It's Time To Try 'Drugs' As They Gear Up For Release of Debut Album 'Episodic'

Members of the new indie band Drugs joined our Tower Livestream, hosted by Whitney Moore, to talk about their upcoming debut album, Episodic, out August 7th, and how they’ve been spending their time in lockdown.

Their new video for “Try Me” is out now. Joel Jasper and J.P. Bendzinski tuned in. They are located in Long Beach, and are neighbors who live near each other, so they agreed to quarantine together, and they also have a studio where they’ve been able to work. Moore agreed that it must be a big relief to have access to music equipment!

Drugs have been working on a lot of promo material for their new album, including putting together videos during quarantine, using a free trial of “Final Cut Pro” to make a video. Joel said that was his work.

What’s it been like to release their first music video in quarantine, Moore asked. They had started making a music video way back in November, edited it before quarantine, and it got released. However, the new one that they did during quarantine, “Paralyzed” has gotten a big reaction and made people pay attention to this new band. Joel said that creating it was “really fun”.

The “necessity” and the “excess time” in quarantine gave Joel the chance to “dive into ideas” that he’d never been able to before with making videos. He feels that he’s learned a new skill due to this time. He had more time to make the video “perfect”, too.

What’s their journey been like, as a new band, creating this album? It is a “long, weird story”, Joel said. They started recording the album three years ago, and it’s been done for over a year, Joe and JB said. They used to be in another band with a different name, worked on this record, finished it, and were sitting on it. Then their friend Zach Mabry quit the band, and over the course of the following year, they “put the final sprinkles on it”, and added their buddies Vince Guitierrez and Alan Connor to finish the album with them. Then they found the label Park the Van and are happy to put the album out in a “proper way” and have a chance to be “heard” as a full band with a finish project.

What about the band name change? They thought it would be funny to be called “Drugs” and it could be used in many different ways. They found out that nobody else was really using it, either, and it was easy to lock in on social media. Many of the names they looked at were taken already, but not that one!

Moore asked, “What goes better than Rock music and drugs?” Her answer, “Nothing.”

They’ve been working on music a little bit in quarantine, putting together some pieces, but also really building up their studio properly for use. A band they were sharing with has moved out, and now they’ve made it their own space, really. They want to use it to “develop the ideas they’ve already had.”

Asked about their songwriting process, Joel said things are different each time, whether it’s a lyric or a riff that turns into two riffs, and they need to find ways to move between the two riffs. He likes the idea of making sure that everyone in the band contributes to song writing. They’ve been asking the drummer and bassist to send them beats and basslines that interest them.

JB said that Joel sometimes comes up with as much as half a song, sends it to him, and he “vibes on it” for a while before working on developing it and sending it back.

Moore asked how they decide on if something is “good” and when to “call a song done”. Joel said that basically when you “hate it and hate yourself”, then give it a week, relisten to it, and realize, “That shit’s tight, actually.” JB agreed that there’s a point where he just can’t listen to a track anymore, and usually that’s when it’s finished or close to finished.

What’s coming up on their debut album Episodic? Joel said that one of the songs is from an idea that’s 5 or 6 years old. It takes so long to finally produce something for many bands. Several of the songs are also about mental health and each one is an “episode” in that discussion.

Is there a narrative to the album? It’s definitely “abstract” said Joel. It has “ups and downs” through the record, which was a goal for him, as a writer. If they are starting a song “really hard and really hot”, he wants a point where it “drops” and gets “subtle” before it goes back to being “crazy and chaotic” and that’s the same for the album.

Asked about why they think it’s important to bring in themes about mental health, Joel said that he thinks there’s so much more involved in mental illness, and mental health, than a simple conversation. It ranges from Joel’s experiences, to experiences of friends of his, and stories about people that he knows. It’s about the movement from one mental state to another, and he thinks that all people have some of that experience within them.

It can be “really emotional” and “really hard to deal with” among friends who might have a “mental break” or a “manic episode”, Joel said. It’s an “important thing to talk about” and “even the US has no idea how to deal with it.”, he explained. A lot of times, people don’t want to deal with it, he observed. It’s about caring about people, and not everyone gets the “right care”. Which sometimes leaves people on the street.

