Kirk Windstein remembers the time his sludge-metal outfit Crowbar headlined over the mighty Type O Negative back in the Nineties. How could he not? He was one of the few people left in the room by the time his band hit the stage.
“They stuck Type O before Crowbar, and it’s probably the most embarrassed I’ve ever been in my career, because I was such a huge fan,” he recalls of the mid-decade bill at Detroit, Michigan’s Harpo’s.
“I was like, ‘We can’t follow this!’ It’s the only time I’ve ever used those words in my career. And it’s true — we couldn’t. Everybody left! All the chicks came to see Pete [Steele] and Type O, and then they split. It is what it is.”
Windstein felt self-conscious about it at the time, but he’s fondly sharing this memory more than 30 years later with a gruff and hearty laugh. He also remembers how that was the day he really connected with Steele, the two metal musicians bonding over a meal at the catering table. In the years to come, Windstein would party with other members of the Drab Four whenever their paths crossed on the road.
To be sure, Crowbar have been doing just fine since that somewhat ignominious onstage moment, with vocalist-guitarist Windstein prolifically leading his NOLA group through a number of epically crushing full-lengths and global tours ever since (he’s speaking to Revolver during the brief downtime between European and North American tours). While they’ve been underground icons for years, Crowbar have also experienced major fan-base growth across Spotify and TikTok in recent times — mostly because of their music, of course, but also through viral clips of Windstein sharing culinary etiquette, like how best to eat crawfish. Windstein’s ever-busy schedule throughout 2026 also includes shows and an upcoming album with Down, the beloved sludge supergroup he formed in the Nineties with members of Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity and Eyehategod.
This year also marks the much-anticipated arrival of From Birth to Death, Windstein’s first full-length with Sun Dont Shine, another all-star venture that teams him and Crowbar bassist Todd Strange with Type O veterans Kenny Hickey (vocals, guitars) and Johnny Kelly (drums). Despite the killer pedigree, Windstein says there’s much more to the project — which initially debuted in 2023 under the name EYEAM — than amalgamating two iconic lineages.
“Everybody thinks a collaboration [between the] members of Type O Negative and Crowbar is gonna be just heavy, but we went the whole other direction,” Windstein explains. “Kenny’s a brilliant singer-songwriter. The songs are very melodic, and he’s got a voice from the heavens. He’s unbelievable.”
On this point, Windstein’s not wrong. While plumbing the depths of his soul across the album — songs like “Cryptomnesia,” “Power to Live” and “In the End” reflecting upon sobriety, love, death and legacy — Hickey soars through his lines with a Chris Cornell-esque wail. Windstein brings hefty riffs and rasp-throated vocal harmonies to the project, but even as far back as the group’s first single, the sweet-dirging “Dreams Always Die with the Sun,” he knew that Hickey was the gravitational pull.
“We kind of do the call-and-answer thing at the end of ‘Dreams,’ and I was down with the sound,” Windstein says. “But I also looked at it and said, ‘Dude, you’re the singer! You have a sellable voice.’ I really don’t, you know? I sound like Lemmy on steroids.”
“No matter how many spotlights are put on him, he’s just a matter-of-fact, regular, down-home Louisiana dude,” Hickey counters when asked about his new bandmate’s humble vibe.
Sun Dont Shine slowly prepped the LP over the past few years across multiple recording sessions in New Orleans. While they’d all been friends for years, they strengthened their bond while crafting melody-tuned heaviness inspired by a mutual love of the Beatles, Kiss and Led Zeppelin. Windstein and Hickey also pumped iron together between takes, the guitarists rooting each other on whether breaking personal lift records in the gym or tracking pure-fire solos in the studio.
Nearly three years on from the project’s genesis, Sun Dont Shine are finally ready to show the gains they made with From Birth to Death. While everyone in the band is excited to make their live debut, the truth is that a hectic schedule — between Windstein and Strange’s commitments with Crowbar and Down, Hickey and Kelly’s upcoming record with long-running project Silvertomb, and the drummer’s current tenure with metal vets Quiet Riot — means it may take even more time before their Sun rises onstage. When it happens, though, it’s going to be electric.
Windstein adds: “It’s been strange having to slowly do this over the course of a couple of years — as opposed to just getting in the studio and knocking it out in a month or two — but either way, it worked!”
Sun Dont Shine is a testament to the long friendship between the members of Type O Negative and Crowbar. Kirk had told us about the night that he met Peter at a show your bands played together at Harpo’s in Detroit. Kenny, what do you recall about meeting Kirk?
Kenny Hickey I remember meeting Kirk way before that, but I do remember that show at Harpo’s. I think we met Kirk in the early Nineties, and we were playing Texas. We were playing [Dallas club] The Basement, and [Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell] came with a bunch of his people and his girlfriend Rita. Out of that whole camp, Kirk was the first person I met.
