“I wanted to fail. I thought it would be good for all of us to do a record that wasn’t as well received as Cheer. But my bandmates [did] not agree,” laughs Drug Church singer Patrick Kindlon. Comparing creative careers to the stock market, he explains that there need to be low points, or the drop off will be more severe. But Kindlon might have to wait a bit longer for that course correction, as the band’s new album, Hygiene, is everything fans want in a follow up to Cheer.
“The record that is Hygiene was recorded, and when I heard it I said, ‘Oh, this is a pretty good record.’ And the guys were offended because they thought they wrote a great record. But I said, ‘No, it’s just pretty good. It’s an eight out of 10. Seven out of 10, maybe.’ And they were really nervous that they hadn’t written the best material that they could,” Kindlon explains. “We chopped songs off, went back in the studio, and now I think it is every bit the equal of Cheer.”
Hygiene is Drug Church’s most accessible album to date, which isn’t exactly what Kindlon was hoping for. But the tension between Kindlon’s affinity for heavy and abrasive, and the rest of the band’s tendency towards pop, is what makes Drug Church so interesting.
“I always wanna do heavier music,” Kindlon says. “The reason for that is I’m not much of a singer. And I think that I’ll look pretty ridiculous doing heavy music in five years because I’m just getting older. I wanted a properly heavy record in our catalogue before I look silly performing it. But that’s not what they were listening to. When they went into the studio they weren’t listening to heavy music for the months before that. They were listening to a lot of British stuff, and I think that’s what made the influence on it being a little bit more accessible.”
While Kindlon pushed back on some of the material his bandmates brought him, they were largely in agreement about the direction for the record.
“On this record, there was a little bit of that where I’d say, ‘Can we make this a little bit dirtier? Please, for the love of god?’ This guitar part, or that guitar part, ‘Can we drop this very melodic part here?’ There [weren’t] too many concessions. I mostly gave in and tried to sing. People at home can tell me if I was successful at that or not. I’d say I lost most of the battles and had to actually try. I didn’t get to relax, I had to actually try to do things that maybe are more of a challenge for me.”
The lyrics feel urgent as always, perhaps due to Drug Church’s writing style, in which the music is written ahead of time and then Kindlon writes the lyrics in the studio shortly before recording.
“Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a chorus, or just a catchy line that I write before I walk in the door. But mostly I just sit in the studio and listen to the song ten times in a row and just sit down, write the lyrics, try singing it 25 times, and then move along with the process,” he says.
Thematically, like Cheer, Hygiene deals with a lot of the same frustrations towards people who are always in each other’s business, trying to police one another. Anyone who follows Kindlon’s creative work, which in addition to music, includes podcasts and comic books, will be familiar with these themes. He doesn’t shy away from conflict and will call out hypocrisy anytime he sees it.
“Anybody who would self-elect to be in power, doesn’t deserve power,” he says. “That applies equally to your local congress person and to Spin Kick Sally and Moshy Mark. The person that feels comfortable being your judge is the least qualified, across the board, in every facet of life, including our interpersonal interactions.”
Ever the provocateur, Kindlon often criticizes the scene politics he encounters throughout his life in DIY music communities.
“I frankly refuse to submit myself to the authority of someone who self elects to that authority just to harm others,” Kindlon says. “Which is almost exclusively what I see from the people who would tell other people how to live. I’ve never seen it actually informed by some type of need to do right to the greater good of a community, and all the gibberish that people kick out when they’re justifying their sick predilection for giving orders to strangers or demanding compliance from people they’ve never met.”
Kindlon notes that this mania is nothing new, people have always been nosey. What’s new are the immediate consequences of that nosiness.
“We’ve always had a thirst for other peoples’ business,” he says. “The difference now is that the sort of groupthink that would allow you to destroy somebody, can be mobilized in minutes.”
Kindlon has sometimes gotten caught up in controversy and upset some people when talking “too loosely.” But under the surface, he is a person with deep compassion and empathy for other people. Seeing lives destroyed by unlicensed hall monitors has given him a unique perspective and a deep aversion to scene police. “I don’t have the stomach for the hypocrisy” he says. “I suppose that that childish kickback response to hypocrisy is my personal problem, but it is one that I certainly have.”
Watch the video for “Million Miles of Fun” here:
For more from Drug Church, find them on Facebook, Instagram, and their official website.
Photo courtesy of Drug Church and Ryan Scott Graham
