(May 27, 2008) PCM's Kristyn chatted it up with the Filter frontman about their new album "Anthems for the Damned", in stores now, and learned a lot about the direction of the band and where Filter is headed in the future!

Kristyn: Have you guys been traveling long?

Richard: We have been traveling for three or four weeks now. We are really just starting; we are going to be out for sure until later this August and then maybe even into September. We are trying to organize what we would like to do in fall, maybe head to Europe and possibly Australia. Get out of the States for a bit and then head back.

K: I heard you have an upcoming tour with "10 Years"?

R: We are going to be out with "10 Years" for all of June. That is going to be fun; they have a big hit with "Beautiful". It is great to be around guys that are really having fun and enjoying success, so it will be really cool.

K: Definitely. So, it has been about six years since we have heard anything from Filter.

R: Yeah, six years…well, I went into rehab and stopped working on that record, or rather stopped working that record cycle. I took a year off and then started writing, had a bunch of songs ready to go, and then I was just about ready to go do this record "Anthems for the Damned", when I was introduced to Robert and Dean, actually re-introduced to Robert and Dean, and we hit off and did "Army of Anyone" and that was a really long three year process.

K: They are the Deleo brothers correct?

R: Yeah, Robert and Dean from STP (Stone Temple Pilots) and Ray Luziera. After that, I started work on the Filter record last May, so about a year ago I started working on it again and then put it out!

K: So, what has the feedback on the new album been so far?

R: I think it has been amazing. Most people are really happy and it looks like it is doing really well. We are excited just to be back, I think it is a great record, I think it is amazing. The fans that I have talked to, that are really in tune, which I respect, really get it and that is cool.

K: I notice a lot of status of our world/ of our country type themes on the new album.

R: Well, it is just more socially aware.

K: Okay

R: When you are an alcoholic, you are inward and everything is kind of inward and you are trying to figure out yourself and your own issues. It is only ten feet in front of you. I just did not want to be so self-absorbed, I wanted to have a little bit of that, and I talk about recovery and stuff like that. "Kill The Day" is a song like that for example " Close your eyes/the curtains/then you lie/push them away/it's okay/Kill The Day/". It is what I did for four years, close your eyes is when you inhale, you close the curtains and then you start getting on the phone and telling everybody that you can't do anything or you are too busy, there is such a resolve, there is such a good feeling about destroying my life. Months would go by, people in my life were like "Dude, don't you have to work on music or something?" I would be like "No"; it feels good to kill the day. So, I talk about that, then at the same time, when you get sober there is so much of your life that comes back to you. I have had a good look at how bad President Bush has done, and there are only two songs on the record that really address that and then there is "Soldiers of Misfortune" a song about a fan of ours that has gotten killed in the war.

K: I read about that, it is a very tragic story.

R: Yeah, and then there is what we are doing to the environment, which I have talked about in other records. "Cancer" is a song that is all about what we are doing to the environment, so you know there are a lot bands out there and there is a lot of crap and I wanted to have something out there that wasn't about my "crib" or my "gold chains"

K: Yeah, your "bling"

R: (laughs) Or my "bling" or lack there of…

(laughter)

K: So, what eventually led you to the decision to try sobriety? What pushed you in that direction?

R: Alcoholics are the last ones to know that they have a problem. Everyone else in the world knows, like "Wow, Rich, you are a total alcoholic" so finally on September 28th, 2002 I was supposed to play a show and I was just so spent physically that I looked the mirror at this hotel in Atlanta and I got startled because I couldn't see myself, I only saw this creepy, old dude, I mean I was only 34.

K: That is what it can do.

R: When you are 34, you are already starting to show the signs of aging, but when you liver and your kidneys start to fail that skin loses its elasticity and you're bloated. I had literally in the last two months of my drinking had changed into this very strange looking man and I didn't understand who it was, it freaked me out, my nerves were completely destroyed for the booze and I was think the " What do I do?" "How do I get out of this"? I felt I really deserve to go to a facility that will cater to my problems and they did. I went to this place called "Promises", I sat down and they just went one by one. A lot of people who were in there were like "F**k, this place!" but I took a good look around and I went "Enjoy this, look around, and learn everything you can because this is the first and last time you are ever going to be here". I made that promise to myself to never go back as a patient.

