Prior to forming the band Filter in the early 90’s Richard Patrick would play guitar in
the band Nine Inch Nails.
While Trent Reznor would lead the band, Patrick would play on their debut album, appear in
their early music videos and tour with the band over the course of 4 years from 1989
to 1993.
After leaving Nine Inch Nails Patrick would go to form Filter and the band’s first hit
song would have a truly disturbing source of inspiration.
Today let’s talk about the history behind hey man nice shot.
Living in Cleavland in the 80’s Richard Patrick become a member of the Cleveland music
scene playing in a nu-wave band called The Act.
He would soon have a chance meeting with another local musician named Trent Reznor at a local
music store who was playing a new wave pop act called Exotic Birds.
Patrick’s band would end up opening for Exotic birds at a gig and the two musicians
struck up a friendship going to concerts together seeing groups Skinny Puppy and Ministry.
Patrick would recall that Reznor expressed his desire to start his own band and do his
own music telling Spin Magazine “Trent had a collection of songs he was fishing around.
He was curious; he tried things.
He was like, “I think I can rap a little,” and so he does on “Down in It.”
He was like, “I like Depeche Mode,” and he writes “Terrible Lie.”.
Reznor would end up signing a record deal with TVT Records who would put out the band’s
debut record Pretty Hate Machine in 1989.
Reznor asked Patrick to join the band and the guitarist would contribute on the band's
debut record, even if it was minimal, playing the guitar feedback part at the end of track
“Sanctified”.
Patrick also appeared in the Nine Inch Nails videos "Down in It", "Head Like a Hole" and
Wish. and tour with the band, . Pretty Hate Machine would also set a record becoming one
of the first independently released album at the time, to go platinum selling in excess
of 3 million copies.
While Nine Inch Nails was riding high off the success of their debut album and playing
the first lollapalooza in 1991, Patrick soon realized their was a great amount of inequality
and disparity in the band.
He would tell Billboard Magazine.
there was a point in time where Trent just kind of looked at me, and I said, ‘Wow,
you’re going down to New Orleans to go live in this beautiful house that you’re getting,
and I’m gonna go back to my mom and dad’s house.’
Patrick would reveal to author jon wiederhornin his book Louder Than Hell The Definitive Oral
History of Heavy Metal that he was making about $400 a month playing in Nine Inch Nails,
Meanwhile he would frequently see Reznor destroy tens of thousands of dollars of equipment
on tour each night.
When Patrick revealed his concerns about not making enough money, Reznor told the guitarist
according to Stop, Drop and Talk Podcast, ‘Hey, listen, Rich, I know you need some
extra cash.
Listen.
Down at the end of [the street], there’s a little pizzeria, and they need drivers.
So maybe you can go make some extra cash over there.
And I’m, like, ‘Wow!’
At the same time, Reznor would urge Patrick to write his own record to get out of his
awful financial situation and not solely rely on Nine Inch Nails.
Patrick would take that advice and started to record his own music.
He would add in the same interview I got close to kind of getting a record deal,
and [Trent] didn’t know it at the time, but I had already lined up Warner Brothers.
And I was in Los Angeles to kind of work on [Nine Inch Nails‘] ‘The Downward Spiral‘
[album].
I’m only getting on this ball one time, and if I don’t step out on my own now, I’m
never gonna do it.
According to the book Louder Than Hell, It was during Patrick’s final days in Nine
Inch Nails around 1993 that the guitarist wrote the song Hey man, Nice Shot.
He originally presented the song to Reznor, who took a liking to it and wanted to work
on it.
However, one day later Patrick received a call from Reznor’s manager who told him
he had to relinquish all publishing rights to the song, but he would still be credited
on the track.
Patrick wisely declined the offer and kept the song and it was that moment that appeared
to be the final straw for the musician who decided to leave the Nine Inch Nails..Patrick
would reveal to Widerhorn, the importance of Hey Man Nice Shot revealing “that song
has literally paid my mortgage, paid for my life for the past 15 years.”
Patrick would record a four song demo in his seedy apartment in Hollywood that included
Hey Man Nice Shot and soon sent the tape to different labels.
it would be Mike Ostin who was the A&R Man for Atlantic owned Reprise records who wanted
to sign the musician.
Patrick would tell billboard “When he signed me, he came over to my seedy-a–
Hollywood apartment from Beverly Hills, sees I have this eight-track and all this stuff,
three woofers I’d stolen from my dad, and these Realistic speakers, and my cat had nibbled
on the cone of one of the speakers,” “He said, ‘You did your demo with this gear?’
And I’m like, ‘Yeah,’ and he’s like, ‘I wanna sign you right now.
I’m not even gonna wait — I know you’re fielding other offers,’”.
“Mike was extremely generous, and he realized that I was very happy in my room with my eight-track
and my drum machine.
So he gave me this blank check, like, ‘Hey, go pick out a bunch of gear and don’t get
overwhelmed, but like, just go make a record because your demo sounds great’ — and
we produced it ourselves.”
Working with former Nine Inch Nails programmer Brian Liesegang the duo would retreat back
to Ohio and setup shop in a 3 story house in a Cleavland suburb called Rocky River.
The house happened to be next to a retirement home and once the sessions were finished the
house was destroyed with Patrick recalling to billboard .
“They f–king leveled the house after we left and they used the property to add on
to the nursing home,’ adding he had a friend who used the house to and i quote “ store
a bunch of his AK-47s and his ammo crates.
We were next door to these old fogeys, living in a house filled with beer, guns, and recording
equipment.
