Richard Patrick, Filter’s visionary who has steered them to the top of the industrial rock genre for over two decades, sits with a calm intensity aboard what he will call home for the next few months. With his passion, he almost gives me the impression of someone with ADHD but controlled and extremely intelligent. He’s very opinionated but not in the way of someone like Gene Simmons; Patrick is well thought out. At times I have to remind myself that he’s the frontman of a major rock band and not a full time political activist, as we discuss subjects such as global warming and the current presidential election. As we dive into his latest record, Crazy Eyes, we are taken through the journey of his musical genius and the reality that is Filter.
Currently on tour with Orgy, Vampires Everywhere, & Death Valley School, how’s that going?
It’s good; it’s an industrial package. The reality is I can always appreciate where we came from. Back when I was growing up, it was Skinny Puppy and Ministry, two bands that are still touring today. We just added a rock kind of element to it, and I love the industry, electronic vibe. So we kind of returned, with Crazy Eyes, to more of an electronic sound and got back into the same attitude I had when I was on Warner Brothers. Wind Up was completely ok with me producing it, so I felt like Orgy and Vampires Everywhere and all these guys are amazing, so we brought them out and we’re having fun.
Do you hand pick the bands yourself?
This tour, yeah because we are headlining. You contact them, and you’re like, “Hey you guys wanna tour together?” Then they have to decide; that’s how it all works out.
Speaking of the new album, Crazy Eyes, it just came out in early April; can you take us through the writing process?
Basically, I called the record company and said, “Listen, Short Bus was two guys who were drunk and didn’t give a fuck.” They had a drum machine out of necessity; I didn’t know any drummers. We’re not all Dave Grohl. We had to kind of cheat and do everything we wanted to do on a record with just the two of us. I want to get back in the setting where I don’t feel like I’m having to work with someone who’s going to turn me into a rock band. I love the last record, but it’s a bit rock. So I did my time with Bob Marlette; the records were great, but it was time for me to produce it like I used to back in the old days. It was basically my way or the highway, and I was very drunk, I would throw a beer at your face. When I got sober, I started to work well with others. I started to mind my own business. So, I just decided give me the power to say yes and no, and then I’ll work with people that I appreciate: Michael Tuller, who was in Nine Inch Nails after he worked with me, then there’s Danny Loner, same kind of guy, he was in Nine Inch Nails. Brian Liesegang was in Nine Inch Nails. I come from a world where, if you are available, I’m in to work with you. I like working with my buddies; we’re kind of in a club – the formerly of Nine Inch Nails club. I think that’s totally appropriate and fun. So then with the new kid, Oumi Kapila, he’s like this award winning guitar player from Australia. I ran into him randomly; we were at a Christmas Party for BMG, and he just had a very strange take on music. I told him I really want to experiment, do some new things, but I want to do a Filter record. He was coming into it blind and it gave the album a freshness. But the recklessness on the writing and the words repeating phrases over and over and not caring, all that kind of stuff was my old school attitude. So he was cool; we worked really hard. He added a lot. The new line up appears all over the record; Chris Reeve’s played drums on everything except for one song. Ashley Dzerigian wrote one of the cooler tracks. She wrote “Under the Tongue.” Bobby Miller is just this amazing utility guy live; he plays keyboards, he sings, plays guitar, he designed the lightshow that we have. He’s just this amazing live guy that passionately loves music. He was actually in a cover band when he was 14 years old; he covered “Jurassitol” when he was a kid. So I have all this young energy. I like to keep my folks young, unjaded, and fun. The line-up has changed over the years. That’s just the way it is.
Do you find that challenging?
No, because I made myself the guy when I signed the record contract by myself. That was my thing. I signed it, and I knew that I was kind of the guy in charge. At first it was like, who do we know that plays drums? I don’t know. I tried to get some guys from Cleveland and a guitar player from one of the bands, The Spud Monsters, clocked me. He’s like, you can’t steal my fucking drummer. I realized Cleveland is a tougher town; the bands want to stick together. So I went to a bigger town, Chicago, and I met Matt Walter. Geno Lenardo and I did take Frank Cavanagh. But that was the first version of the band. Everyone is like talking about, oh man I love that band. I’m like the record was me and a computer with Brian Liesegang organizing it and Ben Gross mixing it; they had nothing to do with the record. On the following record, Title of Record, I utilized as much talent as I could with those guys, and it was still kind of my show. I wrote “Welcome to the Fold” single handedly. I did “Take a Picture” before anyone was around. Before I built the studio, I had written most of the hits for that record: “Best Things,” “I’m Not the Only One.” “Skinny” I think was largely written by Geno; he wrote “It’s Gonna to Kill Me”, and I just sang over it. I realized I needed to keep things rolling faster, and so I did The Amalgamut with those guys. That was a little bit more reliance. Then record sales started to drop; I went into rehab. Came back out, and I just had a fresh approach, but I was listening to people too much. I wanted to sequence Anthems for the Damned: “The Take” first then “In Dreams” then “Soldiers of Misfortune” to let everyone know that I’m still industrial, but the powers that be kind of convinced me to with the whole, “I’ve sold 80 million records, trust me”, and that’s the wrong reasons to listen to someone. I agree with the fans not liking some of the records. There are a lot of people that do like those records. I think Crazy Eyes is the most up to date version of Filter.
