FILTER Mainman: BOB MARLETTE Is 'The Last Producer I Will Ever Work With'

Ruben Mosqueda of Oregon Music News recently conducted an interview with FILTER mainman Richard Patrick. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Oregon Music News: A couple of years ago you put together a band called ARMY OF ANYONE with Robert and Dean DeLeo and drummer Ray Luzier. Why is that band not active today?

Richard: We put that band together and we put a lot of time an energy in it. When it came we looked at each other and said, "Alright then, that was that." We got busy with the bread and butter of our careers; Ray went on to join KORN, the DeLeo brothers reconnected with Scott Weiland and got STONE TEMPLE PILOTS together and I got FILTER active again. ARMY OF ANYONE was a really great experience, it really was. In my opinion, it might have taken too long… you have to realize it was four years of our lives. In retrospect I think had we gotten in the studio and knocked it out quickly it might have taken off. Instead it became this laborious project that was released and we tour behind for eight weeks and that was it. In the end, FILTER is my musical legacy and I'm glad to be back. I'm really psyched about the new album , "The Trouble With Angels". I quit NINE INCH NAILS for this band. I consider Bob Marlette my guru. I think that this is the last producer I will ever work with. That's the honest truth. He's just so amazing and incredible. I love his songwriting abilities. He likes to make sure that each song has a beginning and an end, good choruses and pays attention to the details. He got the best out of me on this album. He said, "Listen, Rich, I'm glad you're sober, you're happy, you have two adorable kids, a wife, a nice house, but I need that crazed lunatic that started FILTER in 1995. The guy that was writing about public suicides, how it was so much to be on drug, the guy that was writing about how much fun it was to hate God and religion. That's the guy that I need on this album." I have been waiting for so long for someone to tell me that. Right then and there I knew Bob was the guy. We wrote the song "Drug Boy" together. Bob said, "Tell me about how great it was to be on drugs." I told him, "Man, I felt like I was God when I was on them." That's where the line "Tonight these chemicals are God. Tonight these chemicals are golden sunlight." To me that probably the best lyric I've ever written; because I was able to explain what it feels like when drugs work! I've had ten years of experience having them work. I felt like I had won the lottery. So it wasn't all bad though things did come to a head later on. You remember when THE ROLLING STONES wrote the album "Undercover" and they released that song "Undercover of the Night". If I ran into Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, I would have said something like, "Keith and Mick, why don't you go back and write stuff like 'Honky Tonk Woman' or 'Brown Sugar', the stuff that made you great?" The great rock 'n' roll from the '60s and the '70s. That's basically what Bob said to me. "Dude, you have to get out of this happiness. You have to be the guy that we can all relate to again."

Oregon Music News: Another track that came out of this writing session was a song called "Drowning", which you co-wrote with John 5, who has worked with Marilyn Manson, David Lee Roth, K.D. Lang and currently with Rob Zombie. How did you that song come about?

Richard: John 5 and Bob Marlette wrote and collaborated with Roth on the David Lee Roth band record. And Ray Luzier played drums on that album. I've known John 5 for a while and he helped re-introduce me to Bob Marlette. John had this beautiful music and Bob helped him out with it. They worked on the song "Drowning" over a weekend and then they sent it to me and I was blown away. I couldn't believe they did this in his Bob's house. I loved it and all I had to do was sing on it. I can't say enough about Bob. If this record does well enough that we can do another album, Bob will be doing it.

Oregon Music News: Is it a stretch to say that the people who fell in love with "Short Bus" will love "The Trouble With Angels"?

Richard: Not at all. I think that the people that also liked "Title Of Record" and "The Amalgamut" will like the new album. I lost control of the album "Anthems Of The Damned"; I went in a different direction and followed the lead of the producer. I wanted to stay heavy because that's where I live that's what I'm about. I love anger and being aggressive. The focus on that album was the mellow stuff but ultimately it came down to me. The producer, Josh Abraham, and I were at odds and I lost control of that record. I tried to have the album sequenced with the heavier stuff on the front end as to not alienate or scare off the fans of the previous albums. It was a huge departure for FILTER, it was an album that was a tribute to the men and women in the military. It was actually dedicated to a young soldier, a native of Oregon, Justin Eyerly. He was a fan of music and he died serving his country. I think that he was there under a false pretense; I don't think that George W. Bush was completely honest with us. I think that he wanted to go in there and take it over because of its strategic position in the Middle East. If he had been honest he wouldn't have been able to do it. Justin was one of the ones that paid the ultimate price and "Anthems Of The Damned" was a tribute to them. Though it was a departure I need to do that record to get back to business as usual with the new album. I think I'm sticking with what I know from now on. I still think that the first three albums are to this day very experimental and quite frankly I got away with a lot of stuff on those albums.

Read the entire interview from Oregon Music News.