Interview: DRAIN (USA) Debut New Zealand Shows

Santa Cruz hardcore punk / crossover thrashers DRAIN arrive in Aotearoa New Zealand for the first time ever next month, playing a pair of maximum energy headline dates with special guests from the US One Step Closer. Riding a wave of acclaim for their 2023 second album LIVING PROOF via Epitaph Records, frontman Sammy Ciaramitaro chatted with Oscar Toy (Lavender Menace) via Zoom about DRAIN's journey so far...

DRAIN (USA) NZ Tour
with One Step Closer (USA) + more

Friday 14th March - San Fran, Wellington
Saturday 15th March - Neck of the Woods, Auckland*

*Auckland tickets on sale HERE via UTR

Oscar Toy: Hey! How are you guys doing? How’s the weather in California?

Sammy Ciaramitaro: We’re okay today, little rain, a little sun. I kinda goofed and I was like, “Oh my God, I forgot, I’m watching the dogs today.” So you’re gonna be talking to three people today!

Can I meet the dogs?

Oh yeah! This is my boy Otto! He’s about 4 months old, and this is Ben, who’s not sure how to feel about Otto, on the side. We got them just two months ago yesterday, so it’s been a little bit of a crazy acclimation to having the puppy, but it’s been fun. My wife usually helps out when I do things like this, but she was at work today, so… we’re rocking it! We’ll rock it Oscar, let’s do it!

Nice, I dig it… jumping right into it, you guys have been a band for about 10-ish years right?

Yesssss sir, 10 years. Kinda psycho dude, yeah.

Did you think, when you started out, that you'd be touring places like New Zealand and Australia?

Never ever ever never in a million years. To be honest, the thought of just playing outside of California was crazy — play out of state. It still trips me out. We’ve been so fortunate we have hit quite a few places, but there’s still so many (left) that this is like a first for us, you know? We’ve never made it to New Zealand.

When did you realise that it was starting to get viable for you guys to go outside of state, and do these out of town shows?

One sec let me just grab this dog. It started turning on right before Living Proof came out. That was like the big jump, we were like, “Maybe we could like actually do this”. We already recorded the record so it’s not that long ago, that’s 2022? For a while I don't wanna say just a hobby, cause it’s still just a hobby, but it was like, “If we can do it we will, but if not it’s all good.” It’s just for the fun of it, so if we couldn’t make a tour work, it’s all good. We tried our best to do everything we could but it wasn’t until then, then it was, “I think we’re able to make this a real thing!” We can just do this and not lose…

All of your money?

Yeah! We can do well enough where we can actually do this. Before, people were like, “Oh, when are you going on tour next?” Well, when I save up enough money to go again, I don’t know! It’s just for fun! It’s almost like a vacation. You get to play shows, but you’re not doing well enough where it fills your cup back up.

Yeah that’s the reality of doing it all DIY, is that you have to wait until you actually have the capital to go out and do it.

You play in bands? I see you’ve got some fiddles back there! You know, it’s like, "Hey we’re gonna print some shirts! So I need 100 from everybody." But the first time we put in a merch order it was like, "How much do we all owe?" And I’m like “Dude. DRAIN got it.” And they were like, "Whaaaaaaat? That’s crazy! DRAIN bought our tickets for this flight?" "I know dude, crazy!" So it still feels cool, man.

I know you were the drummer in Gulch for a while...

There’s some symbiotic relationship with drums and vocals, I feel like. I don’t speak crazy highly of myself but I feel I'm a solid drummer, but good drummers make good frontmen, and I don't know why that is.

I think you carry that sense of rhythm over, that you got from playing drums, into your singing.

Yeah, you can tell the difference too, when there’s people who just sing vs people who sing and play instruments. I don’t wanna say I’ve never fallen off time, but I’ve got a little bit of an idea of the rhythm, you know?

You can sit in the pocket.

