Interview With Drug Church’s Patrick Kindlon

Sofia Slack

Music Reviewer

After we caught the one and only Drug Church on tour (read our coverage here!), Sofia Slack and Desarey Elizondo Lopez from KTSW 89.9 Radio sat down with Patrick Kindlon of Drug Church, who was still dripping sweat from his performance, for an exclusive interview. The band, formed in 2011, has made a name for itself in the hardcore scene. Throughout the interview, we talk with Kindlon about Drug Church’s best moments, song meanings, how the fans have connected with them, and touring.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity purposes.

Interviewed by Sofia Slack

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Sofia Slack: How has the first part of your tour been?

Patrick Kindlon: It’s been very productive, I guess you can say. Fun obviously. I haven’t been sick, which is a positive. Voice has only blown out once. Have not crashed a vehicle yet, so I guess you could say were winning, we’re up right now.

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Sofia Slack: What has been your favorite experience on tour thus far?

Patrick Kindlon: On this tour, let’s see. So, my other career is I do comic books, and I just had a new one come out, so on this tour, I have been able to go into comic book stores and talk to retailers and people that like the book and sign a few and try to make things smooth for retailers to move more books, which is a nice bonus. Sorry, this is more information than you asked for, but I live in Tasmania, which is really far away, so whenever I’m in the United States, I try to do as much for both of the things I do for a living as I can.

Sofia Slack: That’s sick! What’s the comic book?

Patrick Kindlon: My latest book is a book called “Tiger’s Island”. It’s about sort-of B-movie stars who are kidnapped to an island and have to escape. The first issue is out now. It sold out and went to reprint, but it should be available at most stores at this point. Today I signed a bunch of stuff at Austin Books and Comics.

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Sofia Slack: What city has stood out to you guys the most? Out of all of your tours, I know you guys have toured a lot.

Patrick Kindlon: So I believe we were in Santiago, Chile, where the crowd sang all of the guitar leads. So you know, normally people sing along with the lyrics, in South America, a few different towns, but I’m pretty sure Santiago, Chile was the first, they sang the guitar leads. So you start playing guitar, and the people are “naanaananaa”. It’s really charming. It’s really nice. So I enjoyed it, I really enjoyed all cities in all of South America, Central America, I thought they were really lovely. Buenos Aires, I didn’t get to see enough of, but it’s a beautiful city, and I would like to spend more time there. There are towns where we have great shows. Like most of England, we have great shows. Ireland, we have great shows. Scotland, we have great shows. But those places are not exotic exactly. You know what I mean? So when we do get an opportunity to go further into Eastern Europe, Asia, or South America, I usually enjoy that a lot because the shows could be great. They could be just okay. But it gives me an opportunity to see more of the earth, and I enjoy that.

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Sofia Slack: Is there a song that you guys have that has a completely different meaning from when you wrote it to now?

Patrick Kindlon: Oh, that’s a very good question. So I always say that I don’t realize what songs are really about until sometimes years have passed, and I’m doing them live, and then something will hit me while we’re performing, and I’ll realize that the song is about or at least has elements of something that I did not know at the time that I sat down to write it. There’s definitely a song on hygiene that we’ve played a lot, that midway throughout, I thought, oh, that’s got more to do with my parents. You know, so that type of thing happens. It’s kind of stream of consciousness to a degree or whatever comes out. And then I figured it out later what it’s about.

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Sofia Slack: My last question is, when people listen to your music, what do you want them to take away from it?

Patrick Kindlon: I want people to listen to our music and realize that what you pull from a song, what you pull from a novel, what you pull from a painting is a highly personal thing to you. And if it runs counter to what I intended in some way, I’m happy for you, I don’t care. I want you to enjoy what I do or find it edifying without needing to know a thing about me or to care if I live or die. Some of the best music in the world is one great song, and you don’t care about anything else that artist could ever provide. You don’t care about that person’s life, so to speak. You just have a moment when you listen to it. And that’s all I want. I’m happy for all the people who approach me and tell me that our music connects with them. I really am, but I really, I’m happiest when I know that somebody has had a kind of self-directed moment with the music where they don’t care what I mean.

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Check out Drug Church’s newest single, Pynch!

Drug Church “Pynch” (Official Music Video)