Kirk Windstein I’ll tell you this, I had a girlfriend at the time who was from the Dallas area. I guess, through Carnivore and [Type O’s] Slow, Deep, and Hard record, she became a big fan of Peter’s. And Rita, Dime’s chick, was very into Type O. This [show] was probably the beginning of the Bloody Kisses tour, and it was a small crowd. They hadn’t quite broken out yet. I do remember meeting Kenny. Johnny wasn’t in the band, I don’t believe.
It’s funny, though… I met Johnny [when] Crowbar opened for Pantera in New York at the Roseland Ballroom for two nights, when they just started the Far Beyond Driven tour. I’m in the back watching Pantera, and this guy comes up to me. [He’s got] a beard, he’s taller than me. He says, “Hey, how’s it going, brother? My name’s Johnny Kelly. I just got the Type O gig on drums,” and I’m like, “Wow, dude, that’s my favorite band!” And they were!
But over the years, [Down/Corrosion of Conformity guitarist] Pepper Keenan and I hooked up with Johnny and Kenny back when Kenny was still getting a little crazy. And, you know, we’d sing AC/DC and KISS songs, drink beer and hug each other — have a good old time.
At what point did you get the Type O tattoo on your hand, Kirk? And can you tell us a little more about the devotion that you have towards the band?
Windstein I also have a Carnivore tattoo! The reason, I would say, is that Carnivore’s Retaliation album and Type O Negative’s Slow Deep and Hard are the last two records to really inspire what became Crowbar, along with Trouble, St. Vitus, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and KISS.
[Getting the tattoos] was years before Sun Dont Shine. I’ve probably had them eight or nine years or something.
Kenny, what is it like to see your band logo tattooed onto a friend?
Hickey It’s amazing when musicians pay tribute to somebody. There’s a lot of fans with the tattoo, and it’s great. I love that. But when a fellow musician does it — especially of the caliber of Kirk — it hits home. It hits deeper. It makes me feel like I accomplished something.
Have you ever considered getting a Crowbar or Down tattoo to pay him back in kind?
Hickey I haven’t even considered getting a tattoo in over 20 years. I have five bad tattoos, and my wife is like, “You gotta get those covered up.”
…but I would, certainly.
So, you’d met back in the early Nineties, but at what point did you first have a conversation about making music together?
Hickey Oh, not ‘til way later on.
I went down to Louisiana to see my friend Andrew Spaulding, who runs Corpse Paint Records. He’d toured with Type O, doing merch. He was a mutual friend [of Kirk and I’s] because he lived in New Orleans.
I’ve been sober for six years now, but Andrew and I ran into [Kirk] at the bar at 11 a.m., and we all got wasted together. That’s when Andrew was like, “I want to see what it would be like if you guys got into a room together.” We talked about it in passing, but nothing serious.
That’s probably the first time it came into my consciousness, but “Dreams Always Die With the Sun” was the first single, and that was probably 3 years [ago]. At that point, Andrew was sober and he was starting to get his life together, and he was like, “I really want to hear what would it be like if I got all you guys together… I’m gonna book the flights [and] studio time.” And we were all like, “OK, sounds cool!”
Did you have a grand vision as to how the music would play out?
Hickey No vision. I had a couple of riffs, and that sparked some ideas in Windstein’s head. On the way there though, I was like, “What am I gonna do with this?” I was worried about it. “What if this comes out a bit stupid-sounding?” Then we all got in rehearsal with Johnny and Todd, and we started throwing parts around and building them up. I was ad-libbing vocals at the mic.
It was really done on the cuff. We were very excited about it. It came out way better than we thought it would, and there was a lot of energy in the air.
Windstein I don’t do much — Kenny’s the guy. I’ll sit back and I’ll occasionally go, “OK, what are you doing there? I got an idea!”
But there’s great, great chemistry and a great mutual respect amongst everyone in the band. For years my motto has been, “Leave your ego at the door, surround yourself with talented people, and you’re gonna get a great outcome.” I do that with Down, I do that with Crowbar, and now I do that with Sun Dont Shine, as well.
You folks were called EYEAM, initially. What brought on the name change?
Hickey There was another metal band called I Am, and also a rap band called EYEAM, spelled exactly like [us] on Spotify. We did try to trademark the name, but we found out that the rapper owned it. So, we were not able to go forward.
But that was just a mock-up name that Andrew came up with, you know what I mean? We didn’t figure we were gonna even be a band, you know? So, when it actually became serious, and we had plans to actually put something out, we needed an actual name that could work, and that we could own the trademark to.
