Filter began with Richard Patrick (vocals, guitars, bass, programming, drums) experimenting with a small eight-track in his
parents basement in Cleveland. While Richard was writing songs, Brian Liesegang (programming, guitars, keyboards, drums)
was sequestered away at the University of Chicago completing a degree in philosophy and experimenting himself, in a small
electronic studio across the hall from Bob Moog (the inventor of the modern synthesizer). Later, Richard and Brian would meet
through a mutual friend.

Background: Richard Patrick: Originally, I'd written a couple of songs out of the pure joy of just writing. My friends heard the
tapes and they all told me to try to find some way to get the songs to a record label . I met with a couple of managers and
eventually decided to go with Gail Perry and Richard Bishop. We made five tapes and gave them to A & R guys and a week
later, five record companies called back interested.

What songs were on the original demos that you gave out?

Richard: "Hey Man, Nice Shot", "Take Another" and

Brian: "White Like That"

Signing to a major label Richard: After I realized that there were five record companies interested, I started getting more
confident as an artist and I started to really relax and my head became clearer. I looked at five companies and Warner Bros.
definitely stuck out as an artist oriented label. A lot of people might say, "Oh you're selling out," but whatever. I gave them the
most punk rock thing I could come up with. Not in the sense of what punk rock is right now, but what it used to be. I made
"Spent" which is this really hard song. I'm screaming my ass off. It's not commercial in any way, and the record company was
like "yeah we like that, do whatever you want". On every level they've always left us to make the decision. They really
incorporated my manager's talents and working with the art department's been great. 

The album art Brian: It started with this little concept for the Lollapalooza cassette that was handed out. Deborah Norcross
(Warner Bros. Art Director) came up with this concept and just went with it.

Richard: It was really funny. I didn't have a fax machine so she's faxing me all these ideas at my brother's house and I'd get in
my car, drive to my brother's house, come back, look at it, talk to her on the phone and make some suggestions. She faxed me
this label of gear box oil from east block Germany and it had this real stark, simple font with FL 100 on it, and then she started
to do her own things with it. So the record has this great non-rock look. 

Brian: You can't classify the music by looking at the artwork, which it important to us. It's not macho, it's not grunge. It's unique
and stands on its own.

Richard: If you see it on a wall in a record store, it looks original and different, and I think that's ultimately musically where we
wanna be. We want to have our own thing, not ride some genre.

What's the story with the photo of the kid on the back of the inlay card?

Brian: At first we were looking at a lot of shots like Butthole Surfers type distorted images. We went into Warner Bros. for a
meeting one day and we were kind of hung-over and Rich had one of his moments of clarity and said "I wanna call the record
Short Bus." I was thumbing through these books and I found the picture. It's looks like an introverted kid on the short bus. It's
kind of a take off on the whole U2 Boy, War thing.

Richard: Sometimes I'm just completely preoccupied and you can sit there and ask me a question and I'll be completely staring
off. It reminded me of that, because this kid is in his own world, thinking, rubbing his eyes. It looks like he has this world of shit
he's going through.

The short bus Brian: It's mostly a suburban phenomenon. There are two sets of buses that go to school. The long bus and the
short bus. The short bus generally carries the "challenged" kids. We were a little afraid that people would think we were making
fun of handicapped people, but actually what we're saying is that we belong on the short bus. It's an innocuous title. It kind of
offsets the music in a certain way. Just like the artwork. 

Richard: There are certain songs like "Stuck In Here" that are very chilled out and relaxed. To me, when I was singing that
song, I sounded like I was on the short bus. I was in my own world; the kid that was rocking in seat three. Preoccupied. 

Working together and recording Short Bus Richard: About a year ago, the record company basically said "Your demos sound
great. Why don't you go off and track and record by yourself." Well, it was like going from a cessna to a 747. I was blown
away by the technology and I couldn't deal with it, but I knew it was something that could add to the music as opposed to just
kinda playing the drums. Brian came out as a savior. He'd been working with state of the art computers since he was about 18.

Brian: I'd say for the first half of the record, Rich wrote it himself, and then I came out and we started working together.

Richard: When he came out, it was like a glove. I did the guitars, played the instruments and sang, and he came up with this
whole new end of it. If you listen to the last half of the record, there's much more computer being applied to it. 

Are you guys going to write together in the future?

Brian: Yeah, now we'll have to.

Richard: It's a really good combination. We're great friends and there's a lot of trust.

Brian: There's no ego with us. We have a lot of ideas and we're always working towards the same end. We bicker, but we
usually come out with something that we're both happy with.