Many people would get their first taste of Filter long before the band’s label issued
their first single.
In 1994 Michael Ostin the head of A&R at Warner Brothers signed the band.
At lollapalooza the same year 10,000 4 song sampler cassettes were given to attendees.
The label received 300 feedback forms that were included in the sampler cassettes according
to billboard magazine.
In the late part of 1994 Patrick was hold up in Canton, Michigan going over the final
mixes for the band’s debut album Short bus.
Patrick had started to question whether he had made the right decision to leave Nine
Inch Nails, but at the same time didn’t want to ride Reznor’s Coattails specifically
telling his label not to market him as the former guitarist from Nine Inch Nails.
Those doubts would be put to rest pretty quickly.
Unbeknownst to Patrick while he was working on the final mixes, one of album’s unreleased
tracks was already hitting rock radio across the country.
That unreleased track would be Hey Man Nice Shot, which was set to appear in a billy zane
movie titled Tales From the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight in January of 1995.
That song would become Short Bus’ lead single and one of filter’s best known tracks..
It would turn out that one of the radio promo reps working at Filter’s label shared the
song with different stations around the country and it would be a DJ in Colorado Springs who
played the song at 2 in the morning . The song received a huge response and soon was
starting to be played all over the country.
Radio Station WHYT in Detroit would become one of the first radio stations to play the
song with the stations music coordinato telling billbaord magazine in 1995 “Of course there’s
a nine inch nails influence…what filter has done is add acoustic guitars and explore
areas nine inch nails hasn’t yet.”
In fact during the early weeks of hey man nice shot getting airplay across america some
radio stations were getting asked by listeners if it was a nine inch nails song according
to billboard magazine.
Rich Fitzgerald who was the executive VP/GM at lael Reprise Records would tell Billboard
magazine “We shipped it to alternative and hard rock stations three weeks later and did
a gradual build on it…a pattern developed where everywhere it was put on the air phones
lit up and it didn’t take a lot of airplay to do it..”
The group‘s first album Short Bus release would be moved up and to hold the momentum
Reprise issued 15,000 copies of the single on CD for 99cents to a lot of mom and pop
and alternative leaning record stores.
Soon enough a video was released for the single to MTV which found it’s way into the buzz
bin,
Hey man nice shot peaked at number 10 on the alternative rock charts, number 76 on the
billboard hot 100 charts and Short bus would go on to be certified platinum peaking at
number 59 on the billboard 200 charts.
The song was written around 1991, but due to the timing of when the public first heard
it in early 1995 some believed it was written about the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
In fact many DJ’s in Seattle pushed this idea, but in reality the song had nothing
to do with Cobain.
But the idea that some people felt the band was profiting off Cobain’s death bugged
Patrick for years after Short Bus came out with the frontman telling Billboard I eventually
talked to [Nirvana’s] Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselić about it and I assured them it
wasn’t about Kurt,” “I told them I wasn’t trying to profit off of anyone’s death,
and that there’s a phenomenon known as suicide and people do it — that I wanted to kind
of understand it, and raise the intellectual question of, you know, to be or not to be
and that whole thing.
“When Dave and Krist understood that, and I could look them both in the eye, that’s
when I felt completely OK about it.”
So what was the song about?
The song would take it’s inspiration from a Pennsylvania politician state treasurer
R. Budd Dwyer.
Dwyer had been convicted of briery charges in December of 1986 and was awaiting sentencing.
Dwyer was facing a maximum prison sentance of 55 years.
The court found him guilty accept a $300,000 bribe in awarding a $4.6 million state contract
to a data processing firm.
One day before his sentence was to be handed down, On January 22, 1987 he called a press
conference where he proclaimed his innocence and when people thought he would announce
his resignation he unexpectedly pulled out a gun out of manilla envelope and shot and
killed himself with a gun in front of reporters.
No one else would be injured.
While Patrick remembered hearing news reports about the death in 1987, it would be during
his time in Nine Inch Nails while on the lollapalooza tour that it resurfaced for him with Patrick
telling billboard On one stop, there was this little booth that was selling books, and they
gave me this weird video tape — I still have it — that wasn’t Faces of Death,
but it had footage from that press conference.”
In 1995 the LA Times would report that Dwyer’s widow Joanne was angry about the song and
worried about the effect it would have on her children and grandchildren.
The family had planned to protest the song with Filter’s label Reprise Records.
While Dwyer isn’t named specifically in the song Patrick and Leisgang would release
a statement at the time saying and i quote “The song is not a celebration or glorification
of taking one's own life.
The phrase 'hey man, nice shot' is not a reference to the final act itself, but rather an expression
of guts and determination of a person standing up for what they
believe is right.
We are extremely sensitive and respectful to the family and
friends of Mr. Dwyer.
MTV would review the liner notes of the band’s debut album and noticed that Patrick’s publishing
company was called Buddy Doiwer Publishing.
Although Doiwer was spelled differently than the politician.
It was at Dwyer’s funeral that he was eulogized as an innocent man with the politician having
many defenders.
There would be basically two portraits of Dwyer.
According to the associated press at the time and i quote “One picture, painted by the
FBI, the U.S. Justice Department and government witnesses, was of a man driven by greed, eager
to railroad the award of a $4.6 million, no-bid contract to a small California data-processing
firm that promised him a $300,000 kickback.
The other, from Dwyer’s perspective, was of an honest, innocent public official who
was persecuted, not prosecuted, by the government he once proudly lectured about to high school
students in his Problems of Democracy classes.”