Same thing happened with Type O back in the day. We were called Sub-Zero, but there was another band named Sub-Zero and they threatened [to sue]. We had to change it. We had all gotten the negative tattoos already — you know, “Sub-Zero” — and then history [became] history. It ended up being Type O Negative.
Sun Dont Shine’s album covers death, conflict and cycles of failure — there’s a lot of pain on here. Kenny, what can you tell us about this collection of songs, thematically?
Hickey A lot of it is trying to summarize my existence up until this point, and what I’ve been through — all the trials, the struggles, the successes and the giant mistakes I’ve made.
It’s sort of trying to capture that, and trying to set myself on a better path for the future — or whatever future I have left. That’s really the recurring theme throughout the songs.
What kind of conclusions did you come to while contemplating all that?
Hickey Now that I’m sober — for the last six years, which have been the best years of my life — I [realize I] should have done it 20 years ago…
Embracing life and continually working on myself to my very last breath… After my family, [those are] the most important things.
“Cryptomnesia” features lines about one’s “self-destruction.” Is that reflecting on your past, but also upon moving forward with your sobriety?
Hickey Yes, that’s exactly what it’s about. My wife gave me this idea: It’s about an older man being able to go back in time and look at the mistakes his younger self made, [which] fuck over his older life. So, I’m angry at my younger self for doing all this stupid fucking shit.
I could have been down a way better path, emotionally, and I would have hurt a lot less people. A lot less damage would have been done if I would have just not been so stupid in my 20s and 30s, you know? So, it’s sort of me yelling at my 25-year-old self.
Have you forgiven yourself for any of that?
Hickey No. I still have many sleepless nights. It’s one thing I still have to conquer — I let the past haunt me too much. I’m very haunted. At night when I go to bed, I have one earbud in and I’m listening to some science on YouTube to distract my mind from its own thoughts. [Otherwise] I’ll never sleep.
It’s not like I was a serial killer. I just have an obsessive nature where I’ll take something that’s negative and blow it out of proportion when I’m trying to go to sleep. I think a lot of people have these insomniac problems.
So, yeah, I have that to tackle. I don’t let it drag me back or keep me in the same place, but it’s still a weight, you know?
Kirk, you mentioned that people may expect a certain kind of heaviness from Sun Dont Shine on the musical side of it, but maybe the band’s just more contextually heavy. What’s it like singing with Kenny as he’s weighing in on these themes?
Windstein First and foremost, how could it not be an inspiration to see how he turned his life around? You know, it’s an amazing thing. I’m still kind of battling that, but it’s gotten a lot easier.
I’m nothing but proud of any human being who can do what he did, because he had to do it. It just got to the point where it’s fucking time, you know?
You folks have only gotten together a few times to make these songs, but eventually you’re going to be playing live. When do you think Sun Dont Shine will be hitting the stage?
Windstein I mean, hopefully sooner than later.
I guess what’s most important to me is that we have the time to properly rehearse. I think Johnny has the busiest schedule, because with Quiet Riot he’s pretty much performing shows every weekend. And if Johnny can’t tour, I don’t want to do it, you know? He’s amazing. He’s the backbone of this rock & roll band.
How busy is your schedule this year?
Windstein The only month I was not working this year was January, and that’s long gone. So, I have work with Down and Crowbar [throughout 2026]. I’m booked up, [but] it’s a blessing,
Kenny, is there anything else you’re working on at the moment?
Hickey I’m getting ready to release another record with my other band, Silvertomb. We’re wrapping up the artwork right now, and we’re gonna give it to Long Branch Records. That record is done, and it’s super heavy and dark. I’m excited about that.
Also, Type O is releasing a live record. We have the tracks, and [keyboardist] Josh [Silver] is gonna be involved in mixing it. I’m very excited about that, as well.
Is that a full concert or a collection of live tracks?
Hickey [It’s] from some festival in the Nineties. I forget which one, but it’s one full concert.
You’d spoken in the past about the possibility of doing a live tribute show to Peter at some point in the future. Are you folks anywhere closer to staging that?
Hickey No, we haven’t gotten any further with it at the moment. We have offers, but it’s not realistically on the table yet. Nothing has been pegged down yet, but we’re always open to it.
It’s been nearly three years since Sun Dont Shine’s first single came out. How does it feel to finally have these songs ready to go as From Birth to Death?
Windstein It took so much time due to everyone’s schedule. If we were in our late 20s instead of our 50s and 60s — and we didn’t have families, wives, kids and whatnot — the process probably could have moved much quicker. But… at the end of the day, I made some great friends and made some great music out of it. That’s what counts. We really bonded as human beings and friends, and that’s a wonderful thing.
This interview has been edited and condensed for flow and clarity.