Episode 11 – The Algorithm – Richard Patrick of Filter

0:00 Derek Oswald Guests of the AltWire podcast are recorded remotely. Due to the nature of remote recording, certain issues such as reverb or background noise may exist in some of these interviews. Although we will always try our best to clean up the audio in post, please be advised that certain issues may still remain. We appreciate your understanding, and we hope you enjoy the show.

0:33 Richard Patrick You are listening to the AltWire podcast, where we feature candid interviews with some of the hottest names in the entertainment industry. Get ready for your host, Derek Oswald.

0:47 Derek Oswald Hello, everyone, and welcome to the AltWire podcast. My name is Derek, and I am super excited about our guest today, Richard Patrick of the rock band Filter. Filter was actually the first band that we interviewed on AltWire back when we opened up in 2013. It is super awesome to be able to catch up with Richard and see how things have been over this last decade, and how he feels that not only his music has changed, but how he feels that the country has changed as well. I'm excited for you guys to listen in. So without further ado, let's get started. Hey. Thank you so much for joining me today, Richard. How are doing? I'm feeling fantastic.

1:24 Richard Patrick Thank you for having me.

1:26 Derek Oswald With this new album that's coming up, it's kind of gone through a long and arduous journey. It started in 2018, probably went through about three or four different name changes Yeah. To get to the point of where it is now. Can you talk about the last couple years in working on this wrecker and what it was like? Well, the reason why I took seven years is because I took a side hustle.

1:48 Richard Patrick I have a side hustle. It's doing movie scores. And I did… Let's say, I did the second with Ryan Filipe. I did dark crimes with Jim Carrey. I did the chariot, Thomas Mann, and John Malkovich. And… Yeah. And a few more. And that eats up a huge section of your time. So that was one of the reasons why it took seven years. But I don't know why I changed the name so many times. I guess I was just thinking out loud. Yeah. Like, what do you think of this title? You know, like, I think I'm gonna call it They Got Us Right Where They Want Us At Each Other's Throats, you know? And about six months ago, I was just like, you know what? I don't wanna call it that. It's too long. I'm gonna have to start over with a brand new name, and I'll just… I'll call it the algorithm because that that made the most sense to me. You know? Now over that time, it also went through a few iterations as well. For a brief period, you were also working with… I need your help pronouncing his last name. Brian Lisgang. Yeah. He… So Brian helped me do four songs, two of which have already been released as singles, Thoughts and Prayers in America. And then he helped me with a song called Summer Child and then a song called Command Z. It was it was mainly his lyrics. He's he's an insane lyric writer. So he did work with me again. Then I worked with a new kid by the name of Zach Monowitz, who's an amazing guitar player, who's crazy. Just look him up on Instagram. He's insane. And then I worked with Johnny Radke and my bandmates, Bobby Miller and Elias Mullen. Also, Sam Tanez helped me with two or three songs. And then Mark Jackson and Ian Scott helped on the song Obliteration. So I've had a lot of help, but I've also enjoyed being in my studio and kind of manhandling everything and and and kind of tearing it apart and putting it back together to see how it sounds with a little bit more of my identity. Because that was what was missing with the last… Like crazy eyes. I really relied heavily on a producer to kind of help me do it, and I wasn't as heavy handed as as I normally was with the other records. And I think that's what the difference is on this album is that I… It it sounds like it came after Amalgamut, the original three on Warner Brothers. It feels like short bus title of record Amalgamut, The Algorithm. You know what I mean? It it feels like the fourth from that early period of my career. I'll agree. I'll agree. Yeah. Because on title and of the amalgamate, I I was really dropping the guitar down way to… You know, down to c and drop a and in some cases, drop b. I wasn't doing that on short bus. So it kind of feels like I could've… You know, and it could've happened after the amalgamut. But a lot of the guitar playing a lot of the guitar playing is the same kind of guitar playing that we did on short bus, which was just fuck you. This is what I'm playing. You know? Like, it's feedback and it's awesome. You know? It's it's art and crazy and obnoxious. And that's what that's what I like about it. The overdubs.

5:11 Derek Oswald You know, something that I love about your story is how you started out in Nine Inch Nails and then ended up striking out on your own and had an equally successful career in your own right. Thank you. One thing that was awesome though, is how you reunited with Trent and the gang at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Oh, yeah. Since that time, have you guys discussed potentially collaborating again on a separate project?

