Artist Profile: Drug Bug

Drug Bug, the newest solo project of the Alberta-based, shoegaze-tinged pop act behind both Star Starer and Willy Rodriguez, has only existed for just over a year and, in the course of its emergence, has already logged two excellent projects, representing both the slowly-growing artistic confidence and the new sonic directionality of their creator.

As a child, Drug Bug grew up surrounded by the ‘70s and ‘80s-driven rock and pop tastes of his parents; artists like Queen, David Bowie, and The Beatles defined the sounds of his childhood.

As he grew older, and began exploring other music, he did so ravenously. Virtually everything anyone recommended to him he would listen to, and, as explored the annals of music history, he felt himself be stirred by the vast array of sounds and paradigms that were available to him. He slowly fell in love with acts like Weatherday and The Smiths: enticed by their unique employments of the pop motifs that he had grown up with.

This was furthered when he began exploring the smoother soul of the ‘60s and ‘70s, as artists like Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell entered his expanding sonic zeitgeist.

Yet, through all of his explorations, one central sensibility remained: a passion for the pleasantries that pop, and only pop, could provide.

“It just is the best kind of music because it kind of sticks in your head. I like older pop tunes because I feel like that's when pop was very pure and a bit more basic… I like old pop because it feels different; it feels really nice to my heart.”

Therefore, his first releases, under the name Star Starer, symbolized not only his earliest experimentations with the noisier and more jangly limits of pop but also his earliest attempts at using his own voice to achieve the sound he wanted. While, at first, it was difficult for him to be perceived in a public manner, his idle hands kept turning back to music, and, as his creative treasury amassed, so did his output.

Yet, he returned to a more comfortable sphere when he helped form Willy Rodriguez, as he primarily took over the instrumentals with no expectation or requirement for him to sing. As a member of that duo, he refined his ability to utilize those same pop motifs in a more band-driven setting, and their final album under that moniker, Wetdream, bears evidence of this in full force, with crashing guitars and cascading windfalls of noise overlaying each and every track.

When Willy Rodriguez ended, however, he was left in a sort of creative void. Needing to find his own confidence and direction in his own voice and creative intent yet again, he stood relatively stagnant for nearly a year. Yet, from this stagnancy was born a new project, Drug Bug, and its first album: A Seasons End.

Drug Bug, in contrast to both Star Starer and Willy Rodriguez, takes on a more gently dynamic approach, utilizing the punchiness of the bass and snare drums in order to complement some of the more shoegaze-related elements that are latent in the project’s sound.

While he views A Seasons End. as a transitional project, serving as a space for him to yet again find his voice, he views his newest singlet, a collection of four songs entitled “Sometimes It Gets Worse…”, as his truest return to creative form. 

More specifically, the title track was the first song to come to him in quite a while in a spontaneous burst of inspiration, and, as the other tracks naturally took shape around it, it became clear to him that he had lit upon something promising.

“I definitely felt more confident when I wrote [‘Sometimes it Gets Worse’]… and I'm pretty happy with how it sounds. It was the first time in a year or two that I've felt really happy with how a song sounds and with my voice on it… I feel like I'm slowly getting to the point where I'm finding a level of confidence with my art.”

Indeed, confident would be the word to describe the scorching self-manifestation of the four tracks on “Sometimes it Gets Worse…”; the way in which they utilize interminably bouncing dynamics, subdued vocal wailing, and even a shattering horn line are relatively unprecedented in the annals of Drug Bug’s output.

Therefore, buoyed by the sonic success of his latest project, he is ready to set down for work under this new alias: one that he envisions maintaining for a long, long time.