Anthems for the Damned, the fourth album from Filter, directly addresses the war but also talks bluntly about the doubts and demons of the band’s leader, guitarist and singer Richard Patrick. Perhaps not surprisingly, Patrick is just as honest and insightful when we spoke on the phone recently to discuss the album, its politics and how rock music has always been a vehicle to express what matters most to him – whether it be his past alcoholism or the current Iraq War.
Anthems for the Damned deals with current events. It discusses what’s going on in the world.
In the last 10 years, it’s really come to my attention that the world’s getting f**ked up. And it’s mostly because of humans. And it’s so sad, because human beings have the ability to point a telescope at the most distant galaxy and know that that’s a part of our reality. And yet, on another side of the world, we’re trying to steal someone’s oil, and those people are so [mad] at each other because of their religious beliefs that they’re killing each other. It astounds me that we are such a brilliant species, but yet we are so completely reckless right now.
How easy is it to write about political themes within the structure of rock songs?
It’s all based on experience – you write what you know. I know what it’s like to be me, and I know what it’s like to be an observer of what’s happening in the world. If a president makes a tragic mistake to the tune of 4,000 people being killed – and hundreds of thousands of people from another country being killed – all for the so-called sanctity of the country’s interest, which is oil, then you’re gonna write about it. I can’t sit back and write songs about being Jesus Rock ‘N’ Roll – I can’t do it. I can’t write songs about having a crib or my gold chain that I’m wearing. I can’t be a part of that scene. But this isn’t a new thing: John Lennon, Johnny Rotten, Al Jourgensen, Bono. Back in the day, Bono didn’t want to write about fast cars.
You don’t strike me as someone who’s ever wanted to write about fast cars. When you were starting out, did you know you wanted to make songs with ideas in them?
There was a period of my life where I wrote from purely an experience point of view. “Take a Picture” [from 1999's Title of Record] was written from the insanity of being an alcoholic. I tried to make sense of it, but I refused to write with any kind of meaning behind it, and I wrote purely stream-of-conscious. And looking back on those lyrics, it was genius because it was not contrived – I didn’t know that the message was that this song was about alcoholism.
I think sometimes the best writing comes out that way: You don’t know what’s going to happen, so you just surrender to your subconscious.
When you’re faced with writing lyrics … I write all this music and I’m like, “Wow, this is really beautiful – what’s this song going to be about?” That’s a daunting task. And so a lot of times what you do is you just go for it. When I wrote the chorus to “Take a Picture” – “Could you take my picture/’Cuz I won’t remember” – it was just after my friend was like, “Do you remember anything you did last night?” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” She said, “My god, you were throwing beer bottles out of a cab window at a cop car. Do you remember that?” And I said, “Good lord, could you take my picture, ‘cuz I won’t remember.” And that line just kinda stuck. Weeks later, I had another drunken experience – being on a plane and being blacked out and not feeling good and taking my shirt off, half in and out of consciousness – and I’m in the back of a paddy wagon. I’m thinking, “Oh my god, what is my dad gonna think of this s**t?” Y’know, ‘Dad, what do you think about your son now?’ So, the song is this amazing thing for me to look back on now.