Exactly! I think especially when you’re making songs, someone without a sense of rhythm would line up the words exactly like this, where I can kinda bounce around and do, one flow on this verse and one flow on the next one.

If you listen to all those old hardcore bands, like the Black Flag, Minor Threat stuff… those vocalists are singing all over the beat, and they have such odd phrasing and stuff. I think you have a similar thing where you can just go wherever you want to.

I appreciate it man, I'm not even gonna lie to you. Twenty minutes ago we’re working on some new music, and I literally put on Minor Threat and I was thinking about this one song and I was like, “Where does he sit the vocal?” I literally just did that and I was like, “Yo Ian, show me the way!”

You guys are playing Neck of the Woods in Auckland, and San Fran down in Wellington, what can we expect from these shows? Is there gonna be new material? Anything crazy planned?

I don’t wanna speak too soon, we’re almost done with this new record. I think we’re gonna play one new song? I think? We’re gonna see how it feels. We’ve also never been there, so if people want it, we’re gonna let them kind of decide. If people really want us to play certain kinds of things we might, see what’s in the back pocket. We could break out the greatest hits of California Cursed and Living Proof!

Last time we went to Newcastle… all the kids in Newcastle really liked heavy songs, they didn’t really sing along as much but they really liked the mosh parts. So maybe I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe cater to that a little bit. But we don’t change the set much, at all, but it’s good to have in mind. I’ve got no idea cause we haven’t been there.

It’s kinda cracking me up. There’s a venue, in San Francisco, like an hour away from us, there’s a venue called Neck of the Woods. So when I saw that on there I was kinda tripped out. A lot of people were like, “Dude why do I feel like you’re playing a show here in the Bay Area?” Like I know dude! It got me too! That’s kinda funny. But what you can expect is a good time. It’s just rock and roll dude — some badass rock and roll, some dope hardcore.

You’ve played a few times in Australia. Is there a difference between what you expect from an Australian audience and what you expect from an American one?

Not really honestly, that’s a good question. We’re an enigma, our band. I feel like I always have people telling me, “I've never seen our city go off like that, usually they only like THIS thing, but you guys just did your own thing and people just ate it up.” They’re just down. We just make a DRAIN show, whether that’s America, Japan, Australia. We’re really lucky, and it’s not something we’ve planned, it’s just the way that we do it. I feel like it gets people out of their comfort zone a little bit, and they’re gonna do shit they maybe wouldn’t normally do.

I feel like there’s a good mix of ages. I know Australia has a little bit of a strange thing with — there’s certain shows where it has to be an all-ages requested show. I will say, I feel like I've seen people get very hurt, stage-diving in Australia, maybe more so than other places. Per capita most injuries diving. There’s also some guys who have dope dive style, that’s one thing I did notice. Like damn, people kinda be getting hurt diving. But other than that nothing really. We’re very lucky though, I know a lot of other people don’t really get that same treatment... but we kinda do good everywhere.

I saw that you guys are doing the new Warped Tour. Were those original pop-punk, mall emo type bands an inspiration for you when you were younger? Or is this something you’re just getting into now?

I’m gonna be so honest with you, I wasn’t to some extent. Cause I’m 30, I feel like you didn’t even have to be into it when... predating American Idiot Green Day... Fall Out Boy, just being a kid you heard them, a friend would show you. I actively remember when I was in high school I was into punk and I was into metal, and I didn’t really know what hardcore was, even though I kinda knew some of the bands. But I was not down! I had friends that were like “We’re going to Warped Tour this summer!” And I was like “that’s not for me! That’s not my style!” It’s actually kind of a bummer, I wish I had not thought that way, or that I would have gone, because I never went! I bet if I would have went I would have been like, “Yo, this is actually so sick.” But in a strange way it’s funny, I'm going to Warped Tour for the first time at 30. Kinda hilarious.

I had a bunch of friends who went and it’s funny too, cause there WERE bands that I did like that did play Warped Tour! I just didn’t go! I was a dumb-ass kid!

