Santa Cruz hardcore institution DRAIN have released their third full-length album and second for Epitaph Records, …IS YOUR FRIEND, DRAIN had two primary goals in mind: to capture their quintessential live essence on recording, and to write new songs that’ll make their next shows even crazier. Their previous albums were written before DRAIN were on the road all year, and they spent the last few hundred nights onstage making note of which songs their fans respond best to. …IS YOUR FRIEND is designed to maximize their audience’s shit-losing abilities. Its 10-song tracklist includes the heaviest mosh parts, the catchiest choruses, the tastiest thrash riffs, and the most scream-able lyrics DRAIN have ever written. Producer Jon Markson (The Story So Far, Drug Church, One Step Closer) tracked the whole album live — 100% real-time drums, no metronome, no programmed bullshit. It sounds the way DRAIN were always meant to: crisp, serrated, animated.
‘Who’s Having Fun?’ is the only track on the album where vocalist Sammy Ciaramitaro sings, backed by plenty of shredding, eventually climaxing into Ciaramitaro’s trademark growls. “‘Who’s Having Fun?’ is summertime music written to be played really loud in the car with your friends and the windows down on a beautiful sunny day,” Ciaramitaro explains. “It’s what happens when you just write music that makes you feel happy and don’t really care about fitting into a box or meeting someone else’s genre criteria. DRAIN is gonna do whatever the hell we want. This was the first song that we wrote for this album – it started out as a pretty barebones punk rock song, but we kept adding little moments and flare and all the sudden we turned it into a badass song that truly encapsulates everything that DRAIN is. This song can be about whatever you want it to be – but I think when looking for the truth in life, a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself: Who’s Having Fun? Hopefully it’s you.”
The track follows ‘Stealing Happiness From Tomorrow’ and ‘Nights Like These,’ the video for which envisions the band still going at it in the year 2055 (using the band’s dads and uncles as older DRAIN).
DRAIN – ‘Nights Like These’
Praise for DRAIN
“DRAIN is one of the brightest stars amid a constellation of hardcore bands that have revitalized the decades-old scene…” – WASHINGTON POST
“The kings of NorCal crossover…” – Revolver
“DRAIN are one of the hardcore scene’s most beloved bands, the kind that unite audiences and make friends in every mosh pit they create.” – The FADER
DRAIN
…IS YOUR FRIEND
TRACKLIST
Stealing Happiness From Tomorrow
Living In A Memory
Scared Of Everything And Nothing
Nothing But Love
Can’t Be Bothered
Loudest In The Room
Nights Like These
Who’s Having Fun?
Darkest Days
Until Next Time…
ABOUT DRAIN
DRAIN — frontman Sammy Ciaramitaro, guitarist Cody Chavez, and drummer Tim Flegal — formed back in 2014 and cut their teeth in Santa Cruz’s fertile DIY hardcore scene. COVID lockdown couldn’t stop their 2020 debut, California Cursed, from making waves, and their 2023 follow-up, LIVING PROOF, hit the hardcore scene like a Cali beach during hurricane season — a torrential classic. Since then, DRAIN have blazed through hundreds of shows worldwide: headlining festivals, taking their friends and heroes on tour, and even playing arenas with Blink-182. Regardless of whether they’re opening for pop-punk jukeboxes like Neck Deep or grabbing the stage-dive torch from Terror, DRAIN’s only goal is to make the crowd go buckwild.
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