Tell us about the song “It’s Just You” and its involvement with the Forever Young Foundation.
The song is about us; it’s a very inclusive song, it’s like I wanted to whisper to everybody that it’s going to be ok. We did a video for it. Anything to give back to the community; they were really amazing people. They had a really big fundraiser; they made double the amount they had ever made. Anything that I could do to help. I met some amazing children, and when I got up on stage, I let it rip. I cried and said these kids should be out playing, when to help them, and this is why we are here, and I just wept, I didn’t hold back. I wanted everyone to know I’m there for the right reasons, and I feel really good about that. The performance was great, loud. A lot of fundraising people were like whoa; all the wealthy people were thinking, these guys are nuts, who let the riff raff in? Dr. Dave and all the wonderful people in that community were so sweet. I want to always stay close to those guys and do anything I can to help them.
You have tour dates up until early July ending off in Europe; is there a difference in the crowds of Europe and the U.S.?
The kids in Europe are freer, they jump around, and they answer back more. They hold their hands up all together; they are just so much more into it. American fans are taking it in and really watch it. They are having a good time, but they are like really studying everything because they are so into it. Once in a while, I’ll convince them to put their hands up, and maybe four people will do it. If I do that in Europe, it’s every single hand. We love both; America is my home land, and I’m very proud of it. As you know I’m very politically active. I want to tell you we are playing Rockville. I’m playing it, and I’m fucking not going to be quiet and obey. I’m not avoiding Rockville. I’m confronting Rockville, confronting North Carolina.
The name of your current tour, Make America Hate Again, is a knock on Donald Trump. You’ve compared him to Hitler; don’t you think that’s a little harsh?
No. The divisiness and the alienation of a minority was the first thing that Hitler did. He rounded up all the Jews, gypsies, and gays and said, “These people are your enemy.” What Donald Trump is doing is saying we’ve got to fucking keep all those illegal aliens out. Have you ever met someone that’s newly in America from Mexico? They’re the sweetest. I’m sure there’s bad eggs in ever society, but in general I have noticed that they want to work, they’re trying, they’ll do anything to make their lives a little bit better for their kids. Maybe their grandma is sick back in Mexico, and they can make more money in America. I just have such sympathy for that. That’s what America is all about; it’s about inclusion and diversity. Building a wall? That’s fucking completely bonkers. And he’s lying, fucking lying to the American people by saying it’s going to be 18 billion. The estimates just on the roads would cost 25 billion. To build it you have to have roads going through the fucking wilderness. So I think that he is dangerous and divisive. I think he’s trying to spread us apart. I feel like the Tea Party in general has a skewed vision. I think a lot of this is Fox News. I think that Americans should really keep an eye on what we are doing because I think that it’s going to have a great impact on our lives in the future. He says that climate change is a hoax. Let me ask you this: you’re a scientist, you already know you’re not going to make money. You already know you’re going to be out in the fucking desert measuring shit. You’re NASA, and you put two measuring devices over your head, a satellite, and when it spreads apart and then get close to each other, it can measure gravity. Where’s all the gravity? It’s in the water; density of water gives off a lot of gravity. Now all the water is running out in California and throughout the Middle East. So climate change has a large impact on how societies live. The Middle East is really running out of water, and they are having a hard time growing anything; this will lead to civil unrest. Climate change is actually a real thing; you can actually measure it. They get thousands and thousands of samples from the arctic ice caps, and they measure it and they see.They notice when there was a period that was really warm. So what’s contributing to the early arrival of heating, because we all know the planet is going to heat, but the reality is if it’s way too early we are not going to be prepared, and our bodies are not going to be able to adapt through evolution. We’re in trouble. Those are the facts. When Donald Trump, a man that is running for President in the free world, says that it’s a hoax and says that all these scientists are wrong…what are they going to sell a book? Nobody is going to read a science book. And the citing of the Bible, something that was written in the Bronze Age? To quote Bill Maher, I think he’s right on this, a book that was written when they didn’t know what the germ was, didn’t know what the atom was, and they didn’t know where the sun went at night. If you did, you were burned at the stake. So all of this leads me to think this man is ignorant and reckless and dangerous. He says he’s going to round up 11 million illegal immigrants; this is his platform. This is Hitleresque. What’s he going to do? “We’re going to treat them humanely. We’re going to put them camps. We’re going to fucking register all the Muslims” just like Hitler registered all the Jews. This is crazy shit, and we can’t have it, and Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are the only option.
You would endorse both of them?
I’m a Democrat, and I’m endorsing the Democrat nominee.
If you could hand pick someone who would it be?