Richard: In any creative mode you're gonna have tension, but essentially this is who I want to work with. Definitely.

Any common influences:

Brian: The biggest influence on the record was more the approach we took; kinda like the Beastie Boys or Ween, where it's
just a couple of guys sequestered away making music without any designated roles. Obviously Rich did the singing, but if he
had something he wanted to do on the computer or I had something I wanted to do on the guitar, we'd just fuck around. Since
there were only two of us, we had to sit in a bunch of different roles.

Richard: One minute I'm singing, the next minute I'm a bass player, the next minute he's playing an old Rhodes piano.

Is it just the two of you on the record?

Brian: Yeah. It's basically just the two of us on the record. Rich sang, played guitar, bass & drums and did some drum
programming, and I programmed, played guitar and keyboards and some drums. Now were trying to flush it out with a band
for a live situation. 

Where did you guys record?

Brian: We had a mobile recording unit installed in a house in Cleveland.

Any problems with the neighbors?

Richard: Our landlord owns the house, which is phase 2 of a retirement home next door, so there's about 2000 people next
door that are all 70 years and over. One day it was really hot so we opened all the windows and were recording guitar tracks.
We got 26 complaints that day and a nice little letter, but the landlord loved us anyway cause we always paid our rent on time. 

Filter Any story behind the band name?

Richard: I started with Filter because I just liked the name, but people were always asking me what it meant. I was thinking
about it a lot and was in the shower one day thinking about the mind essentially being a filter for every person, between their
consciousness and reality. Then I'm talking to Brian about it one day and he says, "You know, you're just talking about
Emmanuel Kant." I said "Who?" 

Brian: I'd written a paper in college on this 19th century philosopher named Emmanuel Kant who had a theory that the mind
was just a filter. 

Richard: It was just a general idea that I came up with, but it was pretty weird that Brian had done a term paper in college on
this philosopher who'd written about basically the same thing . 

FILTER PART II

Dirt: Do you guys want to get into the lyrics and what the songs are about?

Brian Liesegang: We're kind of leery about describing what the songs are about, because the second you start explicitly talking
about what they're about, they lose meaning for the way some people can see them. We'd rather leave them open to
interpretation.

Dirt: What's the story with the guy on the answering machine on "Spent"?

Brian: The song "Gerbil" is essentially about the guy on the answering machine on "Spent". Rich had written the song
beforehand, and one night this friend of his called up on my machine, after two tanks of nitrous, out of his mind, and it just
seemed to work in the song, so we fit it in the cracks.

Richard Patrick: He's just a guy that slipped through the cracks of the system and blames everything on the system, and has
kind of decided to live his life outside the system. I respect him, to a certain degree. I really think he's just a loose cannon that
needs to be seen by people. I think everyone should meet this guy one time. You'll realize how far people can go off the deep
end. 

Dirt: How did "Take Another" evolve from the demos handed out on the Lollapalooza cassette to the version that's on Short
Bus ?

Brian: The groundwork for "Dose," "Spent," and "Take Another" was recorded on an 8-track analog tape machine. So what
we were doing was taking these tracks and flying them into the computer and turning them into a format that we could use at
the new studio. With "Take Another" there was some technical problems with the time code, so we had to re-record the whole
thing, and we changed the key, and I went a little crazy on the mid-section, and Rich re-sang the vocals. That song was totally
re-recorded.

Dirt: So did you use any of the tracks from the demos on the record.

Richard: Absolutely. All the guitars and vocals for "Dose," "Under," "Spent," "Take Another, " and "White Like That" are from
the original 8-track demos. We flew them off, put them into a bigger format so we could add more stuff, and then Brian
re-programmed all the drums and made it sound more beefy and put in his own vibe.

Dirt: What about "Hey Man, Nice Shot"?

Brian: There's stuff from the original demo in that too - the vocals, guitars and bass line.

Richard: It's like I was saying to you before. The way I write, I'm a kid from the 90's. I have a small little computer. It's best to
write something and then immediately listen to it and think, "is that what I want to do," rather than going off and rehearsing with
a band and then getting into a studio and going "Jesus, do I sound like that on tape." So I wanted to make the tape machine my
scratch pad. What I would do is I'd have a little foot trigger and I'd press record when I wanted to. I'd sing a line and think
about it and what I'd want do next and build it that way. The entire second verse of "White Like That" was because I was
happy. I had just finished a perfect chorus. I came up with all the lyrics for the chorus right on the spot. I just went for it. The
original thought that came out of my head went right on tape, and that's where it is now.