I definitely hear, maybe not so much in your sound but in attitude and the way you present your band — you remind me a lot of like, Blink 182 or something with that sense of humour. Which I think is really rare for an aggressive band, like DRAIN. But was that a conscious thing? To have that sort of attitude?

Yes and no. Conscious in the sense that I really am always trying to find out — I always wonder, why am I doing whatever this is? Why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I like this? Does this feel authentic? Whether it’s writing a song or playing a show, or going to a show! Am I doing something because I want to or not?

I feel like we’ve done a very good job always keeping it very true to ourselves. We’re very normal people, very chill dudes, and we like to laugh, we like to have fun. We have a lot of fun in the car, I probably have more fun offstage than onstage, and we have a good time on stage. I feel to some extent it just bleeds out, and it just goes into the sound, the show.

That’s the other thing too, I hate to say this, but for us to get to New Zealand, it’s like a 16 hour flight, I think, maybe more. People are like, “You guys must have so much fun!” Like, HELLO? Does this sound easy to do? Why would you do something if it wasn’t fun? If you didn’t enjoy it, why would you go through all these crazy lengths and efforts? It’s because we love it, dude! It’s fun man, we try to make it fun!

I wanna hit you with a heavy one now —

I've seen some other journalists say that you guys are leading a hardcore renaissance, like you’re bringing it back. Do you agree with that? Do you think hardcore ever left?

Yeah, that’s a great question. The first thing I wanna say is that I don’t wanna come off like a historian, cause I’m not. I don’t really know. I think the thing that’s funny with that is, if people feel that way about us, that’s a compliment, I'm not bummed. I think that hardcore IS in a really popular place, but would I say it ever left? No man. Obviously we haven’t always been playing shows this big, but we’ve been playing and we still practise once or twice a week, for five or six hours at a time. WE’VE been doing that for 10 years now, and I know so many bands that have also been doing that.

I don’t think it ever left, I just think that things ebb and flow, and things get cool, and then they go OUT of style. Whatever you wanna call it, right now we’re in a cool (period), the pendulum’s swinging to the cool territory. I'm stoked to be a part of it, but I'll be here when it’s not cool again. It makes you wonder a lot of times, who else will be? I feel like a lot of these bands… it’s crazy. These festivals we’re playing and I’ll look and I’m like, “Damn! I know most of these people who have been doing this for a while.” I’ve been playing shows with these guys for like 10 years now.

I’m stoked when people say that, but I think that just goes down to the sheer size of it. Some bands get bigger than others and become ringleaders, but it’s a big title, I guess is all I'm sayin’. I love hardcore, and it’s a big thing, so if people wanna put us there, then I'm very thankful for the title and I hope I do it justice. And guess what? I’m also very aware that at some point, maybe sooner than later, but hopefully not, there’ll be the new cream of the crop, there’ll be the new generation of leaders and WE will be the old news, and that’s okay! I'm just thankful for the moment right now.

Speaking of new bands coming up, because it takes a while for news from the underground to reach us over here. Are there any good hardcore bands local to you that you wanna shout out for us?

There’s a million bands around here. Okay I’ll start with a semi-local one, Field of Flames. Straight edge band from San Jose, also been playing for a long time. I feel like they have a solid underground buzz, and they’ve done some badass festivals. I just saw them last week again and they’ve always been good, but DAMN they blew me the fuck away. They’re sooo good. So shout out Field of Flames. Outside (that) I think my favourite new band is a band called Haywire, out of Boston. We’ve played with other bands that these guys have been in, over the years, and it’s a newer band, I think this year they put their first demo out? We played a show with them, it was a NINE band show, they opened, and dude they could have headlined it. They’re so, SO good. I’m weird, when I see a good front man, I'm hooked, and when I watched this guy, I'm just like locked in, cause I think this dude is just so commanding. So Haywire is probably my favourite NEW band. Those would be the two I’d say, and if you know em? Sick. If you don’t? Give them a spin.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.