5:37 Richard Patrick No. We have not discussed it, but that was definitely a huge highlight of my life for sure, in my career for sure. Like, it's like getting married, having kids, being in Filter, rocking out the Nine Inch Nails reunion. It's all, like, as awesome as that. I am forever grateful for Trent for having me back. And I I mean, we played five songs together, and, you know, he even covered Hey Man, Nice Shot. I mean, it was… That he had Nine Inch Nails learn Hey, Man, Nice Shot, and we played it, and it was amazing.

6:13 Derek Oswald I am forever grateful because it was… It's quite a memory. Now that had to be a bit of a mind fuck, seeing your first band cover a song that pretty much puts you on the map after you left.

6:25 Richard Patrick It was like in rehearsal. It it was like, I'm sitting there screaming the lyrics at the end of the song. And and Trent's just looking at me like, fuck yeah. Go for it. You know? And I'm sitting there, I wish I would have met you. Yeah. You know, like, fully committed to the part. And Trent was just like, fuck yeah, dude. Do it. Just like back when we were 16. You know what I mean? Or when I was, like, 20, you know, like the first time we were playing Terrible Lie or something. You know? It was absolutely amazing. It was… You know? And to to have all of Cleveland witness it because it was literally… There was like 30,000 people there. It was amazing. It was a huge show. I literally walked out and the crowd was in just total chaos, like fully like, holy shit. It's Richard Patrick. You know? And I was so emotional by it that I was, like, crying, and I and I started to sing. And I was way off pitch. And it was… I was just like, oh my god. What is happening? And then, like, we got to the scream part, and I… I'm… You know, it's the end of eraser, and I'm screaming, lose me, you know, like, fully… Like, that was when I was like, okay, I'm back. I'm back. No more tears. No more crying like a bitch. But… So it was it was truly… It was it was awesome.

7:53 Derek Oswald Looking at your backdrop there kinda got me thinking about something. America.

7:57 Richard Patrick America. America. The the Liberals… The Liberal Democrats, as am I, can also have the flag. We we we are we are also able to fly the flag. Speaking about that, the last time I spoke with you in 2013,

8:14 Derek Oswald we actually talked at length about the state of the country about a year after the tragedy of Sandy Hook. Thinking back that it's been a decade since then, where are your thoughts on where the country has gone in that time? I mean, obviously, there's a lot to unpack. Where do you feel like we've gotten worse and where do you feel like we've progressed?

8:32 Richard Patrick I… I've kind of learned to to almost like avoid talking about politics because people fucking hate you when they find something out about you. The Trump supporters… And I'm not a big Trump guy. I'm not… In fact, he's a threat to democracy. He's lying. He lost the election. He knew he lost the election. January 6 was almost an insurrection. Like, I'm fully… I… That's what I see. And the problem is is people respond with so much hate. The Qtrumplicans, as I call them, are a vicious bunch of people. These are sick people, you know, and they're in a cult and they're… They hate it when I, you know, am real and and I just acknowledge what what the problem is. And so I've… I still feel exactly the same way. I I think Republicans just need to get a Chris Christie or an Asa Hutchinson or just someone who's just normal and and civil and not lying. Not a fucking, like, crook. Not a criminal. Not some guy that's stealing secrets and having loose top secret documents laying around Mar A Lago. And, you know… But the January 6 is where it's it's just abhorrent. You know? He tried to subvert my vote. You know? I mean, 80,000,000 of us voted for Joe Biden. You know? Only 74 voted for Trump, you know? And we won the election. And he didn't win the the popular vote, but he won the electoral college against Hillary Clinton. But no one likes him, You know? And if you're a Trump supporter, bless your heart. I wish you well. And I really hope you understand that you're on the wrong side of history because he's fucking lying to you. He's lying to you.

