REAL FRIENDS // Braving The Storm

Sometimes we forget that band dudes are people too.

It’s a common instance in the socially connected world of the 2010s: a band chisels its career out on raw, emotinally acerbic lyrics that dig deep on topics of mental health and self-worth; fans chew on it like free gum and drool savagely for more, but then the penman takes to their Twitter account and makes a quick note of their shaky headspace. Suddenly, that gum is hot tar and those fans are desperate for a target to spit on. Lyricists aren’t allowed to be mentally ill in real life! That’s for the music, and the music only!

Except that often times, behind the glossy veneer of a sad song lies the foggy scaffolding of a sad person. There were gasps aplenty when Real Friends cancelled a run of international tour dates back in March (including an Australian stint supporting Simple Plan). What many failed to realise is that frontman Dan Lambton isn’t just broken on record for the sake of a jam. He’s got very real demons to battle, and it just so happens to be that his demons called him over to fight at a particular shitty time.

But there was a silver lining to the cancelled tours. Done with taking one step forward and two steps back, Lambton made a leap and appointed himself to an extensive outpatient group therapy program. The time away from the road gave him a chance to breathe and reflect, and after sorting some crucial parts of his life out, Real Friends are back in action and more relentless than ever. In fact, last week saw the release of their long-awaited third album, Composure.

Production on the LP finished shortly before Lambton reached his breaking point, so its a very strained and vulnerable release. The mania that Lambton experienced in the studio is present in the breakneck quips of Get By and Me First, and the crumbly, grey-skied depression lingers sharp at every turn. A week into the last ever Warped Tour, we hit Lambton up for a deeper dive into the searing personality of the record.

Dan, you spicy motherfucker! What’s going on in your world right now?
Not much! We have an off day in Phoenix and it is hot outside. This Is The End is playing on TV right now. This movie is absolutely fucking ridiculous.

In a good way?
In a great way!

What’s on the cards for the rest of your day? Are you just chilling out and watching some movies, or is there some crazy shit on the horizon?
We’re not really that crazy of a band. At least for the time being, my partying days are behind me [laughs]. We went out to a vegan restaurant and had some food earlier, and now we’re just parked at a Walmart. I think some of the dudes are gonna go watch a movie in a little bit, and I’m just chilling on the bus. I was playing some video games for a little bit, just because I’m feeling… I dunno. I don’t know how I’m feeling today. It’s weird—we’ve had the last couple of days off from Warped Tour, we filmed a music video, and right now it’s just press, press, press. We’re getting shit done!

How has the last ever Warped Tour been so far?
It’s been awesome! We’ve been in California for the past few days—thankfully the weather hasn’t been too much. We’re about four shows in. Technically this is the end of week one, but we’ve had almost as many off days as we’ve had show days so far.

So there’s a good balance of work and play going on.
Yeah, essentially.

Have you guys been playing many songs from Composure on this run?
We’ve been playing Get By, which we released towards the end of last year as like a standalone single, and that ended up on the record. And then we have another one called From The Outside that we’re playing as well.

How have the crowds been responding to those cuts?
It’s been good so far! I mean, the songs haven’t really been out there for too long, so people aren’t… There’s not as much energy as there is with the old songs, that’s to be expected because people haven’t had anywhere near as much time with these songs as they have with the rest of our catalogue. But no, it’s been awesome. People have been coming up to us after the sets and they’ve had nothing but nice things to say about the new songs so far, so we’re really stoked on the response to them.

My immediate first thought when I heard my copy was that pretty much every song on this album seems designed for the pit. I just wanna scream along to every chorus and pump my fist to every cymbal crash. Did you have the live show in mind when you were writing Composure?
Honestly, from my perspective, not really. I think some of the parts that drop out with just vocals might be good for crowd interaction and whatnot, but for the most part, I just wanted to get in there and write songs. Hopefully they turn out well for the shows, though. From your reaction, it seems that the live show has been kept in mind subconsciously to some extent, so that’s good to hear!

I’m starting to feel a lot more in control of myself, honestly, and I don’t think I had that before.

