Laravel5 - artisan down command trying to access database?

I've deployied a project on a new server. When i issue

php artisan down

i get

[PDOException]
  SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using pas
  sword: YES)

Why is it trying to access the database? Why root? I'm confused.

via Chebli Mohamed