We talk to Richard Patrick of Filter about their new album, Crazy Eyes, their upcoming Australian tour with Ministry and his personal memories of the late Chris Cornell.

Filter are an American industrial rock band who were formed in 1993 in Cleveland, Ohio by singer Richard Patrick. They are best known for their hit singles “Hey Man Nice Shot” from their debut album, “Short Bus” and “Take A Picture” from their second album entitled, “Title of The Record” both albums achieving platinum status.

Now it is said that inspiration can strike at any moment but it’s not very often that an artist will be in the middle of writing a new song when you call for a scheduled interview. That being said, if the artist is the creative Richard Patrick of Filter, then that could be a very likely scenario…

SCENEzine: Hi Richard, it’s Sarah from Scenezine in Australia, how are you?

RICHARD PATRICK: Hi Sarah….I’m writing something. *music playing in the background*

SCENEzine: Oh…more new music for Filter?

RICHARD PATRICK: I gotta record this before I forget it.

SCENEzine: Oh yeah, go for it.

RICHARD PATRICK: You ok? It’ll just take a second.

SCENEzine: All good, yeah that’s cool.

*music playing*

RICHARD PATRICK: Oh fuck I forgot it! Oh that’s it. Ok I got it. Here we go. Ok *counting in* 3, 4. That’s it, what do you think of that!?

SCENEzine: Sounds good. Is that going to be an Australian exclusive right there? (laughs)

RICHARD PATRICK: (laughs) mmm no. *music continues*

SCENEzine: I like it

RICHARD PATRICK: ….feels weird

SCENEzine: You’re not sure about it?

RICHARD PATRICK: You never know where ideas come from and there’s something I can build around that and I’m just enjoying it. You know, you just get a computer and you start downloading stuff. People make these instruments and they all fit in this tiny little part of it call Contact and it’s a portable instrument player. It’s like taking all the synthesisers and just putting them right in this one spot, just kinda screwing around with it. Next thing you know, you’re onto something and then the idea sparks more ideas and by the end if it you’ve got a great song. 95% of creativity is just sit the hell down and try.

SCENEzine: …yeah just see what comes out at the end.

RICHARD PATRICK: Yeah, and if you don’t like it, fuck it! Don’t get discouraged, just keep going.

SCENEzine: Yeah for sure, perseverance. So congratulations on your new album, Crazy Eyes! It’s your seventh studio album, two years in the making, it came out so well! Living with the songs for a year now since it’s release, how have you enjoyed having new music out there?

RICHARD PATRICK: I love it. I mean I like the angry stuff and I like the mellow stuff, I like the protest stuff, I mean I’m pretty ok with that record. I’m pretty happy with that record. I think it was cool. You know once again it shot up right after a big record, you know “The Sun Comes Out Tonight” (2013) was big for us. That was a great record, it had a big rock song for us, a big rock hit and then we kinda came out and we were like fuck the guitar! You know what I mean, you know the worst enemy oh the band is the fact that I just don’t want to be put in a hole and I’m not changing myself to constantly be different, it’s just my attention span, my ADHD is like “Hey let’s do something with super gorgeous acoustic guitars and more like amazing lush synth patches and I’ll sing in a falsetto and be really tender about this one topic and then like a week later you come back and studio’s all dark and I’m screaming into a mic. You know I didn’t find my niche and stick to it, I’m not one of those guys. Like the AC/DC guys, they love guitar, and I fucking love their band, I absolutely adore their band, but I ain’t wearing fucking purple shorts for the rest of my life! I ain’t doing it. (laughs)

SCENEzine: (laughs) yeah fair enough, each to their own.

RICHARD PATRICK: Like when we were talking earlier (about film/art) I do movie scores.

SCENEzine: Yeah, I did read that you were doing that too, how has that been?

RICHARD PATRICK: Yeah you know, my first movie was great, it has Jim Carey in it, it’s coming out around September / October.

SCENEzine: Oh yeah cool, that’s exciting!

RICHARD PATRICK: Yeah and the other one is coming out September 22nd it’s Last Rampage and you know, I’m getting my feet wet into that whole thing. You know, I don’t know why I went back to that but I’m just trying to say something about you just constantly want to be doing new things. And that’s my thing, I love singing and I’m always going to sing but like I can already see the second half of my life like kind of going, like wouldn’t it be great to stay home for a fucking month! (laughs) Isn’t it awesome being at home with the kids and actually shaping their lives? You know.

