Corrosion of Conformity: “Rock ‘n’ roll is a way of life. It’s not just a paycheck, it’s something we’ve dedicated ourselves to.”

For over four decades, Corrosion of Conformity has carved out a legacy built on evolution, attitude, and an unwavering refusal to stand still. From their early days shaping hardcore and crossover to becoming one of the most distinctive voices in heavy music, the band has consistently pushed against expectations. Now, with a new record on the horizon, guitarist and vocalist Pepper Keenan finds the band reflecting on where they’ve been, while proving there’s still plenty left to say.

That journey hasn’t come without its challenges. The loss of longtime drummer Reed Mullin and the departure of bassist Mike Dean could have marked an endpoint, but instead became a defining moment. Stripping everything back to its core, Keenan and Woody Weatherman adopted a raw, DIY approach to writing and recording, rediscovering the spirit that had first driven the band. The result is a record shaped by grief, resilience, and a renewed sense of purpose, one that captures every era of COC while staying rooted in their “no rules” philosophy.

In our latest Cover Story, V13 talks to Pepper about the band’s enduring legacy, the mindset that has carried them through more than forty years, and why continuing after loss felt not only necessary but inevitable. From early punk rock roots in New Orleans to the creation of a fiercely independent new album Good God / Baad Man, he reflects on the attitude that defines Corrosion of Conformity and how, even now, they’re still finding new ways to push forward.

You described the first single off the record, ‘Gimme Some More,’ as a throwback to early eighties punk rock. What were your early experiences of discovering, not just punk rock, but rock and roll, metal kind, and music in general?

“For me, I was into more of the punk rock stuff before the hard rock stuff, just because of where I lived in New Orleans, you know? Ramones were probably the biggest band I knew before I got started getting into the ACDCs and all that shit, you know. I was a Ramones kid for sure. Black Flag, all that stuff.”

What was it like in New Orleans? What was the music scene like when you were growing up?

“It was cool. It was awesome. A lot of bands came through. I used to hang out. I was probably 14 years old, 13 years old, hanging out at shows, sitting outside. Late to school, staying out late, all that shit. It was great. New Orleans was off the beaten path, so not that many bands came through there, hence the reason a lot of us started bands in New Orleans when we were kids. COC was in North Carolina. They were in the middle of fucking nowhere, too, like a lot of us were. New Orleans is a cool place because it already has a lot of clout. The Meters were from New Orleans. They lived in my neighbourhood. I still see George Porter, the bass player with The Meters, all the time. So, growing up in that environment with punk rock and heavy metal, you kind of see where I’m at today.”

What do you remember about your early bands? What were they like?

“Terrible.

My first band was just me and a singer. I played guitar, and it was just called SMF. Sick Motherfuckers, and we were not. We weren’t sick. We weren’t nothing just two 14-year-old dingbats beating shit and breaking stuff. All the good shit. Van Halen was a big band. Van Halen always put a record out right when school got out. They always put their records out at the end of the school year. End of May. Boom. You knew a Van Halen record was coming.”

The early COC records, especially the first two records, they helped shape hardcore and crossover for a lot of people and bands. Did you realize how influential those albums were going to become because, still now, people love those records?

“Absolutely. I joined the band on the Blind record when I was a huge fan. I was a huge fan of Animosity, especially. Animosity was a motherfucker. It had such a time and a place, and COC was smart about it. They knew that bands like Black Flag or other bands, if you weren’t there, you fucking missed it, dude. It wasn’t programmed enough to carry into the future at that time, or at least in the COCs world of bands. Slayer did it. Bands like Metallica did it. COC was always evolving, and we still do to this day.

So the attitude of all that stuff was very important. Growing up with that DIY, punk rock attitude is shit that we still have to this day. You just carry it with you, but we all like playing and exploring different types of music, which is where COC’s at now. This other musician, a pretty big rock and roll musician, I played the new COC record for him, and he was freaking out on it. He said, “Pepper, this sounds like every record, every COC record you’ve ever done into one.” I didn’t think about it like that, so that made a lot of sense.”