Asked if their time in quarantine and the world experience is going to affect their music at all, Joel observed that a lot of musicians seem “paralyzed” at the moment and people are trying to process our world right now. It takes time, though he is planning on writing about it at some point. But maybe the “idea will come to fruition a little bit later”.

[Photo credit to Arthur Hitchcock]

Their record “oddly hits on things” that might work for right now, though. “That’s the cool thing about music,” Joel observed, “That anytime in history, you can get something different from it.”

Were they planning on touring? JB said the future of live shows is so up in the air right now, but yes, they have ideas of where they’d like to go, and have friends in various locations they’d like to check in with. Joel would really like to tour in Japan, since they have toured with Japanese bands that have come to the USA and really enjoyed that. They have 6 or 7 Japanese bands that they played with, and they “fit” together really well, so Drugs would like to do the West Coast or Japan.

Moore observed from going to Punk shows in Japan that things can be “fucking crazy” in a good way. Joel praised Japanese fans for “showing up” and “caring” when it comes to music. Moore asked if the idea of seeing peoples’ reactions live is still important to them when it comes to this new album. How will they measure this one’s release? It’s hard to answer that, Joel said, since no one expected this current situation.

All they can ask for right now is that people actually listen to the record, enjoy it, and get something out of it. With bars closing, and COVID numbers going up, things feel “irresponsible” right now trying to do too much live, but there are many records that Joel loves for bands that he’s never seen live, and hopefully coming out of this, they’ll have fans who want to see them play live because they heard the album.

Do they have an ideal circumstance for fans to listen to the new album? “Any of them”, Joel laughed. But he thinks it’s a “driving record”, maybe a “roadtrip record”. He likes to listen to records “late at night, walking by myself” and hopefully they are in that category.

Sometimes they “walk the neighborhood” with a can of beer and a Bluetooth speaker, so that would work, too, Joel and JB said.

One of their favorite bands they want to see live are Gold Celeste, a Norwegian band, with plenty of “roadtrip, walking” records.

Moore observed that their music reminds her of Walkman and Television. JB said that Television is one of his favorite bands, and that influenced the guitar on the record heavily. They are also huge Deerhoof fans, and Joel has seen them play multiple times. They are going to put out a playlist on Spotify of songs that they love. It’s currently on their Spotify profile, so go check it out! It’s “Artist Playlist under the influence of Drugs”. Modest Mouse, Orange Juice, Arthur Russell, Stereolab, and more make the list.

Asked about the “really cool art” that they feature on their Instagram and their new shirt, JB said that the shirt idea was based on an anti-drug ad, and they took that original image, and they photoshopped it to say “Drugs” and changed the words to Japanese since they’ve been playing with Japanese bands. Their cover art is by their buddy Daniel Trudeau, from Sacramento, who’s done a lot of artwork for Park the Van, who is also a musician. He “pumped out” four images for them in less than a week.

The “Paralyzed” image is by Jerry Wolfer, and does a lot of signage and art stuff in the Long Beach area. He’s done art shows done with chalk and chalk boards, JB said. Joel said that Wolfer would have huge pieces, and people would offer to buy them, but he’d refuse because the point was that the art would be washed away after the show.

The album art for Episodic is their buddy Jimmy D’amico, a friend of theirs who does local art shows, tattoos, and then “happily possessed” creatures. They are creatures with a shadow of worry or anxiety around them. Their cover is a painting, a two foot by two foot canvas that he did. “Artwork matters!” JB declared.

Asked about our Tower Records motto, No Music, No Life? Joel has no idea what he’d be doing otherwise. JB’s life centers around being a music engineer and a mastering engineer. For Joel, it’s part of everyday life, to “bring you up, to bring you down”, to support you through difficult times. “It’s so many different things.”, JB added. People don’t even notice, which is a little “shitty”. Imagine watching all our TV shows, or seeing ads, all without music? If you even go to someone’s house to eat for a dinner party, and there’s no music, it’s “kinda awkward”.

Do Drugs have anything more to say to fans? Joel said stay safe, obviously. He just saw on Gavin Newsome’s Twitter feed that if you cough without a mask on, it can travel 6 feet, and if you sneeze with no mask, it can travel 27 feet. So “wear a fucking mask!” Be safe, and don’t do stupid stuff like go the beach, Joel encouraged.