SCENEzine: Yeah being able to do all of that would be so fulfilling. Getting to have that creative outlet and then also to have quality family time and keeping that balance, so you’re not constantly on the road but you also get to go out and explore new things/ places.

RICHARD PATRICK: Yeah, well the reality is with Australia, its been such a long time coming back and it’s sad. If I didn’t have so many health problems or you know, mental health problems I should say, I could’ve cultivated it a little bit more… But coming back and playing with Ministry you know and being supportive and you know just ripping out and hour of Filter music, it’s going to be a lot, it’s going to be a lot for people, we’re going to take you to different places in our career. So it’s an honour and a privilege to come with Ministry. Hopefully this sets us up for you know in a year we’ll come back, we’ll play hour and a half or two hours on our own headlining tour.

SCENEzine: Yeah exactly. I think you’ve definitely got a back catalogue to fill that.
So “Crazy Eyes” feels like something new from Filter while still retaining a familiar sound reminicent of your time with Nine Inch Nails and the early Filter days like the album “Short Bus” do you get the same vibe from the album or were you wanting to bring back a particular sound to the band?

RICHARD PATRICK: Yeah I really just was like “Hey let’s get more industrial” you know it’s still great to have guitars on every fucking song, like I love that about Short Bus, but it’s kind of been hijacked by some lesser bands, you know there’s so many bands out there that are just like stealing our sound, you know I come from like a grunge and industrial kind of thing from like 95′ when my record came out I mean it was Soundgarden, it was all kind of stuff, I’d been in NIN you know it was like my staple to always have these thick, big, huge guitars in it and then it was kind of like everyone’s taking my shit and a lot of the bands that took the sound, um…sucked! (laughs)
I didn’t want to be like, to have to go, “No, actually I fucking did it, back in you know, 1995.

SCENEzine: Yeah exactly. Maybe take inspiration but at least change it up a bit.

RICHARD FILTER: Yeah, so I like taking it where it is and you know we had a bunch of sounds to work with and we sat there and worked on it and it was really fun. Anything electronic and mean is gonna kinda sound like Ministry to me. I mean Ministry’s “With Sympathy” (album released in 1983) was where he started getting angry and Al Jourgensen is the one who inspired Trent (NIN) you know what I mean.

So when I hear angry synthesisers, I’m like oh yeah “Skinny Puppy” (Canadian industrial band that Al Jourgensen guested on in 1989) and people are like “Oh it sounds like Nine Inch Nails” and I’m like guess what? I was in fucking Nine Inch Nails! I was in that shit (laughs) You know what I mean, I was there and we’re all influenced by all kinds of stuff. So Trent brought it to you because he served it up as a pop song, but he didn’t create it. So industrial was created by guys like Al and I’m not going to sit here and shit can Trent, I love Trent, I had a blast, it was fucking awesome! I’m just saying, people need to know.

SCENEzine: Yeah for sure, definitely. It’s important to know who the innovators are. I guess everyone draws inspiration from different areas and other artists to an extent, they just need to put their own spin on it.

RICHARD PATRICK: Yeah, you know Elvis Presley didn’t invent Rock ‘n’ Roll, Rock ‘n’ Roll was invented by fucking guys like Chuck Berry and shit like that, Rhythm and Blues, you know and Elvis just happened to be the white kid that could be in segregated television and fucking brought it to the white kids, that’s the thing. That’s the difference. So Al is the creep and Trent’s like ” No, no I’m the creep!” And we’re like ah you’re kinda creepy, you know but not all the way creepy. (laughs)

SCENEzine: Talking just before about Soundgarden, the news recently of rock legend Chris Cornell’s passing sent shock and sadness world wide. Are you able to share with us any favourite memories that you might have of Chris?

RICHARD PATRICK: I mean, you know, it was at a very incredibly tumultuous time in my life you know, I had met Chris at some party, he had said something to me, it was at a bar or something and then like the next time I saw him I walked into this rehab facility and I was like, I hope this works you know and I was really scared. I’m not religious and I knew twelve step programs were like religious or something, you know it’s not, but there are references to God. Then there was this guy and he’s like “Hey there’s this kid called Chris Cornell here and he’s in a band called ah, ‘Audio Gardens’ or something like that (laughs) and I’m like oh ok…I think it’s Chris Cornell from Soundgarden now, but holy shit, you know I met Chris and I was like “What is everyone doing here?” And he was like, ” Well, what are you here for?” And I’m like “um I’m here because I love to drink” and everyone was like “Bingo! We’re all here because we like to drink” and there were these people saying “Well how are we gonna do this?” And they’re like, “Well we’re here because we really just want to get sober.”

