FILTER's RICHARD PATRICK Opens Up About 'The Sad Part Of Being Famous'

In a new interview with Troy Culpan of May The Rock Be With You, FILTER frontman Richard Patrick spoke about the lyrical inspiration for his band's latest album, "The Algorithm". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I have a take on the world. I guess if people were to pigeonhole me, they'd call me a Democrat, they'd call me a liberal Democrat. I definitely, I love the world, I love the people in it, and I'm very concerned about it. So, I mean, most of my heroes wrote what they were concerned about — Bono, John Lennon, Joe Strummer, Al Jourgensen, Nivek Ogre. They all made sure that they were speaking their mind and their songs were very topical. And those are the guys I steal from, so you can tell that that's what I'm inspired by. It's a love letter to the world. Each record for me, it's like a cathartic scream at the world. It's my one opportunity to say something."

Speaking specifically about the song "Be Careful What You Wish", which appears on "The Algorithm", Richard said: "I read a lot of the messages that come in through iMessage or Instagram or Twitter. And I get some DMs, and I got one that was really, really scary; the guy was a nut. He was name-dropping friends of mine and saying stuff that he was gonna do. And I was really distraught over it. Unfortunately, this is kind of the sad part of being famous, is that there's people that know everything about me, but I don't know anything about them. And it's kind of scary. And be careful what you wish for, 'cause with success in music comes fame and stuff like that, and you have to be very careful because there's some crazies out there, for sure."

He continued: "I get myself into trouble because politically, I kind of say what I wanna say; I don't really hold back. And I get a lot of terrible things said back to me from [Donald] Trump supporters or people that are really kind of crazy. So I just have to be kind of careful what I put out there, unfortunately. I mean, they've said some terrible things to me."

Patrick has been very vocal with his political views in recent years as an outspoken opponent of the Republican Party's hard-line stance on social issues.

Back in March 2019, FILTER's concert in El Paso, Texas was canceled after Richard posted an anti-Donald Trump video on Facebook.

At the time, Patrick said the venue informed FILTER that it "didn't like" the Facebook comments and said it had received threatening phone calls over the anti-Trump post. The venue also claimed that it was "illegal" to display the American flag upside down, which the band had planned to do during the show.

In a statement to Billboard, the venue confirmed what it told Patrick about the threatening phone calls in response to FILTER's Facebook video about Trump. The venue's general manager also noted that his staff was uncomfortable with FILTER's plan to display the American flag upside down and turn the concert into what he called a "political rally."

In October 2020, FILTER released the official music video for its then-new single, "Murica", featuring a character that Patrick told Alternative Press was "a Trump-supporting, gun-loving, unmedicated, super-freak 'merican unhinged and at his wits' end. And he's trying to take control of something that is not out of control." He said. "And he's afraid. He's the super-afraid white male. The Trump-supporting nutbag that I hope I can reach. These guys that are so far right that they think CNN, NBC, ABC, MSNBC [and] BBC are all out to get 'our President Trump.' Like they're all in a conspiracy to be super-left-wing, crazy liars. I'm trying to make an attempt to show them what they look like. These are the guys that can only listen to Fox News and Breitbart and that type of news outlet. They believe every fucking thing that the Rush Limbaughs, the Alex Joneses [say] and listen to only the right wing, 'the truth, man.' They do their 'own research' and believe 9/11 was an inside job, President Obama wasn't a real citizen and the lunar landings were faked. Hillary Clinton personally went out and killed people in Benghazi and it's her fault, she's [a] criminal and 'lock her up.' It's those people that I'm portraying in the video."

"The Algorithm" arrived on August 25 via Golden Robot Records.