– Dan Lambton

I know it’s a bit of a generic question, but what was your experience in the studio like? Three albums in, do you feel like you’ve cracked the code for the perfect album-making process?
Oh, no. Never. There’s always some sort of stress going on in the studio, and this time, the stressor was me. I was incredibly manic throughout the entire recording process; I was just smoking a
shit-tonne of weed and I was all over the place, just bouncing off the walls with energy. It was kind of good with the creative aspect in the studio, and I was obviously very productive. But as far as being anywhere else, I was pretty unbearable to be around. I don’t even really know how I could describe
it—I was just too much.

Did you find that coming across in the finished album?
I would say in my contributions, definitely. Because this time around, we wrote a decent amount of the record in the studio, so it felt a lot more immediate in that regard. Kyle [Fasel, bass] and I write the lyrics, and we did a lot more editing and paraphrasing in the studio to make lyrics that we’d written weeks or months prior seem a lot more urgent and put across a lot more of what was going on then, as opposed to what was happening when I wrote the songs. I think that helped to make the record feel more current, rather than feel like we were just dwelling on the past and whatnot.

Did making Composure push you much out of your comfort zone as a songwriter?
I’d say so. We had a lot of help from Mike Green, our producer—he was definitely pushing me a lot, and he brought out a lot better of a range from my vocals. I was able to get a lot more softer points from my vocals, along with a lot more of the aggressive side. He pushed me to have a lot more variety in my vocal range, which was a nice little challenge there. And then musically, as well—because I’m not too involved with writing the music itself, but I think Mike definitely helped to get a lot more variety there as well. He challenged us to really accentuate a lot of the more intimate, softer points of the record along with the more heavy-hitting and bigger parts of it as well.

Would you consider this the best Real Friends album so far?
Definitely. I think we were pushed to really better ourselves as musicians, and we were really challenged by Mike to be able to bring out the best in our musical abilities.

So your life has changed a bit since the recording process for this album finished. How would you describe your last six months?
Very introspective. There’s been a lot of self-discovery; I went through an intensive outpatient group therapy program, because I didn’t necessarily have the skills to… I had a lot of maturing I needed to do. And that provided me with a lot of skills like assertiveness, mindfulness, respecting the boundaries of other people, and things like that—it definitely helped me to grow as a person.

I’ve been seeing my primary therapist regularly along with my psychiatrist, to kind of balance out medications to curve that mania, and these sort of depressive episodes I might experience. That’s still a work in progress, though. Like, right before we left for Warped Tour, we changed my mood stabiliser, we cut my antipsychotic medication in half and we doubled my antidepressants. So there’s still a lot going on, but hopefully it’s all for the better. I’m starting to feel a lot more in control of myself, honestly, and I don’t think I had that before.

So do you still feel connected to the songs on this record, or do you still think they represent who you are as a person?
I think so. The record covers a lot of the uncertainty that I was feeling at the time, and it covers a lot of things that we don’t think we have 100 percent figured out—but I don’t think anybody has it 100 percent figured at any point in their lives, really. Everything is always a work in progress. Like I said before, I’m still figuring out my medication and I’m still figuring out what’s good for me and what’s bad for me, and I think the songs definitely still resonate in that way.

I know there’s a lot more I have to lose by getting fucked up than I have to gain.

– Dan Lambton

With all the mania you were experiencing in the studio, do you think this album triggered the chaotic period that followed, or had much of an impact on it?
Yeah, for sure. There were just a lot of really big changes that were happening in my life. I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time, and I was finally financially independent and responsible for myself. I had bought myself a car, and, like, right before we went into the studio, I had gotten out of an almost six-year relationship.

There was just a lot of change going on in my life—and y’know, all the weed I was smoking didn’t help with my mania at all. I feel like LA was just such an overstimulating environment. A lot of people were coming up to me and just being like, “Yo, something’s up, what’s wrong? I think you might need some help.” So it was a very eye-opening experience that led to me saying, “Okay, I need to start seeing my therapist again.” I needed to find a new psychiatrist as well, because I didn’t necessarily trust the one I had before—he was trying to put me on a lot of medications that weren’t working or had my best interests in mind.

And luckily now, I have a new psychiatrist and everything seems to be working out pretty well so far. But yeah, I would definitely say that being in such an overstimulating environment as LA, and the fact that they have recreational marijuana there, didn’t help with all the chaos going on all all.

