Oh what a tangled web Corrosion of Conformity aka COC weave. While the classic 'Animosity' lineup of drummer Reed Mullin, vocalist/bassist Mike Dean and guitarist Woody Weatherman are back together for a new album, sometime frontman/guitarist Pepper Keenan's official "status" within the band remains nebulous and up in the air, even though he was the one who facilitated the reunion of the current incarnation of the band. Keenan's currently not an active member, but he's not exactly an "ex" member, either.

In a recent chat with BWBK, Mullin spoke about Keenan's future with or without the band.

Mullin said, "It was about a year-and-a-half ago. Pepper gave us a call out of the blue. The band had pretty much broken up. He gave us a holler and said, ‘Hey, I’ve been doing a bunch of Down shows and keep getting all these requests for us to do some reunion festivals.’ We thought about it and about a week later and we were like, ‘Yeah, what the f---, man? That’s fun. That’d be cool. Let’s do it, just for nostalgia’s sake, and if it leads to anything else, that’d be even greater.’”

Even though Keenan was the catalyst, he didn't participate in the shows or the new self-titled album, since he was too busy with Down. Despite this fact, no hard feelings or, well, 'Animosity,' developed. Mullin said, "For whatever reason, it didn’t work out. I guess Pepper got offered more money to do the Down stuff, which was fine. I don’t blame the guy; he just had a baby girl. There were no hard feelings."

That's probably due to how good it felt for the other three members to play together again. Mullin said, "In that week where Woody, myself and Mike had been jamming together, it was so much f---ing fun, man. It was even better than when we first started jamming as little kids. You know, we started the band when we were all teenagers; we were all children."

The upcoming album features Mullin, Weatherman and Dean, and Mullin shared that he is still in regular contact with the band's not-so-former frontman. “I talked to Pepper yesterday, I think,” the drummer said. “We’re still really good friends. It was sketchy there for a little while, but everything is wonderful now."

See, the door is open. Mullin said, "I expect us to do something in the future. And to be honest with you, man, this being our 30th anniversary—and that makes me sound quite old—I’d really like to do a reunion with Pepper and Karl because I really like that 'Blind' album a lot."

The "Karl" he is referring to is Karl Agell, who served as the vocalist on 'Blind.'

The self-titled COC album dropped last week via Candlelight.

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