Music / The War on Drugs

I've been pulling on a wire, but it just won't break
I've been turning up the dial, but I hear no sound
I resist what I cannot change
And I wanna find what can't be found.

"Pain"

The War on Drugs is an American indie rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The band consists of Adam Granduciel (lyrics, lead vocals, guitar), David Hartley (bass guitar), Robbie Bennett (keyboards), Charlie Hall (drums), Jon Natchez (saxophone, keyboards) and Anthony LaMarca (guitar). They have released five albums thus far, with their fourth, A Deeper Understanding having won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

Not to be confused with its namesake, The War on Drugs.

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Discography:

• Wagonwheel Blues (2008)
• Future Weather (2010) (EP)
• Slave Ambient (2011)
• Lost in the Dream (2014)
• A Deeper Understanding (2017)
• Live Drugs (2020) (Live album)
• I Don’t Live Here Anymore (2021)

An Ocean in Between the Tropes:

• Album Title Drop: On the title track from Lost in the Dream and on Pain from A Deeper Understanding and another title track for I Don't Live Here Anymore.
• Asshole Victim: aptly in "Victim" where the narrator after describing his frustrations with a failing relationship admits to his own petty faults by the end of the song and his tendency to throw his ex's love "all away".
• Break Up Song: "Red Eyes" is an allusion to crying it out after a break up. Adam broke up with a long time girlfriend before recording Lost in the Dream and its a constant theme through much of the album.
• Designated Bullet: Implied in the opening of "Oceans of Darkness" where the narrator opens with "Pistol is loaded..." Whether that bullet is for themselves or their ex-love is never clarified.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Wagonwheel Blues and Slave Ambient both are beginning to seem like this, with Lost in the Dream often seen as the band's breakout album. The rougher recording quality especially on Wagonwheel Blues along with the contributions of Kurt Vile before he split off for his own solo work add to this feeling. The band currently in its live show's almost exclusively uses tracks from their later albums with only one or two of their first album songs performed on stage per concert.
• Epic Rocking: At least one on each album.
  • Wagonwheel Blues: "There Is No Urgency" and "Show Me the Coast".
  • Slave Ambient: "Your Love Is Calling My Name".
  • Five of the tracks off Lost in the Dream qualify, with the longest being "Under the Pressure" at 8:52.
    • In live shows "Under the Pressure" can get even longer and its paired up with "In Reverse" as an album side in Live Drugs which forms a complete 19:35 long set with the two songs paired back to back.
  • All but one of the tracks on A Deeper Understanding exceed the five-minute mark, including the band's longest song to date, "Thinking of a Place", at 11:11.
  • I Don’t Live Here Anymore: "Harmonia's Dream", "Change" and "Victim".
    • "Victim" and "Harmonia's Dream" in live shows both have an extended intro and solos which add even more length to the songs.
• Fading into the Next Song: "Your Love Is Calling My Name" into "The Animator" into "Come to the City", and "The Haunting Idle" into "Burning". "Under the Pressure" and "In Reverse" in Live Drugs as well.
• Former Girlfriend Photo: A line in "Victim" mentions looking through photos after a break up of past times with an ex-girlfriend.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The top of the album "Man in the Hills" by reggae artist Burning Spear can be seen briefly in a box of vinyl records in the music video for "Under The Pressure."
• I Am the Band: The band has six members (seven if you count touring members), but most people mainly remember the frontman, Adam Granduciel. The band effectively became Granduciel's solo project after the departure of Kurt Vile.
  • One could argue its Granduciel and David Hartley are the faces of the band, since Hartley is the only other founding member to have been in the band since its early days to the present, besides Granduciel. Hartley also does double duty as the band's photographer shooting the cover art for albums like I Don't Live Here Anymore.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Oceans of Darkness" is in a major upbeat key, but the lyrics deal with the fallout of a break-up where the narrator opens by casually mentioning his loaded gun.
• Meaningful Name: the band's name references the 1980's "war on drugs" a US anti-drug policy that was prominent during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush. Its the same era of Americana-rock in the 1980's from people such as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan which heavily inspires the sound of The War on Drugs.
• Non-Appearing Title: "Baby Missiles", "Black Water Falls", "Brothers", "Come to the City", "The History of Plastic", "Red Eyes", "Your Love Is Calling My Name".
• Plant Person: in the music video for "Nothing to Find" with an appropriate Thememobile covered in plants as well.
• Production Foreshadowing: The work on I Don't Live Here Anymore was a several years long process with producer Shawn Everett, primarily recorded in various sessions at Electro-Vox Recording Studio in Los Angeles. Shawn was also working with The Killers on their 2020 album Imploding the Mirage at the same time with segments of that album also recorded at Electro-Vox. As such Granduciel along with Lucius (the guest vocalists on the title track for I Don't Live Here Anymore) both make appearances in The Killer's album in 2020; before I Don't Live Here Anymore came out a year later in 2021.
  • Regarding the collaboration Brandon Flowers stated: "I think Adam, and I share a lot of the same musical landmarks and touchstones-we just follow along through our own experiences, usually Las Vegas. It just happened pretty organically."
• Textless Album Cover: For the EP Future Weather.
  • The album title for I Don't Live Here Anymore is on a red triangle sticker on the vinyl edition of the album. Removing the packaging removes the sticker in the process, leaving the album title-less.
• Three Chords and the Truth: "Under the Pressure" might be an epic rocker song, but by Granduciel's admission the whole song is built on just two simple chord movements which is then explored as much as possible in the nearly nine minute runtime.
• Shout-Out: The album notes for Lost in the Dream include a list of "sweet music shops run by sweet people to visit while traveling the US."
  • "Burning" quotes Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watch Tower." In "I Don't Live Here Anymore" dancing to Dylan's "Desolation Row" is also mentioned.
• Singer Namedrop: Adam introduces all the band members on Live Drugs at the opening of "Eyes To The Wind" excluding Jon Natchez, whose name is dropped at the end of the song after an epic saxophone solo.
• The Smurfette Principle: Eliza Hardy Jones a touring member of the band who joined in 2021 is the only woman in the group.
• Solo Side Project: The War on Drugs arguably started as this with Adam Granduciel coming off his work with Kurt Vile... and in addition to that Dave Hartley has kept his own side band going called Nightlands which frequently has turned into a source of future War on Drugs members, with Anthony LaMarca and Eliza Hardy Jones both members of Nightlands before joining the main band.
• Studio Chatter: at the end of "Wasted" a voice comes over the mic asking the band "um... can we do that again?"
• Word Salad Lyrics: a lot of the band's songs have evocative and poetic lyrics which don't make as much sense on their own and can sound like nonsense if you try and think on them too long, particularly in earlier tracks such as "Buenos Aires Beach."