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High Praise

Yes, we all know President Obama loves Stevie Wonder. He also told Rolling Stone, last year, his iPod contains sounds like Howlin' Wolf, Yo-Yo Ma, the Rolling Stones and Earth, Wind & Fire.

What Obama did not tell Rolling Stone: He listens to Drowning Pool, which opens for Mötley Crüe Saturday night at the Hard Rock.

Yes, Drowning Pool -- the melodic hard-core rock band that put out the single "Bodies," which goes from a whisper to a guitar-shredding scream: "Let the bodies hit the FLOOOOORRR!!"

That 2001 song was banned on Clear Channel radio stations after 9/11. Some U.S. soldiers reportedly have rocked out to its howls while training then battling in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama hasn't talked about Drowning Pool, but the Internet gives him away: Online, I spotted a photo of Obama posing with Drowning Pool and looking kind of stoked about it. So I got on the phone with Drowning Pool guitarist C.J. Pierce to explain.

He says the band was in Washington last year, delivering a petition that supported the Lane Evans bill, to make the government give serious mental health care to veterans.

Obama wasn't supposed to be in the government area where Drowning Pool was hanging out. Obama, who supported the bill, just coincidentally walked by.

Obama spotted the tattooed rockers and said, " 'This is Drowning Pool,' " Pierce says.

As Pierce remembers it, "I was like: How the (expletive) do you know who we are? I know who you are. You're Obama. You're running for president."

Obama said he listened to the band when he worked out, Pierce says, suggesting the song "Bodies" rocks the president's iPod.

"He's listening to 'Let the bodies hit the floor' when he's working out, then he gets back in the office," Pierce says. "That's (expletive) nuts, dude.

"That was a cool day. And we took a picture with him," he says. "It's pretty crazy, Obama rockin' out to Drowning Pool. Go figure."

I told Pierce that when he works out with his iPod, he should listen to an Obama speech. You know, to bring things full circle.

"An Obama speech?" he says. "Has he done a monumental one that's stuck out?"

Pierce says the band also has a President Bush story. A band member's brother is a Secret Service agent. When W. was in office, the band gave T-shirts to the Secret Service agent.

Consequently, perhaps, the band was sent a photo of Bush jogging while agents jogged around W. in their Drowning Pool T-shirts.

You should know Drowning Pool has gone out of its way to be apolitical, while the Dallas-based band has performed for troops and written a song for them.

Because I egged him on, to keep talking about politics, Pierce says of Obama, "It seems like he's doing a lot of cool stuff," but stresses he hates politics and adds, "It doesn't matter who's in the driver's seat now, they're gonna have a big (expletive) task."

Pierce is more comfortable performing for troops apolitically. Earlier this year, Drowning Pool performed at Guantanamo Bay, the controversial detention camp in Cuba.

Pierce doesn't seem up-to-date on the entirety of abuse allegations at the base, though he knows generally the base has been bashed for torture.

Anyway, I asked him what it was like to play there.

"It's actually a really nice base. I mean, it's right there by the bay. Everybody was real professional. All the commanders and everybody were real down to earth.

"I know they say a lot of bad (stuff) goes on there. We didn't see anything like that. It's not like they're a bunch of gun-wielding people who are ready to just kill somebody."

What about torture at the base?

"We're at war. And that's part of war. A lot of people forget how those guys (al-Qaida) captured our dudes and videotaped them, and they cut their freakin' heads off and sent the videotapes to us.

"Because they (U.S. soldiers) are trying to get some information out of them (prisoners), and it's war, you're gonna have a little torture. At least we didn't cut their (expletive) heads off and videotape it and send it to their families. I mean, it could be a lot worse."

I didn't want to drag Pierce through this topic any longer, but it seemed fair to bring up the fact that quite a few detainees, whether you agree or disagree with the process and outcome, were tortured in pretty gnarly ways.

I said that, and Pierce paused. He is definitely a rocker who feels tortured by political discourse. So he changed the tone of the conversation to a comedic line about his own self-torture:

"I get electrocuted every night onstage when I touch the microphone stand."

Contact Doug Elfman at 702-383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.

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