Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Richard Patrick of Filter

For nearly six years, Filter fans patiently waited while Richard Patrick, the band’s mastermind, checked himself into rehab and got sober, then joined his buddies Robert and Dean DeLeo (from Stone Temple Pilots) in a new outfit, Army of Anyone. As good as that band’s one and only album was, Filter is where Patrick belongs. Its resurrection comes with the searing new album Anthems for the Damned, a diverse, dynamic outing that showcases Patrick’s new socially-conscious outlook. He recently took time out from reacquainting himself with his fans on the road to talk to Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki about all things Filter.

Live-Metal.net: You probably don’t remember because you do so many of these, but I actually interviewed you last year, too.

Richard Patrick: Oh, for Army of Anyone. Awesome.

That went really well, so I’m glad to be talking to you again. First, I want to say that I really like the new album a lot.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

It’s one of those where I feel like I get more out of it each time I hear it.

That’s awesome. Thank you.

In the title, Anthems for the Damned, you’re referring to pretty much all of us in a way, right?

Yeah, it’s humanity. It’s all of us. I don’t really feel like we’re on the right path. I think there’s some issues and whether it’s greed, whether it’s just inability to take care of our planet, to take care of the other species, the plant life, we’re always at war with each other, we have a fascination with an invisible man that lives in the sky that has all the power and a lot of these people disagree about that and they kill each other, especially in the Middle East. It’s a slightly pessimistic kind of record cover. It’s a slightly pessimistic view on where we’re at as a species.

From looking at the album and listening to the lyrics and everything, you obviously have some pretty strong feelings about both war in general and our troops that are out there serving now.

I love the military. I have friends in the military. We’ve had fans go and die in the military—a 22-year-old boy by the name of Justin Eyerly was killed serving his country. You better have a fuckin’ good reason to put this kid in harm’s way and, of course the reason is the fact that Shell Oil makes a trillion dollars a year. That’s the reason. We’ve got two oil men in the fuckin’ White House that have destroyed our country. And we can’t seem to recognize that as a culture. It just astounds me. It astounds me. So it’s a call to arms. Take back the world, take back our country, be cool to each other, stop killing each other. You’re Sunni, you’re Shia—who gives a fuck? You’re Iraqis. You’re humans. Stop killing each other. Stop being dicks to each other. Get over it. Israel’s a fuckin’ country. Get over it. Fuckin’ let’s try and find a place to live. Get over it. And it’s just little shit like that. It’s little statements like that.

And at the same time, I’m also saying in the song called “Only You,” I’m telling the audience we all have to do our part. A young captain in the military told me—god knows how many insurgents he’s killed—and he’s like, “Do you consider yourself a patriot?” And he was talking to a friend of mine and he goes, “Yeah.” He goes, “You have a Prius?” He goes, “No.” He goes, “You’re not a fuckin’ patriot.” Stop fuckin’ paying so much money for oil. Stop fuckin’ like—go solar. If you’re a fuckin’ patriot, go solar. That’s a patriot. Don’t fuckin’ put a flag on your fuckin’ house. Don’t just put a flag on your house. Fuckin’ reduce your energy spending. Reduce your energy consumption. There’s a lot of that.

My idols are Bono. My idols are fuckin’ John Lennon, Al Jourgensen, Nivek Ogre, Joe Strummer. I’m kind of over talking about my own personal issues, although that’s really good. I really do like that because I can be an inspiration for some people, for most hopefully. But at the same time, it’s also time to look around. Come on, you think one of these American Idols are gonna do it? You think fuckin’ hip hop—I mean, I know Public Enemy would, but most of the hip hop guys are too busy talking about their fuckin’ money, their fuckin’ good times, fuckin’ posturing about their ego and they’re bitching about each other and they’re killing each other. I’ve got more important things to think about in my music than a lot of the folks. Some bands talk about being a rock star. My god. “I want to be on Cribs.” No. That’s not where Filter lives anymore. Filter doesn’t care about that shit.

As you mentioned, a lot of the earlier Filter stuff, the songs were about things you were going through personally. Was there something specific that made you shift your attention outward?