K: That is great to hear, very commendable. Glad to hear that it has worked out for you. Let's talk about the new album "Anthems for the Damned" a little bit; what was the thought process behind some of the writing on the new CD, I know you touched on a few points earlier, I see there were a few collaborations.

R: The actual music writing, most of it was myself, but on some of the songs I wanted to go where Ministry and those guys kind of went, almost as a homage to them, so I got guys like John 5 and Wes Borland ,Josh Freese plays drums. The thinking behind "Anthems" was doing as much as you want on your own, but when Bruce Springsteen needs a saxophone player, he doesn't play it, he goes off and gets and saxophone player and they rock. I had to start looking at myself, kind of like Justin Timberlake, not in sound, but in the fact that Justin will if he can't do it, he will get some great to come in and help him do it, and that is way I want to collaborate. I am going to use my new band, I mean I have these new guys who are on the road with me fleshing it out live and they are talented, so I am going to incorporate everything that they've got. It is an exciting place to be when you are the leader of a band, so I utilize that. Josh Abraham has a ton of friends and I just got them all to hang out with me and do it.

K: That is good. This is an indie release, correct?

R: Yes

K: What made you decide to go the indie route?

R: I spent a certain amount of money making this record and because I own this label with Josh Abraham I've recouped everything I've spent. On "Shortbus" it took me a year to re-coup. My record has been out for less than two weeks and I have already re-couped.

K: Wow

R: That is why you do it on your own. I do not have to answer to anyone, I made a video that has guns, oil, and says exactly what it should say about the war in Iraq, no one else did it, and no one else is going to do it. Hip-hop is not doing it so, I had to do it and the funny thing is I thought I was going to be banned from certain channels, but they are all like "Oh, no, this is great!" which is funny. I did not want to answer to anyone on this record; I wanted to say what I wanted to say. My idols Johnny Light and Joe Strummer, the combat rock, you know "Rock the Kasbah" video where there is this Jewish guy and this Arab guy and they are in an oil field, there is this underlying kind of symbolism, I love that stuff and that is where I wanted to go with the video for "Soldiers of Misfortune". I wanted that in your face kind of political statement, I just don't know if I would have been able to convince my label, who's so terrified of making a statement and I didn't want to deal with that. When you are working with people like Josh Abraham, Mark Pollock, and these guys are your label and they are like "go for it" you utilize that strength, so that is what we did. Evan Lane is a really great video director; by the way, I am really proud of the video.

K: Oh, I agree. The video looks fantastic; I watched it the other day.

R: Cool.

K: These days you find that more and more bands are going the indie route in order to avoid the censorship that goes along with the large label, and it seem to be working out. They will often utilize MySpace as a promotion tool. How do you feel about MySpace as a way to get the word out there promotion wise?

R: Well, MySpace is like a huge phonebook, so every band has got the same site and they all do the same kind of thing, so still someone has to be out there promoting your band. You have to have funds and you have to have creative people behind you when you are thinking of ways to get into people's faces. It definitely helps if you have a big hit; I mean if Amy Winehouse didn't have that song "Rehab", then I don't think she would have been half as big as she is today. Reality is you have to have hits to make it work.

K: Do you feel that your sound has matured over the years? How do you feel that it differs from your previous releases?

R: "Title" was a pretty amazing record; Amalgamut was a pretty amazing record, even though the lyrics were pretty weird. I went back and I re-read them because I was getting ready to go on tour and I wanted to make sure I had all this stuff, the lyrics were just real stream of conscious. It was kind of interesting and I was like, "Where do we go from here?" Literally my fight with my own writer's block, my own stifled world that I had created that I couldn't get beyond, I was just name dropping songs that I had written, like in the sense that I am not the only one/ I am your guilty son/the shiny gun…that's "Hey Man, Nice Shot' the guilty son is from "Take a Picture", so I was kind of citing these other songs and saying where do we go from here. I had reached a certain plateau within my own creativity and because of my drug dependency I really had a hard time being clever enough to kind of think of things. The main thing is to keep always forging ahead, I am really proud of this record, and a lot of people love it.