“I was a huge fan of Animosity, especially. Animosity was a motherfucker. It had such a time and a place, and COC was smart about it.”

In terms of the progression of the band, you went from those early hardcore albums to where you are now. Was that progression inspired by anything in particular, or did it grow with your own musical tastes when they changed?

“Some of it came out of boredom. Some of it came from COC playing some of these shows where the same bands were doing the same thing every fucking time. I’ll be quite honest with you, it didn’t feel very punk rock to any of us. If you did something different, some dude’s gonna call you a poser or a sellout. Unless you stay in this little square. Your little box. You’re false. Alright, come on, watch this motherfucker. So we came out with ‘Albatross,’ and that was the end of that. Putting out ‘Albatross’ was probably the most punk rock thing we ever fucking did because it took a fucking hard left and fucking said, fuck this. Preaching to the converted was not very exciting to us anymore.”

Did taking that left turn worry you?

“It was a risk. Some people were pissed at us, but then, later, a lot of the people who were pissed at us were fucking unemployed or fucking not doing anything. There was a lot of that. For us, it was just for our own selfish reasons. We liked all kinds of music. Reed was very good at that. He was always on the cusp of something different or pushing something. I look back at Corrosion Of Conformity nowadays, and that’s kind of the whole mantra of the band.

Now you look back at this long of a fucking thing, you can look back at it and go, they fuck the rules. That’s where it’s what we do, and it’s got a lot of different legs and a lot of different directions, and it’s reached a lot of different people. I’d feel terrible if I were playing the same hardcore shit at fucking pushing sixty. I’d feel like a stupid ass. Anybody who’s doing that, no offence to them, but come on, Bro. That’s kind of goofy. Progress. Put your dick on the chopping block, mate.”

The new record’s about to come out. It came from some tough times for you with Reed passing away and then Mike leaving. Did this album feel like a crossroads for the band?

“There was a short period of time where it was like a defining moment of, do we continue or do we not, and people were looking at it that way. The label said ‘No, we’re with you.’ Mike Dean wanted to move on and start working on recording bands, and didn’t want to tour as much, and we got all that. Great. Fantastic. The train’s not gonna stop. We‘ve got too much to say, and there’s too much shit that Woody and I liked doing. Too many people were supporting us from all walks of life, from amplifier companies to studio people, to other musicians.

So we did, and we wanted to, but there were a couple of moments. Once we started putting these songs together and we got Riker involved and we started demoing this shit, we’re like, ‘Dude, we’re getting ready to fuck some people up with this fucking thing.’ That’s the way we approached it, and that’s the way we felt and it was fun.

The only thing I only person I had to answer to was Woody. The only person Woody had to answer to was me. Fuck the managers. Fuck everybody. It couldn’t get any more stripped down than it was. It was down to the two basic principles, and that was it. We fucking had a ball. We drank a shit ton of beer, and we fucking listened to records and fucking smashed guitars and did all the things you’re supposed to do without having to worry about answering to somebody else.”

V13 Cover Story – Issue 121 – Corrosion of Conformity

That sounds like a very DIY approach.

“This record was extremely DIY. We didn’t go to a fancy studio. We didn’t do any of that shit. We went to some crazy places, but it was under the pretence of recording this thing in a different way. I‘m very tired of the production values on records nowadays, and the perfection and the triggered drums and all the things like that just rubbed me and Woody wrong, Stanton as well. He said You ain’t triggering my fucking drums. So a lot of those things played into it that we‘re building this fuck the world kind of thing. Backs against the wall. We lost this and that, and then it just gets to where you’re like, alright, watch this motherfucker. That was a fun way to do it. It was exciting.”

You said there about a fuck the world attitude, but the world was behind you carrying on. There was so much love for the band, so much love for you guys.