10:34 Derek Oswald And it absolutely drives me crazy because my political journey has been a bit of a weird one. I grew up in a very conservative household. And so, obviously, growing up, that was where my views were and everything else. As I got older, you know, and around the time of Obama, I started to, you know, do a slight shift towards the center and then more towards the left. Now it's weird, and I feel like I'm kind of a walking contradiction. I consider myself a far left liberal now, But there was a period of time in which I was a conservative, and it is really, really awful. I was conservative. Yeah. That's right. I was conservative

11:13 Richard Patrick before the war, the Iraq war. Like, right before the Iraq war, I was like, fuck them. Let's go to war. Let's… You know what I mean? Like, I was really stupid and naive when the Bush administration proved that they were just… And plus other things like climate change. Climate change is real. Climate change is an actual fucking scientific fact. We are heating up the Earth's atmosphere. It is premature because of all the CO two we're pumping out. It is fact. And and, like, I need I need my politicians to understand that, to understand science. And like George Bush was like, nah. There's… Science is still out on that one. They don't know about it. He's an oilman. George Bush was an oilman. You know, his compadre that went in with the no bid contract for the Iraq war, Halliburton, was Dick Cheney. You know? The the conflict of interest was insane. And, you know, so the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war was bad. I mean, you know, I… That's when I really was like, wow. What is going on with the Republican Party? And then to see what's happened as a result of eight years of Obama to come out of it with Donald Trump, you know, the birther, you know, and he's a scumbag. Yeah. He is a bad man. He is a bad person. And this is not that much about music. This interview is not much about music, but the reality is is every song on the record, I I throw a punch on lyrically. I talk about it. Summerchild, especially.

12:56 Derek Oswald I I let them have it. I think it's interesting. Because when you put out thoughts and prayers, a lot of people got pissed. But the full fact of the matter is

13:05 Richard Patrick you don't hate America. If anything I do not hate America. I love America, and I wanna help America. I hate… And I… And you know what? I love the American people. I love the American people, and I and I love the Trump supporters. I do. I want them to be… He's… They just have to understand. Snap out of it. He's fucking lying to you. He's just lying. You know? He's a bad guy. You know, look at what… Look at his foundation. You know? They're not allowed to even run a foundation anymore in New York because of… So so corrupt. You know? He's he's a bad guy. That's it. That's the message. You're you're in a cult. Snap out of it. We love you. Come back. We forgive you. Just fucking vote for Chris Christie. You know? Get… Vote for someone who's a little bit more respectful of fucking other people. You know? Joe Biden doesn't sit around and fucking bash on on Trump supporters. He doesn't say anything about that. He's just like, look. We're all in the same boat. Let's work together. You know? That's the America that that I want is where the… Where we work together to fight a common, you know, climate change. Just work together and fucking make electric cars and be inventive. Throw solar panels on your… You know, like, that's the next big crisis is climate change. You know? It's not it's not… I mean, shit. You know? It's so easy.

14:37 Derek Oswald Obviously, you have fans from both sides of the spectrum. Before we go into talking more about the music, what advice would you give to the fans that are on the right side and the left side? How do you feel that we, as a country, can get back to constructive dialogue?

14:55 Richard Patrick Get rid of the bullshit. Get rid of Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's a fucking distraction. She's not a serious person. She's a fucking joke. She's a fucking nut. Get rid of the get rid of the entertainment right wing fucking Rush Limbaughs of the world. You know? I mean, I know he's dead, but, you know, get rid of all that shit. Let's just deal in facts. Let's just deal in an evidence based reality.

16:02 Derek Oswald Now one thing that I'm curious about, and this will transition into the music. You worked with Ryan on the record. But then shortly during the lifetime of this record, it was reported that you guys weren't gonna continue to work on the album together. Was that a organic decision, or did you guys just not have the same artistic vision on the album?

16:21 Richard Patrick No. I I invited Brian to finish the rest of the record, and he just kinda disappeared. And that's kinda who he is. He's he's a very strange person, and he just kinda disappeared one day.

