Drug Church: Existing In A State Of Contradiction
DRUG CHURCH have always existed in a state of contradiction. Either pigeonholed as the token melodic band when gracing tours with hardcore stalwarts TURNSTILE and GOUGE AWAY, or seen as the gritty and rowdy band when touring with the likes of GLITTERER, CITIZEN or THE STORY SO FAR. They’ve spent a lot of time being split down the middle, their sound averse to categorisation, leaving them in limbo. But their latest record Hygiene plants a firm faux-leather boot in the concrete, paving the way for a headline tour where they can now hold the gauntlet for steaming melodic punk. Supported by the lurching ONE STEP CLOSER, fellow New Yorkers SOUL BLIND and the explosive LURK, DRUG CHURCH have curated their own amalgam of talent, ignoring the status quo that tells them to stick with one side of their sound, and instead, embrace it as a whole.
Patrick Kindlon joins Distorted Sound two days before embarking on their near two-month US-wide tour that starts and ends in California. We are surrounded by the ‘traffic’ of tour prep which constitutes a transfixing game of Elden Ring occurring in the background and a few familiar voices expressing all colours of rage at that very game.
“I’m not accustomed to doing as much press as I’ve had to do on this particular record,” Kindlon reveals. As DRUG CHURCH have soared in popularity, Kindlon has been interviewed by far more expansive outlets than ever before and is slowly becoming accustomed to the attention, welcoming the scrutiny with open arms. “There’s a little bit more excitement towards this new record. But I’ve also found that music journalists and anybody that’s been interviewing me have said ‘I read your other interview, and you can actually talk’.”
The greatest cynic of his own work, Kindlon begins to muse over DRUG CHURCH’s lifetime as a band, set in contrast to an industry rife with cancel culture, ephemeral careers, fads and vacuous virility. “I think that if bands want to be long-lived, they’re wise to come from working class backgrounds. And I don’t mean that in some working-class pride type of way, I just mean as a practicality. Touring is not glamorous unless you are very lucky, and you hit it big in some sort of way. But for most bands, it’s really a very low income, labour of love kind of grind. We don’t have high expectations,” Kindlon continues. “If I was rich, I would probably be used to better motels, you know?” This blue-collar attitude has been tethered to the DIY scene for aeons, and Kindlon understands that it’s the ingrained work-hard capacity he and the other members of the band have that keeps DRUG CHURCH churning out globe-spanning tours and neoteric records with no end in sight.
Hygiene appears to embrace DRUG CHUCH’s usual screaming chorus pedal guitar strums with stadium-filling choruses, but adds another layer. An intention to tell real stories that are caught in a particular moment, with a fatalistic twist. Opener Fun’s Over poetically addresses the repetitious yet relatable moments of modern living, whilst album coda Athlete On A Bench vilifies reflection on a better time, and metacritically taps into the songwriting tropes of “verse, pre-chorus, chorus, and bridge” that leaves DRUG CHURCH writing for a “narrowing niche”.
As the spokesperson of his band, Kindlon is decidedly outspoken, often receiving criticism for his ability to separate the art from the artist, often in the wake of the controversy. In the all-too-well documented 21st century, it is hard to avoid a misstep, and Kindlon firmly believes that it is human nature to appreciate and resonate with good art, and it should be untethered from the often controversial artists that created it in the first place.
“I’ve become frustrated with the conversation for a few reasons. One of which is people are hypocrites. You know that they’ll, it’s easy for them to stop listening to some punk band that they didn’t care about anyway. But they’ll continue to listen to a band that is a part of their life. So even if the person in that band is foul, or did something wrong, people pick and choose because it’s based on the intensity of their feeling towards the music,” Kindlon states. “I just see music as no different than laughter. You got no control over what makes you laugh. You can feel a little bad about it afterwards if it’s something that you think you shouldn’t have laughed at. But it doesn’t change the fact that you laughed because your body just said, ‘Yeah, this is what works for me’. If music is done right, then it’s something that you literally couldn’t dislike no matter what your association is with those songs.”
In the minimal spare moments, Kindlon finds between his responsibilities for his many bands (he recently began PILE OF LOVE with members of THE STORY SO FAR and STATE CHAMPS) he is also a comic book writer. His published work manifests in the form of Frontiersman, a mature comic that dips its toes in the expectations of superheroes and the longevity of their careers. If you replace the word ‘superhero’ with ‘vocalist’, you might think Kindlon is projecting his stage persona into his writing, and this may be the case.
“If I’m good at anything in music, it might be imbuing songs with strong themes. I’ll take some credit for that. I think I do that pretty well. That’s not a skill that everybody in music has. I’m happy with that particular skill set in both media,” Kindlon states. “If you read my comic work, I hope that the themes are apparent, but not so obvious that they’re no longer fun. I hope that’s the same thing that I occasionally accomplish in music.”
This deferential attitude is the mark not of a born leader, but someone who has grown into the role of leader with no expectations or goals, only drive and self-belief. Kindlon is certainly an anomaly, but that makes him the perfect flagbearer to DRUG CHURCH’s contradictory success. It appears the best way to fit in, is to not fit in at all.
Hygiene is out now via Pure Noise Records.
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