You know, I was like well, I don’t understand this God shit, you know, I’m not a religious person and he (Chris) is like ” I know it feels goofy but just kind of go along with it and just kind of try, just give it a shot.” For some reason, I needed to hear that from someone I really, really admired because I didn’t admire very many people back then, especially just anyone who was a loser like me showing up to an alcoholic rehab facility, and then I started to realise that there’s a lot of really amazing special, really cool people that are just like “Oh shit, I got addicted…I got addicted to this shit” and none of them are bad people, you know, they’re just addicted.

So because Chris was there at that very early moment in my sobriety, he was one of the people, one of the big reasons why I stuck to it all this time and even now after his death, I’m sticking to it. I want to be sober because you know I worry that Chris might have fallen off the wagon and might’ve ended up feeling bad about it and gotten addicted again. I’m going to the funeral tomorrow, I wanna make sure that I say goodbye, you know, it’s tough, you lose someone like that, I mean the whole world of rock lost this, the world of music lost this amazing guy.

SCENEzine: Yeah, he just gave so much to music especially and it’s just heartbreaking. I think we or us as fans / the rest of the world tend to put artists up on a pedestal, you know, it can appear that they live these amazing, embellished lives and we love and respect them, but sometimes it can be forgotten that they go through hardships and battle demons just like everybody else, and it can be even harder to deal with being so vulnerable and exposed to the public eye. We need to respect that more and support them I think.

RICHARD PATRICK: Yeah, absolutely. It’s the thing, I mean it’s like yeah, for some reason, no matter where you are, you’re always going to have a certain amount of pain or a certain amount of happiness. You know, the problem with drugs is that it makes everything, it makes being bored ok and so for me, I’m ok with a certain amount of boredom but like I also really feel like I want to be motivated all the time and for some reason that antsyness and that unhappiness was just like the status quo, kind of just propels you but at the same time it can and I make you so miserable, because you know, think about it, it’s hard for you to understand but there have been times when I’ve been onstage like with this amazing audience and I just feel empty inside, and it’s just the condition. You have to remember that this is special, this is what we worked for, this is amazing. So the sickness, the problem you have with your brain, is it’s telling you “yeah well, what next?” And it’s like no, no, no focus on this awesome thing real quick and then we’ll go to what’s next.

SCENEzine: Yeah, its living in the moment, practicing mindfulness, it’s a hard task to try to grasp. It sounds so simple but yeah I can definitely relate to that.
Well we’re almost out of time, I have so much more I want to talk to you about so I might have to save that for when I actually see you play here in Melbourne.

RICHARD PATRICK: (yells) Yeah I love Melbourne!

SCENEzine: (laughs) Aw that’s good, we’re looking forward to seeing you soon!

RICHARD PATRICK: My Dad goes “Hey they don’t like, it’s not Mel’born’ everyone from the Midwest goes hey look Mel’born’, no its Mel’ben’

SCENEzine: (laughs) you’ve nailed it.

RICHARD PATRICK: (in an Australian accent) How do you like that, Mel’ben’ ay!?

SCENEzine: (laughs) that’s actually a really good Australian accent, you’ve been practicing.

RICHARD PATRICK: (laughs) I do weird cartoon voices all the time just to keep my kids happy and that’s the kinda stuff I do like ” Going to Australia, gonna be fun ay!?”

SCENEzine: (laughs) Are you bringing the kids or are you just coming over with the band?

RICHARD PATRICK: Let’s see, I could spend $6000 on flying the family out if I could send them to a Summer camp and they can can explore bugs and have lots of fun. Like how many times a day can you see Dad sing.
I hope one day to return with them and show them everything, it’s a beautiful place with a beautiful culture.

SCENEzine: Yeah for sure, that sounds good. Well thank you so much for chatting with us, it’s been so great talking to you and we look forward to see you play here in Melbourne. We’ll have to show you some new spots around the city.

RICHARD PATRICK: Absolutely love Melbourne, can’t wait.

INTERVIEW BY SARAH THOMSON