“A lot of people were supporting us.”

What was that like?

“It was very awesome once we started putting the pieces together. You know, people said, ‘Man, I heard COC’s back in the studio?’ We didn’t want to go to a big fancy studio. We needed to get some gear when, all of a sudden, these people like, ‘Man, I got some fucking Cooper time cubes and some Navy cubes if you wanna borrow ’em?’ So we started borrowing all this shit, and people loaning us stuff. Then some amp companies were like ‘You want to try these amps out?’ Just a lot of that and a lot of engineers. Riker was getting people to help because it was more important for us to have time than to be in a real, polished studio and spend two weeks in it. We worked on this with Riker for two years. We worked on it for two years on and off, from a writing process to where we’re finishing the fucking thing. It was very fun.”

“We fucking had a ball. We drank a shit ton of beer, and we fucking listened to records and fucking smashed guitars and did all the things you’re supposed to do without having to worry about answering to somebody else.”

Do you think that taking that time took the record down a different path than if you’d banged it out in two weeks?

“Yeah. If we’d have had to go, we gotta mix this thing, and we gotta do a song a day. We took left turns all over the place. We added shit. We took away shit. We just made a cool fucking record that we thought was worthy of where we were at this point in time. We had a lot to say, and we could do it. Riker was in there with us, and he was like, ‘This is all fucking killer. No filler.’ We decided and talked to the record company and said, ‘Man, it’s a double record.’ At first, we were battling everybody, then people started to hear it. They’re like, ‘Okay, this is fucking cool, man.’ So there was a lot of support on that end as well.”

You’d obviously gone through the loss of Reed and Mike leaving, at the same time, you’ve talked about the record being a lot of fun to write. How did you get yourself into that headspace, personally and creatively, to even start writing a record?

“I was down in Mississippi. I’ve got property there in the middle of nowhere. I was talking to Woody on the phone and writing. I had a bunch of guitars set up and some pretty rough recording equipment, but it sounded cool. Woody said, ‘I’m gonna jump on a plane and come down,’ and I told him to come on. He came down, and the environment was great. Nobody bothered us. We just played guitar, drank beer, listened to stuff, talked, hung out, did all the things you’d do if you were seventeen again and didn’t even have a full band.

We were writing songs without a drummer. We knew that if we could get them sounding good and powerful without drums, without even writing to a click, then we were close. It was just about having fun. Take ‘The Handler,’ for example. That song was written with no drums at all, just guitar, a scratch bass track, and vocals. Then, when Stanton added his parts, it just clicked. Everything fell into place, and it exploded. That was the approach we were taking, and it made it fun.”

Do you think you’ll work like that again?

“1000%. There’s no way I’d put that kind of pressure on myself again with time constraints or a fancy studio. No way. It’s too much fun doing it this way. We took our time, had a blast. We’d take breaks, barbecue, disappear for three days, come back to it. Everyone stayed in the same house. The biggest decision of the day was who was going to drive to the beer store. That’s how it’s supposed to be done.”

In the middle of all that, you had COVID and lockdown happening. Did that help you focus on the album?

“No. This album didn’t even become a thought until after Mike Dean left. When he left, Woody and I got rid of everything we had before. We didn’t take anything with us, we wanted to start from scratch. We scrapped almost everything and started fresh after Mike announced he was leaving. That’s what we said we’d do, and that’s what we did. We didn’t even think we’d have that much material. When we had three or four songs, we thought we were getting somewhere. Then suddenly it turned into fourteen songs, pretty quickly. But it was still two years of work.”

That’s a huge jump from a few songs to a double album. What sparked that level of productivity?

“We just hit a stride. Everything was connecting, we were firing on all cylinders. The creativity was there, the environment was right. We could leave all our gear set up, amps, cables, everything. It didn’t matter. We could walk away for two weeks and come back, and everything was exactly where we left it.”

