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Oct 15, 2019 By Christopher Roberts The Drums

The Drums (aka Jonny Pierce) released a new album, Brutalism, in April via ANTI-. Now he has shared two new songs, “I Didn’t Realize” and “You Lied.” “I Didn’t Realize” was originally recorded in 2012 and was shared via a video, also filmed in 2012. “You Lied” is a new song. For some reason, both are credited to The Drums and Jonny Pierce instead of simply The Drums. Check them both out below, followed by the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Brutalism was the follow-up to 2017’s “Abysmal Thoughts” (the quote marks are part of the title), which was the first Drums album that was essentially a Pierce solo project.

Pierce had this to say about “I Didn’t Realize” in a press release: “It’s easy to write a song when you’re in the afterglow of an epiphany. I was coming out of a chapter of deep grief after a band mate who I had loved deeply and trusted deeply abandoned me for some sort of hypothetical greener pasture… This song is about the realization that putting someone else’s needs above your own can lead to devastating results. It was also a realization that I was so green when this band started and because of an abusive childhood, I was eager to please, eager to have family, eager for approval. There were and still are people that look to leach off people whose greatest challenge is to love themselves. It still happens today, but I’m more sensitive and aware when it starts happening. I didn’t realize, but now I do.”

Pierce had this to say about “You Lied” in the press release: “This is the companion piece to ‘I Didn’t Realize.’ I was calling out an ex-band member on saying something very powerful to me. Something that made me feel I needed him and couldn’t find success or happiness without him… He was very clever and while I often saw signs of that, I let myself ignore the warnings. I felt desperate, he knew it, and so he pounced. When he disappeared, I was blindsided. Everything he said on that balcony that summer night in Brooklyn was a lie. Years later, I have healed and am now in a place of greater understanding, but if I let myself, it’s still so easy to feel the pain of that violent chapter of abandonment.”

Previously Pierce shared Brutalism‘s first single, “Body Chemistry,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared another song from the album, “626 Bedford Avenue.” Then he shared a video for “Body Chemistry.”

Brutalism was written and recorded between Upstate New York and a studio in Stinson Beach, just north of San Francisco. A press release states: “Following a painful divorce and an incredibly difficult stint living solely in Los Angeles, Pierce decided it was time to face his demons, and the making of this record is a part of that process.”

Pierce further explains: “I was exhausted, depleted and sabotaging myself, partying so much but in reality running away from pain. It was a downward spiral.”

And so Pierce went to therapy. “It was do or die,” he says.

The press release says that Pierce is now “working towards a better, healthier headspace.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever really find myself,” he says. “I don’t think people do. I don’t think there’s a day that you wake up and you go, ‘Now I know who I am.’ The best way for me to be an artist is by taking a goddamn minute, being still, and listening to what it is that I want and need.”

Read our 2017 Protest interview with The Drums’ Jonny Pierce.

The Drums Tour Dates:

10/16 - Mexico City, Mexico - El Plaza Condesa
10/18 - Guadalajara, Mexico - Tecate Coordenada
10/19 - Monterrey, Mexico - Tecate Live Out
11/5 - Fresno, CA - Strummer’s
11/16 - Santa Cruz, CA - Catalyst
11/7 - San Luis Obispo, CA - Fremont Theater
11/8 - Santa Barbara, CA - SOhO Restaurant and Music Club
11/10 - Pico Rivera, CA - Pico Rivera Sports Arena
11/13 - Shenzhen, China - HOU LIVE
11/14 - Shanghai, China - MAO Livehouse
11/15 - Beijing, China - 北京 糖果LIVE三层
11/17 - Bangkok, Thailand - Maho Rasop Festival
11/23 - Jakarta, Indonesia - Lokatara Music Festival
11/24 - Rumah Kuala Bok, Malaysia

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