Anyone who’s seen Drain live has felt it. The electricity coming off of the stage. The communal energy of the fans singing upfront. The primal thrills of fists flying in the moshpit. The uninhibited joy emanating from every banging head, screaming lung, and airborne foot in that room. There’s nothing like a Drain show. There’s no other hardcore band like Drain. The Santa Cruz band is an institution in their genre and an affable neighbor to their adjacent ones. Punks love Drain. Metalheads love Drain. Haters can’t help but love Drain. Drain is for everyone. Well, venue security guards might not love Drain. But to everyone else: Drain…Is Your Friend.
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.
“We call the shots for these 30 minutes,” Ciaramitaro beams excitedly while describing Drain’s nightly ritual. “I’m the boss and I’m gonna turn this place into a warzone. We’re ripping shit up, we’re breaking shit, but it’s coming from a good place in our hearts. People are feeling alive and we’re sharing this energy back and forth.”
With 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.
“There are a few moments that we call the Drain push and pull,” says Ciaramitaro, who played bass on this record for the first time in Drain’s history. “I’m pretty sure every one of these songs gets a little faster before the chorus. Just because we’re feeling it, it’s fucking happening right now. It feels alive.”
Drain are a group of best friends playing at the top of their game, and …Is Your Friend flexes their instinctive chemistry. Therefore, it made sense for Ciaramitaro to take a similar approach while writing the album’s lyrics. Instead of intently scribbling his words into a notepad like on previous Drain records, the frontman put the pen down and freestyled many of the album’s subjects off the dome. The words flowed easily because so much has happened to Ciaramitaro since California Cursed, both within the band and on a personal level. Ciaramatiro got married. Drain became a full-time touring machine. So many of their wildest dreams became everyday occurrences. However, every coin has its flipside, and Drain’s success hasn’t come without its disadvantages. The trio are spending less time at home with family, losing touch with longtime friends, and occasionally feeling weird energy from people who treat them like they’ve changed just because their band has grown.
…Is Your Friend takes stock of both the good and the bad. In the bouncy banger “Nights Like These,” Ciaramatiro pauses to cherish the lifelong goals that have become Drain’s average Tuesday: leveling a 1,000-capacity room, hopping in the van with their dearest pals, and motoring off to the next city while commencing their version of a rowdy night on tour. “Basically, it’s like a seventh grade sleepover, but we’re 30-year-old men,” Ciaramitaro quips. In the thrashy “Nothing But Love,” Ciaramitaro gives Drain’s fairweather friends the middle finger while simultaneously taking the high road: “There’s room for all of us to win/just worry about yourself and stop watching my fucking pockets,” he barks.
”I want to be a good person,” Ciaramitaro says. “But sometimes I’m like, ‘you know what? Fuck these guys!’”
There couldn’t be a better visual representation of that thematic dichotomy than …Is Your Friend’s cover art. The visual depicts the band’s iconic kewpie mascot lounging back on a beach chair, grinning into the sunlight while an angel and a devil hover above each shoulder, taunting Drain’s cartoon protagonist with two opposing paths. “That little kewpie character is exactly where I personally want to be,” Ciaramitaro says. “There’s good, there’s bad, and then there's me in the middle just tuning out all the bullshit, listening to music and trying to vibe exactly where I am. Also, the art is just sick, dude. Devils, angels -- kind of badass.”
The cover art also illustrates where Drain see themselves on a macro level. Not on either side of the punk/metal spectrum; not entirely posi-core nor one-dimensionally brooding; not just for scene newbies and not just for grizzled pit veterans. But right at the center of it all. For anyone who’s ever felt it, for everyone who wants to.
“My favorite thing right now is for someone to say, ‘I’ve never heard of you but I’m excited to see you play,’” Ciaramitro says. “This band is for everybody. We’re not different from you, we’re not going to treat anybody different than us. I’m gonna give the same respect to the kid at his first show as I will to the dude from the really cool band in that city. No one’s too cool at the Drain show.”
The title puts a bow on it. …Is Your Friend is a slogan that Drain have been printing on merch since they were playing to 15 people on a floor. Over the years, Drain have gotten bigger, their crowds have gotten more diverse, and their music has become more eclectic. But Ciaramitaro underscores what this album makes abundantly clear: their founding ethos remains unchanged. “Drain is your friend, Drain was your friend, Drain will forever be your friend.”