Corrosion of Conformity ‘Good God / Baad Man’ album artwork

You could just pick up where you left off.

“Exactly. No packing up, no rebooking studio time, none of that. Everything was in this big barn on the property, so it all stayed there. Whatever gear we needed, we got.”

Did that take a weight off your shoulders, not being constrained by studio time or schedules?

“Definitely. The producer, Riker, was a bit concerned at first because there was no control room, we were all in the same space. It was a big room with seventeen-foot ceilings, forty feet long, but no glass, no isolation booths. It was done more like how Led Zeppelin used to record, very open, very old-school. There’s bleed on the recordings, it’s not perfectly isolated, but it sounds alive. You crank that motherfucker in a car, and it’ll blow your head off. We had the right compressors, ribbon mics, all the right gear to make it hit hard, and that was important to us.”

When it all came together, and you heard it back, what did it feel like?

“We were listening back to the demos, take the song ‘Bad Man,’ I think there are only four microphones on that drum kit. Two overhead ribbon mics, one near the snare and kick, and then Riker just threw a 57 on the carpet under the floor toms. That was it. He’s great at that kind of guerrilla recording, simple but effective.”

Do you think that approach shaped the sound of the record?

“1000%. I’m a guitar tone freak. I like good-sounding snare drums, but you don’t need a thousand mics and endless takes. You listen to John Bonham, he didn’t have loads of microphones. He just played hard and had a great feel. When you hear something like that in your own room with just a few mics, you realise that’s it. All the digital stuff doesn’t matter for us on this record. We wanted it to sound real.”

The record feels like it has two sides, the angrier songs early on, then more rock and roll later. Was that a natural split?

“We actually had the structure mapped out before we even finished recording. We had pieces of paper everywhere with arrows, song orders, and everything planned out. We already knew how it would flow, we just had to fill in the sonic details and build the transitions between songs. We’ve always done segues, and we leaned into that again.”

You’ve described the record as a love letter to rock and roll. What does rock and roll mean to you?

“It’s a weird love letter. I’ll give you an example. We put out the ‘Gimme Some More’ video then YouTube flagged it as non-compliant. It had gambling, violence, smoking, and foul language. I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s rock and roll.’ That’s what it is to me. Rock n’ roll is a way of life. It’s not just a paycheck, it’s something we’ve dedicated ourselves to. We still love discovering new music, old music, it’s always there.”

Corrosion of Conformity, photo by Danin Drahos

You brought Bobby and Stanton into the record. How important was that given their connection to the band?

“Stanton was a no-brainer, one of the best in the business. He can elevate songs. Bobby too. Great musician, great singer, Austin guy, which adds to the vibe. We had the songs, we just wanted the best people to help bring them to life.”

After 44 years of Corrosion of Conformity, what does that mean to you?

“I think we’re proud. But it’s become bigger than just a band now, it’s an attitude, a way of life, a mindset. Everything the band has gone through reflects how we live. It’s more than just music.”

Does that go back to discovering punk rock and that lifestyle?

“Yeah. Even now, someone working a regular job still wants to tap into that. It’s still there. It’s not just music, it’s a philosophy. It applies to everything.”

“Rock ‘n’ roll is a way of life. It’s not just a paycheck, it’s something we’ve dedicated ourselves to. We still love discovering new music, old music, it’s always there.”

What’s been your proudest moment?

“Right now is one of them. We had a lot to get through to reach this point, and we did it without compromise. It took a lot of work. It didn’t just fall into place.”

What do you think Reed would think of the record?

“I think he’d love it. We thought about him a lot while making it. Stanton studied him, and there are moments on the record that feel like something Reed would’ve done. There were definitely moments where it felt like he was present in some way.”

Finally, how would you sum up the last 44 years?

“It’s been long. It’s been crazy. I’d probably tell my younger self not to be so wild. We’re still here, still going, and there’s more to come. There‘s plenty left in the tank.”