. It's just kick-ass fucking heavy."

DOWN drummer Jimmy Bower said in an interview withMetalChroniques.fr last week about Brown's status in the band, "It's a real delicate situation, because what he went through was really… [In 2009 Brown was diagnosed with pancreatitis, a sudden inflammation of the pancreas which can have severe complications and high mortality despite treatment. — Ed.] I mean, he's got a scar from here [points to his stomach] all the way to here. We just wish him to find peace within himself and be healthy, and we weren't seeing that for DOWN. We havePat now. Pat's playing bass. Pat's from New Orleans, [which] makes sense. He plays with CROWBAR as well." He added, "We love Rex to death, man, and wish him the best. He has a new project as well — KILL DEVIL HILL, with Vinny Appice — and I know he's having fun doing that. He gave Pat his blessing, so it was on a good term [that we parted ways]. But he will not be back."

During a press conference at this year's Sweden Rock Festival, DOWNfrontman Philip Anselmo stated about Brown, "Just to put it kindly, [Rex] needs to address some personal things in his life and when he has to address these personal things, the extremity of them, it's gonna take him away from music and touring and stuff like that. We all support him, we love him, we're still very close with him, speak with him all the time. . . We wish the best for him."

Speaking to The Delaware County Daily Times this past spring, DOWNguitarist Pepper Keenan offered the following when asked about Brown, "Rex is not gonna be with us [on the road for the upcoming shows]. He's got things he needs to deal with, and we gave him an ultimatum and he's trying to work things out. We've got Pat from CROWBAR playing bass, and he's ass-kickin' in the same way. He plays with his fingers — which is really cool; he's got the whole Geezer Butler thing going on."

When asked if Rex was still considered a part of DOWN, Pepper replied, "I don't know what to really say on that; he's not out of the band, but he's not playing with us live."

During a recent interview with the "Focus In The Mix With Denise Ames" TV show, Brown was asked if he still speaks to Anselmo. "We're having a little marital spat, so… I'll just leave it at that. I'm in the doghouse," he replied.

Pantera/Kill Devil Hill bassist Rex Brown: "I'm not doing any Down"

Pantera bassist Rex Brown was recently interviewed by MetalAssault.com about his involvment with his new band Kill Devil Hill compared to his other projects:

"This is it. I’m not doing any Down. This is my devotion right here. There’s no side gigs, or anything else that’s going on. So this is what it’s going to be for the future."

The statement Rex made sounds certain however in a interview we posted earlier this week, guitarist Pepper Keenan was not sure what Rex's status was with Down. You can read that interview by clicking HERE. While no official word has been released about Rex Brown and his status in Down it is safe to say things are not looking good at this time.

Down just completed a short tour with Crowbar bassist Pat Bruder filling in on bass guitar.

Vinny Appice explains how Rex Brown became bassist of Kill Devil Hill

This interview is courtesy of Bravewords.com

BraveWords.com: Is Kill Devil Hill a Vinny Appice solo project or is this a band?
 
Vinny Appice: “This is truly a band. I’m not in to doing solo projects. I’m a team player and I’d much rather be in a band than in the spotlight. Obviously, when Rex wasn’t involved in this band and it was just Dewey, Mark and myself; my name was more known, but I didn’t have a problem calling it a band. It’s a real band and now that Rex is involved everybody is a quarter of this band.”
 
BraveWords.com: How did you get Rex involved and what does he bring to the band?
 
Appice: "We had Jimmy Bain (ex-Dio, RAINBOW) with us at first and it didn’t work out. So, we tried a number of different bass players. Then one day, I was doing a drum-off at Guitar Center and Dimebag’s girlfriend was there and she said that Rex might be interested. She gave me the number and I gave Rex a call. He expressed interest in it, but at the time he was in his own band, ARMS OF THE SUN. He wanted me to play with them, so we had two bands and we didn’t know what to do with them. But in time in worked itself out and his main focus became Kill Devil Hill. As far as what he brings besides having a name and the legendary bands he’s been in – he’s just got the same attitude as we do and his sound and playing just fits perfectly. I knew it would. He’s the man for this band. His bass sound fits in flawlessly. When he committed to this and we started working together everything just came together. He put his bass on some of the tracks and they became magic.”
 
BraveWords.com: Is this the band that will take you into the future or is this a one-off project?
 
Appice: "I like longevity; just look at my career with obviously Dio and Black Sabbath. I’m loyal. I stay with drum companies a long time. When I believe in stuff, I stay with it. This is my dream. I’ve done a lot of stuff in my career and played with bands that people dreamed of playing with, but they weren’t my band. I loved doing it. I love learning from it. I loved playing with Sabbath. I loved playing with Dio and I couldn’t have played with anybody better or more legendary, but I never had my own band. Well, I did have my own band, AXIS, back in the ‘70s. I was twenty years old and then I got the call from Sabbath, so I went with Sabbath, but I never experienced what it would be like to have any level of success on my own and not having to rely on what was built before I got there. This is something we all look forward to carrying on as a career and a band.”
 

Pantera bassist Rex Brown talks about his new band Kill Devil Hill

Pantera/Down bassist Rex Brown was recently interviewed about his new band Kill Devil Hill by Bravewords.com. Here are a few excerpts from the interview:

BraveWords.com: How did you meet Vinny Appice?
 
Rex Brown: “We had been friends on the road. Down had opened up for Heaven & Hell all across Canada then we went to Australia with them and we just became good buds. Then, I got a call from him about this new band and he wanted to know if I’d be interested in coming down and playing on some tracks. Next door to me, I have a musician friend that has probably a half million dollars worth of gear in his house and so I played on some of these tracks and they were just blown away. I jammed with them after NAMM and I went down this week to see how it fit… how everyone got along. It turned out to be… SPECTACULAR! We got a lot of good work done. We have seven or eight songs in the can and there’s another eight sitting there. Vinny and I playing together is just nuts. It’s crazy.”
 
BraveWords.com: That’s one hell of a rhythm section.
 
Brown: "It is. It’s just nuts. We’re all systems go and we’ll get a record out this year.”
 
BraveWords.com: Is this simply a side-project for you or is this a band?
 
Brown: "I really think this is a long term deal. I really do. We fit together so good that it’s just going to work.”
 
BraveWords.com: Musically, what are we in for? Pantera was very aggressive and Dio was certainly more melodic…
 
Brown: "A lot of these things are Vinny’s drum beats that he just put down as a song and he expressed to Mark (Zavon, guitarist) how he wanted them done… I’d say if you take the elements of both bands and mash them together you have one powerful rhythm section and the rest of the songs have a little spice of maybe early ALICE IN CHAINS, but there’s a whole influence of LED ZEPPELIN… Throw that in the mix and you’ve got four pretty killer bands to choose from.”