16:40 Derek Oswald Have you heard from him since then, or should we send out a rescue crew? No. I mean,

16:45 Richard Patrick his lawyer called me and that was pretty much the end of it. It was it was like, hey. Okay. Cool. Where is he? Yeah. He's headed to London. Okay. Cool. Live in London. You know, like, it was weird. Strange. When he disappears, he disappears. He's not on Facebook. He's not on Instagram. He doesn't post anything. It's all… It's like he just disappears, you know? So I just have to kind of let it let it ride. And musically,

17:15 Derek Oswald talking about short bus and this album as well, you famously have used a drum machine on quite a number of records. How do you approach mixing samples from a drum machine as opposed to actual drum track stems. Is there a different way to get it to fit in the sound? Oh, yeah. There's all sorts of, you know, samples and loops and stuff like that. You can compress it and tweak it and manipulate

17:42 Richard Patrick it any way you want in a computer or just with, like, analog gear or whatever. But the most important part is is using it artistically as like, does this help the song? Like, is this drum loop gonna be cool, or maybe should I get a real drummer and have him just go balls out and go crazy? That's why this record doesn't follow necessarily short bus because I used to drum her on pretty much every song. Elias Mullen played drums just like Steve Gillis played drums on Tidal and and Amalgamut. Elias Mullen played drums on this record, and it's, you know, it's real drums. So that's why it's it's more like amalgamut and less like short bus. Because we… There… We were definitely… Elias and I, I was like, here, let's just use V Drums from Roland. Let's just let's just program… Let's use V Drums with, like, samples because that'll sound industrial. But the more we did that where it sounded like, are we just trying to sound like a real drummer who's using samples? You know what I mean? Like… And so it was… I… They convinced me. Brian Virtu and and Elias Mullen convinced me to go into a studio for a couple of days and let him just whip up some drums, and he he blew me away. And the drums sound amazing. And and, yeah, there's samples. You know, like some of the snare drums, we added a sample on top of it to make it sound even bigger. You can layer different sounds together and two or three different kicks if you wanted to. You can do whatever you want. I mean, it's amazing.

19:21 Derek Oswald And since you've had literally both options on different records, some with live drums, some with drum machines, Do you have a preference from a sonic standpoint, or do you feel like there's good applications for both?

19:34 Richard Patrick I think it's… I mean, for Filter, it's a hybrid. It's a hybrid because there's definitely drum loops throughout the record. You know? There's there's definitely… You know? And even live, like, we have a big drum loop playing in Welcome to the Folds. We have a big… It's like, you know, it just… It's underneath the whole thing. It's like a reinforcement. But, yeah, it's a hybrid. You know? You have little sections where like, hey, let's just have a little eight zero eight just playing something. Or like in the song command z, there's definitely like two or three different drum patterns going on throughout the end of that song. And, like, that one that one was like, hey, let's leave it as drum machine. We didn't have drums on that. We had just drum machines.

20:22 Derek Oswald You've mentioned a couple of songs, Command Z, Summer Child, among others. Is there other songs on this record that you think are extremely special that you'd love to talk about that you can't wait for the fans to hear?

20:36 Richard Patrick Oh, yeah. Well, Command Z is definitely one of them. Burn Out The Sun is kind of like the take a picture of the record. There's a lot of good stuff. The song that starts the whole record off is called The Drowning, and it's about my friend who's literally drowning in alcohol. Like, he cannot stop drinking. It is it is horrible. And he gets the first song on the record. The drowning is just a a perfect first song because it it… It's got a verse of chorus, a verse of chorus, and then boom, it goes into this big outro, you know, this big, like, vamp and just a jam section. And I just… I love doing that. And we do it two or three times on the record. Yeah. Up Against the Wall is amazing. Obliteration's Out. Everybody here… Everybody loves that one, I think. Then there's Say It Again. Those are the Zach Monowitz's songs. Say It Again, Up Against the Wall. And For the Beaten is another song I'm really proud of, that's been out for about six months. It's awesome. The… I'm really super proud of this record. It's really good. I agree. I agree. And I like how it does seem to,

21:47 Derek Oswald like you said, be a mixture of those first few records. There's different aspects of your sound all over the record instead of just trying to chase one particular sound. But one question that I have for you, what is one album that you feel is criminally underlooked by either critics or your fan base? What is one album that you feel is underappreciated that needs more love? I think the trouble with angels

22:16 Richard Patrick was definitely one of my… Like, I go back and I listen to it, I'm like, damn, this is a good record. You know? The song Drug Boy is awesome. You know? It's just like, come along, Sally. Twelve hours of acid. You know? Like, I love it. Can you tell that this is the microphone I use when I sing? Yes. Because it's it's it's the microphone that I use when I sing. And what I love is that every single time you've quoted a lyric, you feel like perfectly on sing it. Like, perfectly I'm on pitch, just going for it. Going for it. I'm in a I'm in a really good mood, you know, because the record's coming out and we're going on this Rob Zombie tour that's gonna be amazing. And it's just gonna be like super fun the whole time.