Brian: For us the demos are essentially the final product. That's it.

Dirt: So the ideas, when they come, you immediately get them down on tape?

Brian: That's the great thing about having a home studio and it just being the two of us. There's so much instant gratification of
just being able to do it and immediately listen back and make a decision. 

Dirt: So was everything recorded digitally? 

Brian: Yeah. Basically we record right into our Mac. We record vocals, guitars, drums, everything into the Mac and that's what
we use as our arrangement tool and production center.

Dirt: Any live drums on the record?

Brian: Neither of us plays drums, but we did on some stuff like the end of "Gerbil." There's some parts with live drums, but
most of it's programmed.

Dirt: Is a drummer going to be able to pull the stuff off live?

Brian: Well, obviously it's going to change a little bit in its interpretation, but you can totally pull it off.

Dirt: How did the Dust Brothers remixes of "Hey Man, Nice Shot" come about?

Richard: Michael Ostin (Warner Bros. Sr. VP of A&R) gave us a tape and said, "think about it and maybe they could do some
remixes in the future." At a certain point, the record company needed something for the clubs, and I said, "Let's get the Dust
Brothers." Everyone was psyched for the idea and what they sent us was fucking great.

Brian: We got the tape back and we were in a bad mood. We'd had a rough week. We heard the tape and immediately we
were dancing.

Richard: We were sitting there kinda grooving and looking at each other and smiling.

Brian: Giving high fives.

Richard: We were psyched about it. Brian and I have this idea to give them all the tapes and just let them do an entirely
different record called Short Dust. It's just an idea, but I think if we do a whole record with them, where every song is different
and fucked up and tweaked, that's something that we can listen to and hopefully our fans will get off on it.

Dirt: So are you guys into dance music, or the trance and ambient scene?

Brian: We don't listen to a whole lot of that. We're not big scenesters or club kids, but if it's done well, we're open to it. We
love Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works.

Dirt: How do you feel about "industrial" music?

Richard: When it's done well, I like it.

Brian: It's part of our background and there's some things that obviously influenced us, but I wouldn't consider our stuff
industrial. We don't listen to a whole lot anymore, but I guess we did.

Richard: Early on we did, but now there's so many average "industrial" bands.

Brian: Land Of Rape And Honey (Ministry) is a perfect record. One of my favorites.

Richard: My favorite industrial records would definitely have to be Land Of Rape And Honey and Vivi Sect VI, by Skinny
Puppy. They did it the best. On Vivi Sect VI there's this one part where he distorts this 808 drum machine. It was so
absolutely, mind-blowingly, sonically weird.

Brian: In the days of Warrant and hair bands, they're sitting there doing these records that very few people were gonna like.

Richard: I'm glad that those guys said fuck you to the system, even to technicians and engineers. I saw Skinny Puppy when I
was 17, and I couldn't believe it existed in a world where the alternative bands were REM and U2. When you see that, you're
like "Wow! You can do anything." As long as it's done well.

Brian: As long as you do it well and you mean it.

Dirt: Have you guys played live yet?

Brian: Only yesterday at the video shoot.

Dirt: So how did the video go, and was it strange standing on a stage together for the first time?

Richard: Actually it was pretty weird to look back and see a band playing. My thing was to just let the song tell us what to do.
If you felt a certain energy somewhere, just go for it. Don't even think about it. Just let it happen and let it come out.

Brian: I'd be a liar to say we weren't a little concerned about it, but it went so easy.

Richard: You never know until you actually see the video, but we didn't even think about it. We just did it and gave it our all.

Dirt: What's your vision for the live show?

Richard: Well we're not going to wear make-up and have big explosions.

Brian: We're going to put it together in Chicago. Rich is moving out and I guess we'll have a pretty intense spring getting the
band together. We're just gonna go for it. 

Dirt: And how much of the show will be straight live?

Brian: We'll have pretty much a straight band, but we're going to have a couple of samplers up there for triggering stuff like the
toms in "Under," some feedback samples and some keyboard stuff that we'll trigger off samples, but it will mostly be live
performance. It'll be nice to get away from tape.

Dirt: Any future plans or goals in closing?

Brian: We're moving to Chicago to get the band together. We have our mobile studio and basically, we'll probably start writing
again when we have some space to breathe and have some ideas. A tour is pending but we plan on writing the whole time. We
don't want to be one of these bands that has to sequester itself away for three years for the second record. Rich and I will sit
on the road with a couple of guitars and a 4-track and see what we come up with.

Interview by Troy Wallace


Transmitted: 10/23/95 5:14 PM (intervie)
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