“I always knew I was trying to make something intensely personal. I was never thinking that it wasn’t a part of me, but the culmination of the words ended up meaning something different than what my original intention was,” confesses Militarie Gun frontman Ian Shelton just prior to the release of their sophomore album, God Save The Gun, out now via Loma Vista Recordings. The collection of songs allowed him to peel back many of his own layers. Many of which he hadn’t realized were ready to be uncovered until listening back to his demos, sitting with them and realizing he resonated just a little too well with the underlying messages.
“When you’re writing it you don’t really have the perspective of what it will be,” he explains. “It’s like a vomit draft and it’s just the pure feeling of it. I don’t think many songwriters are intellectualizing why they’re doing it as they’re doing it. It really takes creating a full body of work to even start to understand what you’re going through. That’s how I’ve felt every record, where when I look at it, I’m like, ‘oh, I’m kind of beating a dead horse on the same shit but it all makes a bigger picture.’”
Part of being a musician is often taking on the hard task of psychoanalyzing oneself and not only confronting hard truths but then translating those onto paper and presenting them for the world to see—and hear. Sometimes though, like in Shelton’s case, those hard truths were the breakthrough needed to be able to take a step forward in a healthier direction—both with the band and in his personal life. So often “band culture” is enmeshed in association with heavy drinking and drug use because of the nature of what happens in live show settings, but also because of the patterns of mental health that circulate across the music industry. Shelton addressed his experience of witnessing close friends and relatives struggle with alcohol abuse throughout the band’s first album, but over time, he came to experience what that crutch was like for himself.
“I think that musicians and artists in general really struggle with substance abuse because we’re all kind of deeply unhappy people and we’re seeking this thing like your whole life. You want people to see and hear what you create and then once you get that you realize it doesn’t change any of your actual feelings about what you’ve gone through in life, and I think that’s where it’s really easy for drugs and alcohol to take hold where that hole is still unfilled,” he says. “It’s still there and you are left reeling being like ‘well, I’ve gotten what I wanted, but I’m not happy still.’ Alcohol specifically was the thing that I felt really made me feel normal for the first time in my life, but it wasn’t healthy, so I just had to be stubborn and say ‘this isn’t it, I’m not doing it anymore.’”
When it comes to being vulnerable as a musician, there is a unique gift in being able to bring communities together and giving hope to those experiencing the same life struggles and that’s what Shelton is always aiming for when putting music out into the world. In fact, his relationship to alcohol was not even the most sensitive topic that’s addressed on God Save The Gun. “I Will Murder Your Friend” is a track that really delves into the taboo nature of suicide and the ways it is often approached by society. As someone who has struggled with the rationalization of suicidal ideation, it’s important for Shelton to speak on the matter in a way that dispels what he considers the false narratives of grandeur surrounding the topic. I think it’s really also important to note that no one sympathizes more to those who suffer from depression and the invasive thoughts that follow, but he felt a strong responsibility to hold the notion of suicide accountable for what he believes is inherently a very selfish act.
In his own words, Shelton says, “It’s a song that means so much to me because I think so much of my joy in life was somewhat rocked by the glorification of suicide, this idea that you’re above criticism if you choose to go that route and that you’re the glorious martyr. For me, I want to dispel that and talk about the selfishness of it. I think that if people could just reconfigure it in a way that affects less people; It’s so much better to receive an inconvenient phone call being burdened with someone’s emotions rather than the phone call that they’re gone. That’s something I really wish I had heard growing up. I’ve lived my whole life just planning that was what I was going to do at some point, and I wanted to take it off the table for myself. So now I have to live by that standard and completely remove that as a possibility in my life.”
Music can be therapeutic for those producing it as well as those receiving it. So, in many ways it is a highly spiritual form of communication and Militarie Gun wants to offer their messaging as a light in the dark for people to connect with on a deeper level. It definitely doesn’t always mean that those underlying issues will be met with closure, but it can give people an opportunity to come out of their shell and celebrate humanistic imperfections in a safe space. In that way, Shelton and the rest of the band are hoping people hear this album and resonate with it in a way that helps them accept even the darkest parts of themselves, to connect with others who have had similar experiences, and keep fighting the good fight every day.
God Save the Gun is out now and you can order it from Loma Vista Recordings. Follow Militarie Gun on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok for future updates.
