Filter – Short Bus

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The story of Filter began when lead singer/band founder, Richard Patrick, mentioned in past interviews that when he was chatting with his touring bandmate of NIN singer (Trent Reznor), he suggested that Patrick make his own record while Nine Inch Nails went off to record their now-classic of The Downward Spiral. The tunes that Richard Patrick crafted on Short Bus were heavily influenced by his time in touring with NIN, yet they feature a lot more guitar parts in them to set Filter on a different artistic course than the aforementioned other touring project. Short Bus was released on April 25th, 1995, and has sold over a million copies in the U.S., spearheaded by the breakthrough success of Filter’s debut single of “Hey Man Nice Shot.” The set was co-produced by Richard Patrick and his musician friend, Brian Liesegang, who conceived the idea of Filter in the early 90’s. During the recording sessions, Patrick acted as the primary songwriter/bassist/vocalist, while Liesegang primarily handled production duties and programming the drum machine they used on Short Bus, and the duo split the guitar duties. While the band’s sophomore record, Title of Record, would blast Filter into the Alt Rock mainstream with the soft rock hit of “Take A Picture,” Short Bus is ultimately the album that longtime Filter fans point to as the key moment in time when Richard Patrick and Brian Liesegang were at their creative peak.

After the success of the raucous, bass-heavy single of “Hey Man Nice Shot” that led to several key tours in support of Short Bus, the band would follow up the hit with the release of a second single in “Dose.” This key song also followed sequentially in the tracklisting of Short Bus, and would showcase Patrick’s time in NIN as a key marker of the direction he wanted to take his own project of Filter towards. You can absolutely hear the influences beyond NIN that also include some Butthole Surfers, Pantera, and Stabbing Westward in the brooding sound of the second single. “Under” would be the third and final single released from the set, and it has a very industrial feel to it throughout.

Other songs, like “Spent”, open with a voice memo, while the programmed drum machine allowed for Patrick’s wailing vocals to take center stage. “Take Another” sounds a bit directionless at first, but once it gets going, it’s easy to see why it’s a cult favorite in the discography of Filter. “Stuck In Here” is a rare ballad from the two-piece band, and it comes at the right time in the set. It offered a few clues as to what could happen when Filter tapped into their pop sensibilities that they nearly perfected on Title of Record’s smash single of “Take A Picture.”

The back half of Short Bus features more raw, guitar-driven rock songs like the early Incubus-esque “It’s Over,” while “Gerbil” attempts to get some of the same magic as the lead single in its song structure. It comes close, but never fully takes off. “White Like That” tends to be complacent with brooding in the darkness, while the album closing one-two punch of “Consider This” paired with “So Cool” leaves the right taste in listeners’ mouths by offering a clearer path forward for where Filter could and would take their sound next on subsequent LPs. While I personally don’t find Short Bus to be as technically sound as their sophomore album (Title of Record), it’s almost always important to remember a band’s humble beginnings to fully understand the ground that they have covered.

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