23:08 Derek Oswald Yeah. Looking forward to it. I'm just in a good spot. Yeah, man. And I freaking love the songs that I heard. I didn't get a chance to listen to it all the way through because

23:18 Richard Patrick I was listening to it while coming up with questions, and I'm like, oh, shit. I gotta get on the interview soon. So No. It's fine. But definitely check the whole thing out as, like, a piece of music. Like, four… Give yourselves forty three minutes and and crank it in your headphones. This record is a fully, like, realized journey. All the artwork is about an astronaut. Like, the astronaut essentially comes back to Earth to find it completely destroyed and, apocalyptic. And along the way, he he meets a girl. He meets the little girl that has the cat in the obliteration video, or he'll meet some other survivors somehow. But the whole record is that he he kind of disses on the people that did this to the planet. He kind of goes off on them. And then by the end of the record, when you get to this song called Command Z, it's literally the chorus goes, that's why I wanna be. That's why I wanna be high as a motherfucker. Yeah. High as fuck. And and the reason is because he's like, I'm just gonna get wasted. Like, what what else can I do on planet Earth but just finally just get wasted and have a case of the fuck its? And and, you know, and by the time you get to that song, you'll realize like, okay, so he's… I've taken… Hopefully, I've taken you on a journey. And it's it's a big, huge body of work. So that gives me an even greater appreciation for this album now knowing that. So would you consider this to loosely

24:58 Derek Oswald be a concept album since you said it kind of follows that whole story?

25:02 Richard Patrick Oh, yeah. It's it's a concept album. It's not like the wall, but it's definitely like, you know, there's an attitude going through it that, you know, it's like, what are we doing? You know? Like, why are we fighting? We're fighting over this guy? Yeah. We're literally fighting over this fucking guy? You know what I mean? Like, it's a lot of that. And… But it's… It doesn't say, you know, shame on you or anything like that. It's just kinda like, I can't believe we're in this situation.

25:36 Derek Oswald Since it's talking about the world at large to kind of loop back to what we talked about in the beginning, what are some issues that you just don't think are being talked about enough?

25:45 Richard Patrick I mean, climate change is huge. And, you know, do we have to shoot each other every couple of months? Do 20 year old kids have to go fucking ballistic in a school and kill 20 kids every couple of months in this country? Can can we think of something? Can we like think of something? What is it about these kids? Oh, they all seem to have AR 20, AR fifteens. Right? They all seem to have those, and they get them legally. And they get them legally when they're 18, and they go into fucking high schools, Uvalde, Sandy Hook, you name it. It's all the same. It's always the same gun. It's always the same… It's always a disgruntled loser who's who's gotta do it. You know? Why can't we separate the losers from the guns? But that's a huge issue. You know, that's a huge issue. That's not little, you know. And you don't even actually have to be 18 anymore. I saw something that absolutely

26:43 Derek Oswald blew my mind the other day. And I looked at it to make sure that it wasn't just some elaborate Photoshop or some hoax. There was actually a company out there that made something that they called the j r 15, which was literally a real… The junior. Yeah. The junior. Literally made to be a real a r 15 for little kids. They try to make it cute with little skulls on it and everything. And then after people got disgusted about the, you know, the skulls and they making it cutesy, they're like, oh, we're just gonna make it look like a normal gun. My thing is, why are we giving guns to kids? It's

27:18 Richard Patrick like, are we setting them up for the war against China or the war against Russia? Like, what are we doing? Creating soldiers? Like, it's just… It's so un American. You know what I mean? America is an amazing, smart, creative, innovative place. Think of all the things that were invented here. Think of all the inventions. It is a place of science, knowledge, and technology. It is not just about ding a lings running around with fucking shotgun. It is not. The second amendment is not America. It's part of it. And it's being abused by Neanderthals who just wanna kill people because they're bored or they're insane. It's wild.