Sobriety. I suffered horribly from a mental illness known as alcoholism. It was very debilitating. So I wrote a song [“Take a Picture”]—I thought it was just about getting drunk on an airplane and ha ha ha, how funny. The reality is it was a huge, beautiful cry for help. It was an amazing journey into one’s psyche. It was completely written from stream of conscious. I’m sitting there singing this stuff now and it’s amazing to me how much of a cry for help that song was. I’m asking my dad for help on that. “What do you think of your son now? How could you let this happen?” That’s the tone that I took. At the time, I really honestly did not know what I was writing. I was like, “Hey, check that line out! ‘Hey, dad, what do you think of your son now?’” Like, “Hey, dad, I’m calling from jail.” Remember that punk song—“Hey, dad, I’m in jail!” So lyrically, I go all over the place and I’m very proud of my lyrics. I’m glad I can convey something honest. That’s really where I just want to be, is somewhere in the honesty.

Are there other older songs now where you look back and find some new meaning in them like that?

Oh yeah. “Hey Man Nice Shot.” Fuckin’ a lot of it. “Skinny”—right before I play that song, I go, “How many people thought when they were growing up that they were different?” Everybody raises their hands and I’m like, see, we’re not alone. We’re all skinny or fat or black or white or gay. Something’s wrong with all of us. We feel different together. We’re all the same because we feel different together, which is an amazing thing.

Just recently, you went over to Kuwait for the Operation MySpace show. How did that go?

It was amazing. We brought Frank Cavanaugh up there and he played bass on “Hey Man Nice Shot,” probably our most famous bass line. It was great. He did a great job.

I didn’t know he had enlisted until I heard about him joining you on stage there.

Yes. Frank Cavanaugh is our old bass player. He was on tour with us for a long time, from 1996 to 2002. He joined the military in 2005 and he’s in Iraq right now. I hope he keeps his head down. Avoid bullets!

On this new album, I hear a lot of anger and sadness, but I get a sense from you that you still have some hope that we can fix this if everybody wakes up and does their part.

Yeah, like I mentioned earlier, just fuckin’ love good, hate bad. Try not to fuckin’ kill each other. Simple, simple shit that we can’t after thousands of years of civilization, we just can’t seem to get right. We tried fuckin’ Republican oil men in the White House. Let’s try some fuckin’ Democrats that want to actually get together with fuckin’—who’s the Iranian president?

[Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad. Get together with Ahmadinejad and go, “Look, I know you’re really busy hating and beating up your women and hating homosexuality and stuff like that. I get that. But look, let’s all fuckin’ try and fuckin’ ease the tensions between the Sunni and the Shia.” Let’s do that shit. All the way through Cold War they were talking to each other. There was a red phone that they could call each other and they could get in contact, ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even then, they still were talking to each other. And, you know, do it. If Communist, Red bastard Communist, fuckin’ pinko—do you know what I mean? If that ended, don’t you think that fuckin’ a bunch of Muslim men can finally chill out on this if we were just like, “You know what? You and Saudi Arabia, why don’t you guys just have your oil. We’ll leave it all there.” You know, for $100 billion—for one month of the Iraq war, one month of the Iraq war—we could put a solar farm in the Mojave Desert that would generate 30 percent of our nation’s energy. Do you know that? This useless piece of land—not even animals live there. All you do is you put these solar panels in about 15 feet and you just maintain and operate them. All it does is heat up fuckin’ water in a glass tube and the water spins a turbine and there’s your energy. The technology is so fucking easy. It’s all so easy. And yet there’s no profit in that. You can’t fuckin’ rape people when there’s a hurricane. Shell Oil, they made a trillion dollars last year. Do you know that? A trillion dollars! What do they do with that money? Where does that money go? They can’t hire their own private army to go fuckin’ solve Iraq’s issues? You know that’s where they want to go with this. They want a fuckin’ privatized—they want to fuckin’ get Blackwater. They want to get rid of the American troops and fuckin’ just have Blackwater run around. That’s the only way you can reduce the troops is if you fuckin’ hire—but I think the oil companies should be paying for that fuckin’ shit. It’s their war.

During all of this, I kind of wonder where we’d be if someone like Justin Eyerly had been the son of someone like Bush or Cheney.

