When bassist John Striker walked offstage after playing his first show with Filter, singer/guitarist Richard Patrick asked for a moment.
They walked into a backroom of the Austin, Texas, venue where the band—known for divergent hits, the intense “Hey Man, Nice Shot,” the beach-y “Take a Picture”—had just performed. Striker thought he was being fired.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh, great. That didn’t take long,’ ” says Striker, who joined Filter in spring 2008. “Richard goes, ‘Really great show. Just one comment: try not to smile so much.’ That sets the tone, in the best of ways, with the group.”
Attitude-wise, it’s an about-face from Striker’s longtime gig with Tenacious D, actor Jack Black comedy-rock outfit. Striker has also played on two Steve Earle albums: the upcoming Townes Van Zandt covers disc and 2007’s Grammy-winning “Washington Square Serenade.” Striker is yet to receive his trophy for the latter.
“You know it’s funny, unless you’re (the artist) or the producer you actually have to buy one,” Striker says. “And I have yet to do that. They’re not cheap…a couple thousand dollars I think.”
What challenges do bands like Filter—that came up in the label system era—face in today’s much changed music industry? Turning the heads of a new audience. You’re always going to have the people who bought the big album, but you need young fans to be current and to survive.
Conversely, what’s most thrilling about the new paradigm? The immediate connection with fans. You can work on a song in the studio, and really if we want to we can make a mix of the song, put it on MySpace, and people can have instant access to it and we can see how people respond to it.
Is Filter working any unreleased new stuff into the sets? There’s a tune called “Drugboy” that Rich wrote that’s a pretty simple song, but so powerful. It gave me the same sort of feeling as when I first heard “Hey Man, Nice Shot.”
What was memorable about the Steve Earle sessions? On the first record I did all my stuff in Los Angeles. We’d send him tracks and he’d give us notes. He just hates Los Angeles. It wasn’t until the record came out and won a Grammy that I met him. On the Townes Van Zandt record I got to play on a track with Steve and (Rage Against the Machine guitarist) Tom Morello.
Got any good Jack Black stories? We were in New Zealand walking around one day before we played a show there. We see these two little 8-year-old kids standing in the street—one on snare drum and one playing acoustic guitar and singing. They’re doing Dylan, Hendrix and Zeppelin and it was kind of incredible. Jack walks over to them and says, “Hey, do you guys want to open up for us tonight?” Sure enough that night these kids are performing in front of 8,000 people. Jack walks out to introduce them and he’s wearing just a pair of underpants.
Catch Filter at 4:20 p.m. on Saturday, May 16 at the Greenville Crawfish Boil. Click here for the full schedule of bands.