28:06 Derek Oswald And we're having such a mental health crisis in The United States as it is. You know? Especially in the wake of COVID, everybody's kinda going a little bit crazy. You know, things are stressful. The world's going to shit. You know, last thing we need is to get these guns in the hands of people that already aren't there mentally and are looking for a way out. And unfortunately, the way they choose to get out rather than get help, they choose to, you know, basically take out other people before taking out themselves and it's horrible.

28:37 Richard Patrick They want to go out with a bang and they want to do their thing and they're crazy, you know, it's bonkers.

28:44 Derek Oswald How have you handled your own mental health?

28:48 Richard Patrick My higher power in life is science, technology, knowledge is power. You know what I mean? And I confronted it with the truth. Like, the truth of the matter is is I don't drink like normal people. I don't smoke like normal people. I smoke four packs a day if I smoke. Yeah. I drink a case of beer if I'm left to my own devices. I will take any drug. Right? Mhmm. So I had to come to the… I had to fully acknowledge that, like, dude, you get on a bender and you go absolutely ape shit and things fall apart and you get arrested. I'm allergic to alcohol, and I break out in handcuffs every time. So that was number one. Number two was, okay. So how do I deal with this? Well, there's definitely ways. There's rehab. There's psychologists. There's psychiatry. And psychiatry is really good for other things that I have problems with. But I confronted it like, those are the most important things I can do is literally go… I just quit the tour. I threw hundreds of thousands of dollars away on a tour. And I went straight into rehab. And I told everybody like, I'm I'm doing this for the next year. Like, leave me alone. I'm just going to be sober for a year, and I'm not going to do anything. And and it was costly and expensive, and it cost me a lot of friendships and everything else. But it was the most important thing that ever happened to me. It was the quintessential fight of my life. It was my algorithm. This math equation that is to compute the math equation was my mental health. And so the problem with with Chester and the problem with with Chris Cornell and Scott is they would relapse. It's within those relapses that they did the crazy shit, and they died an alcoholic suicidal death. And it's because of the relapse. And that knowledge, that knowledge, that relapsing is absolutely a death sentence. And that's how I look at it. Because those guys are dead, I'm looking at what their results were in their lives, and I have sworn to myself that there's no drinking anymore. There's no pot. There's no more booze. There's no more drugs. It's over. And I have to live in that fact based reality of… That I can never use again because I'm not… I'm an addict. Period. And once you make that jump… Like, when I went into rehab, I was like, get a good look around, bro, because this is the last time you're ever gonna be here. Good. Like like, this is the first and last time you're ever gonna be here, period. Like, get a good look because this is it. You're done drinking. And that's what I had to tell myself when I went in. And literally, I mean, I was waking up at seven in the morning and feeling so hungover that I would literally just go to the the the refrigerator and start drinking beer, like immediately. And then I would get wasted at, like, ten in the morning. And then I'd pass out, and I would sleep until, like, five. And I'd wake up so hungover that I literally couldn't do anything. So I would waste day after day after day after day, because then I would feel better. And then I would go to work and work on a song or something. And then I'd be like, hey, let's go have a drink. Let's go out to a bar and get drunk. You know? Like, let's go. I want to do it. You know? And that and that became this insane pattern. And so I was fully an alcoholic. And then I would I would say I'd go to the bar. I would stay up until four, and then I'd come home, then I'd drink some more. Then I would pass out for like three or four hours. I'd wake up at seven. I'd feel completely hungover, couldn't deal with it. So I'd drink a beer. Like it was awful. It was the… It was so sick. It was so disgusting. So, yeah, get the help you need. Go and ask for help and admit to yourself. Like, just be honest with yourself. Like, that's what I would say to other people that are in in in trouble with alcohol and drugs. Just… If you think you have a problem, believe me, you have a problem. Alcoholics are the last ones to know. They do not know until it is too late for, like, the most part. Like, why is why is why is no one returning my phone calls? Why is no one returning my phone calls? Because no one wants to talk to you because you're an alcoholic. I have a friend right now. He's literally… Like, you you lost everything. His wife, his his family, his girlfriends, his music career is over. Like, like, God knows what he's doing. And it's a shame. And it's just literally… It's like, if I could point to one thing, it's literally just booze. You know? So you gotta just buckle down and get the help that you need because it's not okay to feel like shit.

34:36 Derek Oswald And some people, you know, when they're depressed, they think the only way to deal with it is just to make themselves feel more like shit, to just drink the troubles away. And then it… Like you said Yeah. Creates a vicious cycle.