K: Everything things I have seen about it so far has been positive and the single has definitely been getting some radio play. I heard "Soldiers of Misfortune" on rotation on the radio on my way down to the Delaware beach the other day, so it is definitely getting so love out there.

R: Very cool

K: You have played in Kuwait for Operation MySpace, and I read that Frank Cavanaugh, former member of Filter is serving in Iraq.
R: Frank Cavanaugh used to play bass in Filter from 1995 till around 2002. After I went and joined Army of Anyone, he joined the Army. He joined the Army in 2005, so when we got this gig to play with MySpace, we are really grateful they asked us with Disturbed and all those guys, we thought maybe Frank should come out. They sent Frank out there and he played bass, it was cool, and it has led to us going to the Pentagon, we're going to go take a tour of the Pentagon, we are going to take tour of Walter Reed, so we are pro-troops, anti-war band and we say some critical things of the President and his stuff, but we're not against the warrior, we're against the war. We don't even really want to bring up the war while we are there, we just want to touch the soldiers and let them know that we're here for them and it means a lot to us what they have done because no one can blame the soldiers for this.

K: Did you ever fear for safety at any time while you were overseas?

R: No, they have so many soldiers who are just amazing.

K: I spoke with Drowning Pool last week, who have also played in Iraq and those areas, and they said the same thing, they said other than the heat, there was nothing to be afraid of.

R: Yeah, we didn't play Iraq, we played Kuwait in the middle of this huge desert, let me pull up some photos, and we are all the way out there in this gigantic desert. You have to see some of the pictures.

K: So you played the same bill as Jessica Simpson? Seems like opposite sides of the spectrum (laughs)

R: You know when it comes down to it, we are all just people and she was very sweet. I knew she was going to be very nice. Jessica Simpson was very cool; I was really stoked by that.

K: Were they happy to have a show over there, I know that it must bring a little piece of home to them.

R: They have all sorts of pieces of home over there, but they are still in the middle desert, and let me show you.

(Richard shows me several pictures such as the stage, a black hawk helicopter, Frank and his bass, a Starbucks in Kuwait and several others; I can tell it must have been an amazing experience. The aerial shots of Kuwait were amazing…thanks to Richard to sharing his photos/memories!)

K: So, what is next on the horizon for you?

R: Touring! We are going to tour and just do everything we can to promote the band and get us back to where we should be. It has been a long time since Filter has been around, I just have to re-educate everybody as to what we were doing.

K: Where do you see the future of music heading and where do you see yourself in that picture?

R: I am going to put out another record, for sure. I just want to continue doing it for as long as I can, I mean I feel like I have been given a really great gift, my voice is really strong these days and really like doing what I do, so I am just going to keep it up.

K: Well, congratulations on the album and I am glad to hear everything is going so well.

R: Thank you!

K: My final question is a fun one…Can you tell our site readers on interesting fact about you or Filter that we may not already know?

R: Everyone knows I am a Star Wars fan, but maybe your fans might not know this but my nickname from 1989 to 1993 in Nine Inch Nails was Piggy. Did you know that?

K: (laughs) I did not know that!

R: So, think of that when you hear the "Downward Spiral" next time.

K: (laughs) I definitely will!

R: My nickname in Nine Inch Nails was Piggy, everyone just called me Piggy because I used to do this imitation of Ogre from Skinny Puppy, cause he was singing (growling voice) "White Piggy/Rahhh!" and he was doing this whole thing and I was like, (growling voice) "Piggyyyy!" imitating him, so Trent was like, "Shut-up Piggy", Piggy that is your new name", so from then on it was just Piggy.

K: Definitely an interesting story. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us tonight. The new album rocks and we wish you much success in the future.

R: Thank you.