Yeah, those fuckin’ guys are too busy thinking they’re right. They’re bred and born oil men. Dude, it’s Daniel Day-Lewis and his son. He’s H.W. He’s, [doing an impression of Daniel Day-Lewis from There Will Be Blood] “This is my son and partner, H.W.” That’s who he is. He’s fuckin’ H.W. His grandfather was an oil man, his father was an oil man. “Secure the oil. I’ve got a bigger straw. Look at me. I’ve got a bigger straw. This is my straw. One day when you’re not looking, I’m gonna slit your throat.” It’s so fitting that that movie is out right now and it won an Oscar because it’s like, I’ve seen this. It’s similar to me.

Switching gears a little bit, during the last few years when you were off doing Army of Anyone and other things, did you always know you would come back to Filter at some point?

My brother, Robert [Patrick], was looking into my eyes and he just said, “I want to ask you something.” I said, “What?” And he looked into my eyes and he says, “Why do you always turn your back on Filter?” I’m like, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Well, for the 10 years that you were huge in the ‘90s, you were drunk the whole time and then you put out your third record and you check yourself into rehab and then you don’t go back out on tour for a couple years. And then you do this band Army of Anyone, which is great. I like it. Don’t get me wrong. But why are you so against the band that you left Nine Inch Nails for?” And I just was like, “I can’t believe it. You’re right.” Robert [DeLeo] and Dean [DeLeo] were definitely—it was a great learning experience and everything, but even those guys realized, “You know what? We’re fuckin’ Stone Temple Pilots” It’s great to experiment and it’s wonderful to musically share yourself with someone, but the reality is they wrote four, five, six amazing records. There’s so many great songs that they can choose from. I think that they realized it, I realized it and I love Filter. So that’s why.

Tell me a little bit about the making of this album. You surrounded yourself with a lot of talented people.

I’m lucky. People really appreciate and respect Filter. [Producer] Josh Abraham is no exception. He’s my hero. He came in and he goes, “Look, dude, let’s go make this record.” We got done in two weeks. Josh Freese and John 5 helped out. I’m really blessed to have so many great friends in this industry that really love me and want to take care of me, and I appreciate that.

John 5 is one of my favorite guitarists and without even looking I could tell which songs he played on.

Yeah, he’s so distinctive. I just told him, “Industrial. Your shit is gonna be industrial. We’re gonna fuckin’ tip of the hat to my industrial roots.” Which is Ministry. That’s where it all comes from. I know that industrial music starts with Skinny Puppy and Ministry in America.

To me—and I think this started on the Army of Anyone album—you sound more comfortable as a vocalist than you’ve ever been before. Do you feel that way?

Yeah, I am. I sang so much on tour with Army of Anyone. I was sober the whole time. I got really, really used to singing and I take really good care of my voice. I warm up and I take really good care of myself now. I don’t drink and smoke. So the angst of having to open my mouth and sing in tune is lifted. It just happens because I’m so healthy and I’m just not as critical on myself anymore. It really makes our shows just amazing. We just have so much of a good time.

You’ve put together a whole new band for the tour. Are you still sort of in an adjustment period, getting used to each other out there on stage?

No. They’re amazing. It feels like we’ve been together for 10,000 years. They’re incredible. They were hired because they’re incredibly talented kids and they have a lot to offer musically. In the future, I can see writing songs with all these guys. Mika [Fineo]’s an amazing drummer, but he’s also an astute pianist. [Bassist] John Spiker’s a great engineer. He works really well with Pro Tools. Mitch Marlow is a fuckin’ musical producer, just amazing producer, guitar player, just so interesting. I’m blessed to have these guys in my band and I’m gonna take full advantage of how great they are on the next record, that’s for sure.

Other than the big hit songs that you’ve had, what songs are your favorites to play live?

Well, “Take a Picture’s” been a real solid, amazing song lately. “Hey Man Nice Shot” is obviously fun. “Skinny” is new. I’ve only performed “Skinny” six or seven times now live. So “Skinny” is an old song, but we’re bringing it out and it’s newly done. That’s a song I could never do back in the day because the notes were so high I couldn’t hit them.

Obviously, everyone’s pretty busy now, but do you see yourself at some point in the future working with the guys in Army of Anyone?

Um, sure. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know. Everyone’s just taking it one day at a time. We’ve all got studios and we all have a lot of songs. I don’t know. Maybe. Never say never. Probably not. I’m too busy right now to even think about something like that. Filter is my baby and I want to get it back on the right track.