34:47 Richard Patrick Well, there's this half an hour of, like, the sunset. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're in your… Like, the buzz, there's having your first drink, and then there's, like, having your third and your fourth, and that's where you're happy because you're you're literally… Your alcohol, blood, sugar goes crazy, and you feel euphoric. And then from there on out, it's getting wasted and getting crazy and then the hangover, which is another… So it's literally like there's there's one time of the day that feels good, and that's the half an hour of drinking before you just get totally wasted. It's like a sunset. It's like you're waiting for the sunset, then here's the sunset. Great. For thirty minutes, it's gorgeous. And then for the rest of the day, it's dark. You know what I mean? For me, it was bizarre. I would I would literally, like, drink myself to sleep and then wake up and then just do the whole thing again. And like, well, I fucked up. I'm gonna have… I'm gonna get wasted. Like, it was bizarre. Because I'm in this program of recovery, I see death all the time. And that's the sad thing because ninety six percent of us die in alcoholic related death, whether it's suicide, whether it's a car crash, whether it's, you know, you go to jail and you you get killed in jail. Like like, you know what I mean? Like, alcoholics will find a way to die. Like, they will they will hang themselves. They will… Like, you know what I mean? And that's why the the recovery that I'm in is literally… It's like, literally, people are dying all the time and you're like, wow. You know? Because ninety six percent of us end up dying from alcohol.

36:33 Derek Oswald And I want you to be that four percent, brother. We need you around, man. Yeah.

36:37 Richard Patrick Well, for twenty years, I've been in the four percent. Good. For twenty years. And I and I take it one day at a time because tomorrow I could go off and drink and get totally sick and, you know, drive off the side of the road and and get hurt. Yeah. It could all end with one sip. So I just keep it… That knowledge, I just… That's it. Like, I can never drink again. I just have to live with that. And I can. And there's so many people. And it's weird because, like, normal people… Like, my wife is a normal person. She can have a drink and then never drink for, like, six months. And, like, like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll have a little wine with dinner, and she has a little wine. I'm like, you gonna finish that? She's like, no. I'm good. What? Like, how can you not finish that? You know? How can you not get wasted? You know what I mean? Like… And knowledge is power. So I just make sure that my kids are aware that there's this gene that could be inside you that might lead you down a road of darkness and, you know, just avoid it. Just avoid it. You know?

37:49 Derek Oswald That's all I can do. So important to pass these lessons onto our children. Just to each other. Yeah. To each other too.

37:57 Richard Patrick Because the other thing that's amazing about recovery is online, the social media, like, I get direct messages from people all the time that are like, I heard your story and it made me think, you know, that I should quit quit drinking or I'm gonna go to rehab or what like, and I'm doing really well. Thank you for that little inspiration that you gave me. Like, that's all I can do is is is by being honest, I've actually… I I think I've helped people to find their sobriety. So that's huge.

38:28 Derek Oswald And obviously, this is one of them what we've been talking about. But what are some other big lessons that you've learned either through your career or your lifetime that you

38:40 Richard Patrick would like to share? I think one of the biggest things that I've learned recently is just if you are a good person and you try and do the next right thing and you try and be happy, that, like, everyone around you loves you. Like, if you can be a confident, happy person, even when you don't want to, even when you wanna complain or you wanna just, fuck it. I can't believe this is happening. Blah blah blah blah blah. Get me blah blah blah on the phone, and we're gonna tell you that. You know? Like, if you can avoid being upset and in pain in front of other people and, like, try to spread happiness and a little bit of joy, like, it comes back. It literally comes back. And I'm 55, and I'm just realizing that. We need to start treating moments in our life

39:34 Derek Oswald more like experiences instead of annoyances. Like, there are so many little things in our lives that we can focus on that can annoy us or frustrate us, or we can be impatient about something, or we can get on the phone and yell at someone like you were saying. But the fact of the matter is is if we learn to kinda just enjoy life and enjoy each moment, things get so much better. And it's something I've been working on.