My wife and I feel that it really is important to have a woman in the Oval Office. I believe that will help things, not in a sexist way. We’ve had an African American; I think it’s great that we should strive for it and include women into this. They make up a majority in our country. But at the same time, Bernie’s ideas are fantastic; he is speaking my language. He is so liberal and he’s a Democratic Socialist. I’m fully okay with him. All the democrats want to do is get the fucking Exxon’s to pay taxes. They want to get billionaires to pay taxes. That’s not a bad thing.
On Scott Weiland, many people knew he was on his way out, unfortunately. But you called him out publicly, why? Were you guys close at one point?
Absolutely. I don’t think he really remembered me, but I included him as one of my idols. He was like second generation grunge. They hated that, and he got picked on a lot because he did the yodeling thing, and it sounded like (Eddie) Vedder. Listen, I’m in a program of recovery; the way I got sober was, unfortunately, my mother and my father and people around me were always saying that I drank too much, so I got used to it, became jaded to that. It was until a girl I hadn’t seen since high school left me a message, and it was so brutal and honest that it really made me sick. Here’s this girl that hasn’t seen me, and she’s saying, literally that you are a fucking drug addict, go to fucking rehab. She left it on my machine; she was like, “I have one fucking word, rehab, you are sick, I love you. You treated me like shit; you were so fucking drunk you couldn’t even stand. Your show was shitty, you’re an asshole. Until you get sober, fuck off.” That was like, wow. Then my mother said she was praying for me, and I’m like, wow that’s terrible that I’m putting my mother through this. These kids don’t realize until they have kids how much your parents mean. So Scott, at a certain point, it’s like all hands on deck, fucking emergency, say what I’ve got to say. Lets not enable him. He goes on his Facebook page, and he sees, “You’re such a rockstar. I like getting drunk to your music”. There’s so much enabling almost from the audience that I found it dangerous. I just did what my heart said. Everyone was like, oh my god what is he doing, cause I’m nutty on Facebook. I just vent on Facebook. I lose fans; I lost thousands of fans when I said I thought the rebel flag should come down. The fucking, excuse me the Virginia battle flag (sarcastic), that’s in their heritage. You know I’m from the South. I have relatives that fought for the South and for the North. My distant cousin is Sullivan Ballou who wrote “Dear Sara”, look it up. It’s one of the most well written letters of why a person was fighting in the Civil War. I’m related to that man. My heritage goes back to the fucking revolution with Captain Matthew Patrick; later on his son Jacob Patrick fought in the 1812 war, or it’s possible it was the other way around. So, I’m an American and I know why they fought; they fought so I could say what I want to say. Scott Weiland was just someone we lost, and we tried. When I go to bed at night, I don’t want to say, “I should have said something.” I’ve said that too many times with people. I’ve got friends who killed themselves; they mention to me that wanted to die, and they were like, it would be so easier if I were dead. You hear that ,and you’re like oh come on, dude don’t say that, and a week later they’re dead. In my program of recovery, it’s a secret society; you see it all the time. People die all the time. “Where’d Betty go, she’s dead, she hung herself”. An alcoholic death, there’s all kinds of ways, hit someone in a car, thrown in prison, kill themselves in prison, it’s always there. So I just made the decision I was going to stand out and say it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help.
Anything going on with your side projects? Army of Anyone and Damning Well?
Damning Well will never happen because the four of us are all so wrapped up in our lives. Danny Lohner is a very busy producer. The closest thing to Damning Well is the City of Blinding Lights, except I needed Wes (Borland), and I needed Josh Freeze. All of those musicians are so busy that I just don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. As well as Army of Anyone, the DeLeo brothers are now searching for a singer, and I’ve seen some amazing people show up. I was like, this is kind of weird that they would do that; they’re so private. But I saw some guys that I’m just fucking rooting for. This is good. I send them letters saying this guy is fucking good, and they’re like thanks for your input Rich (laughing), and they’re like get away. My thing with singing for Stone Temple Pilots, obviously there’s a bunch of awkward stuff with that fact that Scott’s gone and everything. But I’m a tenor; I sing high, and he sang low. You need a baritone. He was a baritone, and you need that baritone. That’s what I’m saying, stay with the baritones.
How about something with Trent Reznor?
I’d love to work with Trent. One thing I am doing now is film scoring, I’m doing a movie “True Crime” with Jim Carrey, and it’s a fucking blast. I’m having so much fun with the movie. I’m working with Tobias Enhus; he’s my partner in it. I’m very proud of the work we are doing. It’s really cool. It was shot in Poland; it’s a very dark movie. It’s one of his dark ones, and as we all know how great those were: Man on the Moon and 23. He does some really great dark movies. It’s one of those, and he’s brilliant in it. All the actors are amazing; the script is really well done. It’s got that vibe. I like it.
One last questions are you a New England Patriots fan (Richard was born in MA)?
Of course, Patriots all the way.
Thanks for your time today and I look forward to the show.
Filter is:
Richard Patrick – Vocals, Guitars, Producer
Oumi Kapila – Lead Guitar
Chris Reeve – Drums
Ashley Dzerigan – Bass
Bobby Miller – Keyboards, Sound Design, Background Vocals
Connect with Filter(click icons):
Interview and photographs by RockRevolt Photojournalist – Brett Tully
