Budderside is a modern hard rock band with a classic rock pedigree. Frontman Patrick Stone was once a member of Motorhead’s road crew while guitarist Sam Bam Koltun has played with Faster Pussycat, Dorothy, and many others. The band just released its third record, White Flame, and Stone and Koltun took some time to talk about it and the evolution of Budderside.
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On what recent lineup changes meant to White Flame – Patrick – It is White Flame. Jeff (Dewbray – drums) came on shortly after Sam did. The whole thing kind of happened pretty quickly and Logan (Nikolic – guitar) and Jeff were a part of it. I don’t know, Sam, how long would you say you were, you were really working with us before we brought in Logan and Jeff?
Sam – Maybe a year, maybe a little over a year, something like that.
Patrick – Elliot (Lorango)’s joined us for more of the touring that’s come after the recordings but we’re excited to get him involved in whatever we’re doing going forward and we’re really grateful that he’s allowed himself to be a part of this project.
On the creative process in the band – Sam – Now it’s kind of different. With Spiritual Violence, that was still kind of Patrick doing a majority of the writing and I had came in and I played on the the record with them. Now with White Flame, it’s more so, I sit here in my room, and I’ll slave over riffs for hours at a time and then bring it to Patrick. Or, somebody else will have an idea, Logan will have an idea, maybe Logan and I will work together on an idea, and then we bring it to Patrick, and then he’ll be like, “This is cool”, or “Have some other ideas”. I think that’s kind of how it’s been going.
Patrick – Sam will just send me riff after riff after riff and sometimes I’ll be like, “Oh, that is super sick”. Then other times I’m just kind of like, “Oh, that’s sick”. But the ones that are super sick kind of stick in my mind. Then it’s kind of like a crossroads of whatever I’m going through that becomes important enough to me to start writing poetry to. As soon as there’s an emotion I’m carrying that’s heavy enough, somehow that riff or something he sent me will start to creep into my head. Then I’ll be like, “Oh, this is the story that goes to that”, and that’s where Sam and I tell the story of our lives together, we find these places and Logan is a strong writer as well a lot of this record. We’re all such a huge part of this record together. It’s really a group. It’s a group thing, and we all make sure that we’re happy with something before moving on. Then, of course, there’s Matt Good in the studio who doesn’t let anything go by without being completely perfect.
On the influences brought into White Flame – Sam – That’s another thing of working with Matt Good, he just brings this other element to it. It’s really incredible to watch him, work as a producer and his input writing as well.
Patrick – The band has so many different influences, but Sam and I definitely lean towards, Sam leans more towards the grungy, heavier Alice in Chains-type riffs. I grew up in a completely different environment with all the hair metal and shit, which I’m happy to put as far behind me as possible, but it seems to stick and you have to appreciate the Sunset Strip and everything that had to offer. Matt has this really emo-based, From First to Last band that he was in. So he brings a lot of this emo culture to it, to the sound. Logan is fanatical about Bring Me the Horizon and a lot of the new, electronic-based rock and metal. So there’s just all of these influences coming into one place. Since we love each other so much, we just allow every idea to come in and we all try to make everything work. Nobody really argues about anything. We’re just excited to meld all of the colors into one. Usually, it ends up dark and black.
On putting together highly conceptual videos – Sam – I call Patrick, “Patrick Alan Spielberg”.
Patrick – I get fixated on an idea and we definitely learned this week, thanks to my band members, that sometimes the fire under my ass, I let get a little bit hotter than I should. I run so fast once I get an idea in my brain. With the videos, I think they just let me go crazy. Of course we share every idea and of course, everything has to be agreed to by the band first. The “Ghostlighting” video I have to give credit to our former bass player who’s moved on, but he had this crazy sense of humor. We all agreed that like everything’s been so serious and we’re always so serious, why not do something that’s a little funny? Sam always wanted to wear a dress. So we put him in one.
Sam – You got it wrong. Logan was the one who enjoyed it the most.
Patrick – I think he’s more in touch with this feminine side than any of us had ever anticipated. But yeah, you learn a lot. The “Ghostlighting” video is probably my favorite of all of them. At the same time, it’s just that intro is a little bit cringy for me. I took my stab at script writing and I think the intro was a little bit long. It takes a little long to get into the video.
Sam – It was also supposed to be cheesy though. Other than Patrick, we’re not actors.