39:59 Richard Patrick So, like, in my world, my atheistic world that I live in, the minute you're dead, the minute the blood stops flowing in your brain and you become unconscious and then you die, it is over. Like, it is over. I don't know about all the clouds with the people at the harps and the the angels and stuff. Like, I don't think so. Like, in my in my assessment of what's going on and with science and technology and my higher power being knowledge and science and technology, like, this is it. Like, this is it. We are alive on this tiny little planet in the middle of a solar system in a not so big part of the galaxy, in a in a not so grand place in the galaxy of 400,000,000,000 stars in this galaxy, the the Milky Way galaxy that we're in. And, like, somehow we're alive. And if you think about it, the trillions of sperm and that one egg, we're all lottery winners. We fucking… The odds of us being born from that are a trillion to one. And we're here, and, like, it's our Earth, and it's our planet, and we know what it is. We're conscious. We're… And we know our place in the galaxy. We know our place in the universe, and we're all here together like fucking kumbaya, brother. Like, you know what I mean? Like, find the joy. Find the joy.

41:45 Derek Oswald What is, thinking back over your long career, your funniest memory?

41:52 Richard Patrick Oh, man. There's a lot. There's so many. I think one of the funniest things was when Trent and I got kicked out of the club that we played and were thrown on the ground like like like they do in the movies where they toss you into, like, the garbage in the alley, you know, outside the club, Trent and I were breaking beer bottles and like fighting with… We were… This is when drinking was fun and it was cute. And, you know, a couple of 23 year old kids are getting lit up and having fun and, you know, and Trent and I, we had just played… Nine Inch Nails had just played the show in Pittsburgh. They turned the club into a disco after. So we played at, 09:00, and then they kick all the fans out, and then they turn the club into a disco at eleven. And, like, everybody has to come back in. But, like, we were like, wait a minute. We're still here. Like, we're not leaving. So we just sat around and got wasted in the bar when they had the disco going on. And we were trying to… Like, if you hit… If you hold a beer bottle and if you hit another beer bottle, you can literally hit it in such a way that the bottom blows out. And, like, it's a perfect circle of glass that just like, boop, and like the whole beer falls straight out. So you… And we kept trying to do it to each other. And so we were doing it to like random people. Like, here, let me see it. Like… And it would work. It would work. And so we did it to a couple of random people and, like, they were pissed. And they just spent, like, whatever, $4 on a beer. And, like, they were mad. And so the bouncers caught wind of what we were doing and, like, there's glass and beer and everything's all over the floor. And so they literally pick us up because I'm… I was back then, I was like a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. And they picked me up and they picked up Trent, and they literally walked us all the way out to the thing and like dumped us outside the club. And, like, we were laughing so hard because it was like we're laying on the ground and we're just looking at each other like, what the fuck just happened? Like… And… But it was also kinda like, these are truly great times that we live in. Like, Nine Inch Nails was on the upswing. Things were looking up. We had just played this club and sold it out, and the crowd was eating it up, and they were crazy. And we were having so much fun. And it was literally like one of the best times of my life. Like like, we just got thrown on… You know, thrown out on our asses and and we were laughing about it because we thought it was hysterical. And we would have done the same thing if we were the bouncers.

44:41 Derek Oswald It was a good time. Oh my god. I'm just laughing. Just picturing it. Just imagining young Trent and young you just going around breaking people's beer bottles. Yeah. And, you know, being so drunk so drunk, you don't realize you're pissing people off and them just going, what the fuck? You know?

44:56 Richard Patrick Yeah. We were bad. We would get in trouble. Good trouble all the time. We would get into trouble all the time.

45:06 Derek Oswald Well, man, just like it was ten years ago, it's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you. I just wanna Thank you. Wrap things up by just basically asking, is there anything else you would want to share with your fans that have listened this far?

45:20 Richard Patrick I love you. Thanks for being there for me. My family is awesome, and you've helped raise them. And I appreciate you.

45:29 Derek Oswald Beautifully said, my man. Well, hey, thank you so much for joining us today. I greatly appreciate you, and I can't wait till everybody else gets to hear what an awesome album you've made.

45:39 Richard Patrick Thank you. I appreciate that, brother. Thank you.

45:56 Derek Oswald That brings us to the end of this episode. If you like what you heard, please feel free to give us a review on your DSP of choice, and stay tuned for more episodes as they become available. My name is Derek Oswald, and thank you for listening to the AltWire podcast.