Are you still smoking weed?
No, I’m actually sober now! It’s been about a little over four months since I stopped—it just wasn’t in my best interests to be smoking so much weed. I don’t know if I’ll ever come back to it, but it doesn’t seem like a really good idea at this point. I also stopped drinking, just to be safe.

I didn’t really ever have a problem with it, but while we were out recording and whatnot, I was going out and drinking more often. I was never really a big drinker, though—at the most, I’d have, like, two or three beers when I go out, just because that shit is like really fucking expensive. You would know as well, like, over in Australia, it’s not cheap to go out and drink. But yeah, I’m staying sober for the time being just so I can make sure I have all this medication figured out. My psychiatrist even told me: the more I put in my body recreationally, the more medication I’ll have to be on to counteract that.

Has it been much of a struggle to not resort back to those vices?
Yes and no. I know there’s a lot more I have to lose by getting fucked up than I have to gain—mostly my professional career and everything. Like, I’ve worked so hard to have what I have now, and I just don’t want to lose that. But at some points, I feel like I might not have that much to do with my life. Getting fucked up did occupy a lot of my time, and I’m still struggling to find a balance of what to do with myself now that I’m not fucked up all the time.

I ask because from an outsider’s perspective looking at these lyrics, it feels like you’re really on the edge of wanting to make a change with your mental health, but you don’t quite know how to do that, and there’s a level of frustration in that.
Definitely. That kind of subject matter was definitely touched on with From The Outside, which was one of the first singles we put out for this record. Because there were a lot of moments, while we were recording, where I had no fucking idea where all of this energy was coming from, or why I was feeling so good and so hyperactive all the time. I didn’t really know what was good or bad for me, whether it be smoking weed, drinking and taking hallucinogenics, or having medications prescribed and seeing my psychiatrist or therapist. I had no idea how to have a healthy balance in my life, and what would bring about that balance.

We just kept going, going, going, going, and I eventually went off medication and was left untreated for a while, and then it came back to bite me in the ass and blow up in our faces.

– Dan Lambton

So when you cancelled those shows back in March, you posted a statement where you said that it was something recommended to you by the band and your therapist. How onboard were you when those recommendations came to you? Did you feel like you wanted to fight it?
To an extent. At first, I thought the overseas tours would still happen, because I didn’t know how long my treatment was going to last. But once I realised that the treatment would be affected by leaving and not having my medications balanced out, I realised it was in my best interests to go ahead and take that time to myself. Just because we had situations last year where I wasn’t necessarily on the right medication—like I mentioned before, I was having issues with my old psychiatrist—and I was just very low-energy, very anxious all the time from the medication I was on while we were touring both overseas and here in the US.

So we should have taken some time off then, and I should have used that time to find a little bit of a baseline. But we just kept going, going, going, going, and I eventually went off medication and was left untreated for a while, and then it came back to bite me in the ass and blow up in our faces. So learning from past experiences, it was best to step aside and just cancel those runs.

And so you’ve done four shows on the Warped Tour so far; have you noticed that your time off has had a positive impact on you?
It’s definitely taken a little bit of time to get used to, just because we haven’t toured in over six months. Like, the last run we did was last November with Neck Deep. So it’s taken some getting used to, definitely, but it’s good to be back. It’s good to get back into this environment and know that I can conduct myself in a more responsible manner and whatnot. I mean, I feel like I’m beating a dead horse saying this, but yeah, I do feel more present and in the moment, and I’m grateful to be here.

When do you think we might see Real Friends make it back to Australia?
There’s nothing in the works as of yet, but I’m hoping we can make it back early next year. We’d like to get there sooner than later, but we’re taking this year to do more domestic touring just so we can be closer to support systems, and so I’m able to contact my therapist or psychiatrist if anything were to happen. But I’m definitely looking forward to our next trip to Australia!

Just to wrap things up, can you give us a bit of an update on what’s going on with the Rationale project? Is that still an active thing?
Yeah! Joe and I have been working on music—we have about nine songs in the works. We also had Ryan, who plays bass in Knuckle Puck and guitar in Homesafe—we had him demo out some drums and whatnot. We’re hoping to start recording and getting into the nitty gritty of things after Warped Tour, since we’ll have a little bit of time to focus on that. It’s just tough to work on that stuff because Real Friends and Knuckle Puck are on opposite record cycles.