Patrick – Well, that’s in the eye of the beholder. The process behind the videos, usually it’s one thing or another. I mean, ghosts, of course definitely lended itself to “Ghostlighting”. So that’s kind of what brought the idea to like Scooby Doo and being haunted and chasing down some ghosts. So, that’s the story. Sometimes it’s just one word in the song that will bring the video to life. As soon as I start seeing something in my head, then I’ll write out the script, I put it Inshot, it’s like a screenplay, but it’s all just words and then I’ll share it with the guys and they’ll be like, “Oh, this is going to be really cool”. I’ll share it with the director. Then the words become frames and a storyboard. Then there we are on set all of a sudden. Creating “Too Far” was definitely related to a lot of suicide just wanting to end it all because the people in your life are so freaking overbearing and hurtful. So that led to that story. I’ve experienced a lot of those horror stories in my life. So that unfolded like it did. “Voices” was kind of an homage to my father and to our friend Rob. Our favorite place was Lake Tahoe. So that’s where we ran up to Lake Tahoe to film up there. So it’s just little things about the story involving the song that opens up the idea to the video. The last one, we just really wanted to to just skip all of that. We had to try really hard not to try hard with “Ain’t Alright”. We decided to just give you something that’s just the band raw, black and white.
On releasing a series of singles that eventually make up a full album – Sam – We were kind of just talking about this last night too, and it’s kind of the fact that each song gets to have a life for a little bit. So you put it out and everybody’s able to enjoy it for a while. The focus is on that song for a little while, as opposed to just putting out the record and all 12 songs just go out and then that’s it. So I guess that’s kind of what we’ve been going with again, with the advice of some people that have been helping the band out. I guess seeing it in that light is that each song kind of gets to have its own life for a little while.
Patrick – We’re also slaves to the system now. It’s not like it was, if you throw an album up on Spotify, they only allow you to highlight one song. So, you can’t really push something for more than (a little while). How many days in a row can you be hounded with, “Oh, we have a release, Oh, we have a release” all week long? I feel like by day three, people are kind of just like, “Okay, you’ve got a release”. If it didn’t latch onto it, then you kind of have to back off. Putting out one single at a time enables you to really highlight the importance and how much that track means to you and let everybody else absorb it before moving on to the next one.
So it’s kind of you’re at the mercy of how the system works. At the same time, I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to music because every single should be (great). Just don’t put out garbage. I think every song should be a hit. There’s so many bands out there just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing if it sticks. We’re not like that. Every song to us is an entire album. There’s so much meaning in every song. We just want to share it with everyone for as long as possible.
On whether releasing singles changing their approach to writing – Sam – I think we were just trying to write the best stuff that we possibly could, just in general, then it just kind of worked out that it’s like, “Okay, well, this song works to put out as a single and this song works to put out as a single”. I guess that was kind of the goal was initially to go in and write what would be considered singles, but ultimately it comes down to that. We were just basically trying to write the coolest stuff that we possibly could.
Patrick – This works for us. I don’t know how it would work with other bands. How much time do you have to write? So when you’re writing, I think Sam, Logan, Jeff and Elliot also, there’s a bar that we’ve set for ourselves and we don’t let something get recorded unless it’s up to that standard. The reviews that are coming in for this record are just, I mean, they blow my heart apart. People are in tears. It’s 12 out of 12, five out of fives. It’s not because I’m biased, but I couldn’t agree more. There’s people in the industry we’ve been trying to get the attention of for a long, long time who sing the praises of people like David Bowie or our heroes of rock and roll and they’re saying the same thing. So I think that this process, this formula is definitely something we’re very proud of.
On touring plans behind White Flame – Sam – It’s always the hope and the idea’s to get something together. So I think that’s what we’re working on at the moment. We got the festivals, Louder than Life and Aftershock, those are in September and October. Hopefully we’ll be able to do some other stuff around that.
Patrick – I feel like everything happens for a reason and it feels like we’re in the right place at the right time now. The way things are unfolding, I can’t imagine that we won’t go too much longer without being offered. I would envision us going out on the road with somebody really big right at this point. I think we really need to join a tour that’s substantial. I don’t think we should be doing club dates. Not that we wouldn’t accept them or take them. We love to play. If we can survive doing that, we definitely will. We’ve done that many times. We just did a tour with the 69 Eyes back in March. and it was so great to see people singing along to the record. I can only imagine that there’s more of them out there waiting. So I think the goal is definitely to jump on a bigger tour. We’re just kind of waiting for the right one to pop up and then we will definitely be out there crushing it for as long as we possibly can.