You can take Drain out of the Bay Area, but you can’t take the Bay Area out Drain.
Throughout their career, the famously fun-loving crossover crew from Santa Cruz, California, have built their rep not only through vicious, if hook-laden, riffage and gleefully-spirited screams from ultra-positive frontman Sammy Ciaramitaro, but with a neon-pink beach-town aesthetic reflecting surf culture and bright, sandy shores. Those coastal vibes are so engrained in Drain’s outlook that their shows — no matter the locale —can often find beach balls bouncing through the pit, or have the occasional crowd surfer catching a wave on an inflatable board.
A veritable Pacific Ocean breeze continues to course through the act’s third and latest album, …IS YOUR FRIEND — its album cover finds Drain’s cartoonish Kewpie Shark mascot sunbathing on a foldout beach chair, while its accompanying music videos have the band cannonballing into pools and crushing hardcore cuts atop scenic cliff faces.
When it came to actually making the record, though, Ciaramitaro clarifies that …IS YOUR FRIEND technically isn’t a West Coast record. The core trio of Ciaramitaro, guitarist Cody Chavez and drummer Tim Flegal packed up their gear and flew thousands of miles away from the Santa Cruz boardwalk to start writing at the Animal Farm, a recording studio and animal sanctuary in Flemington, New Jersey. They spent a week at the remote and pastoral property, jamming all-day and sleeping in a converted barn near a bunch of cattle.
“I’ll tell you one thing for damn sure: I’m not cut out for living off the land like that,” Ciaramitaro says with a laugh from the backstage of the Fillmore in Silver Springs, Maryland’s Fillmore, as the rest of the band soundcheck. “With all love to the spot, that was the first time any of us had been, like, miles away from anything. At first, I was like, ‘Fuck this, dude.’”
While it took some getting used to, Ciaramitaro says he and his bandmates found solace at the farm and embraced the opportunity to fully-focus on the thrash-happy sounds that now make up …IS YOUR FRIEND.
“Our practice spot at home is a little lockout shed with one dangling light bulb. There’s not much distractions there, either, but it was cool to just be like, ‘This is all we’re doing: We’re waking up and we’re jamming.’”
He continues: “We’ve always treated it like a full-time band — we always took it very seriously — but this is the first time where we were able to be like, ‘Hey, we can really prioritize this,’ you know?”
Like breakthrough 2020 debut album California Cursed and 2023 follow-up Living Proof, the new album hammerheads through caustic moshes, double-time thrash mania and more. Ciaramitaro balances songs about negative social entities (“Loudest in the Room”) with tracks about the communal revelry of a hardcore show (“Nights Like These”) or thriving in the now with your best friends (“Stealing Happiness from Tomorrow”) — the latter especially potent to the release, considering Flegal recently navigated a cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment that pulled him off the band’s summer 2025 tour.
Speaking with Revolver, Ciaramitaro discusses hard times, building friendships through hardcore, tour-time shenanigans, and why Drain will always be your friend.
Despite your fun-loving reputation, Drain faced serious situations this year — for instance, you revealed Tim’s battle with cancer when you released your “Stealing Happiness from Tomorrow” single. How did you all navigate that together — or, briefly, when Tim hadn’t been playing shows with the band?
Sammy Ciaramitaro It was a daily trip, you know? And just to predate it, when we were leading up to [the making of] this record, I was like, “Dude, let’s just put as much of us into this record as possible.”
And so, the first music video that came out [“Nights Like These”], we put two of our dads and one of our uncles in it, [and they’re] playing us. They’re not actors, this really is our family, you know? And on one of the songs, we put up microphones in a house and sampled all of our dogs barking.
…I don’t want to go super into it, out of respect to my dude, but he’s good. My man is in remission — he is kicking ass, and hasn’t missed a beat. It’s a really cool reminder of how beautiful all this is, and how fragile [life] is, you know?
Some people — whether it’s [due to] a freak accident or something — don’t get another chance to get onstage with their friends. It was a scary moment there, and the first time we all got back onstage again was emotional.
Thanks for saying that, though, because as much as I love that people are like, “Dude, Drain is the most fun band,” that’s [not] all it is. If you actually read the lyrics, there’s no joke songs. Everything’s very real, you know? [But] live, the whole point is, like, “Let’s just all turn our brains off for 30 minutes [and] be together.” And that’s awesome!
Jeremy Danger
Pun not necessarily intended, but do you feel the pressure to maintain the good vibes?
Maybe a little bit.
I’ve never felt like, “Fuck, I have to perform,” but you don’t see the behind the scenes. Everyone’s got families, everyone’s got things going on at home. And even on tour [there are] things that are happening, like, “Fuck, dude, we slept for two hours [last night], and we’re fried.”
I put more pressure on myself than anybody’s ever put on me. I want to make sure that I get out there and give it 100 percent — especially on tour. It’s not like all these kids can just see us next week — this is our one shot, let’s make every second count.
You did give us a little bit of a behind-the-scenes peek in the “Stealing” video of your tour shenanigans. There’s one scene where it looks like you’re getting some extreme chiropractic from someone in a hotel room. Like, someone from the team is jumping on your back on a bed somewhere…
[Laughs] That’s my boy Sal [Argento], who plays drums for Koyo. Yeah, dude, I always thought [playing around with your friends on tour] was the norm, but then the more we’ve toured, [I’ve realized] it’s actually not.
But it’s called playtime. [We] grew up on Jackass, you know? Like, this is what you do when you’re with your friends: You just have fun and do dumb things. Like, “Oh, someone’s trying to relax for a second? Let me go jump on them.” We tried to duct-tape one guy to a wall. There’s so much that we couldn’t put in that video from that tour.
When we get home from tour, people come by and they’re like, “Dude, you have a normal life.” But then you’re a degenerate as soon as you get [on the road].
We don’t stay at a ton of hotels, but when we do, it’s always like “We’re gonna jump from one bed to the other!” It’s like when you’re in seventh grade and you have a sleepover at your friend’s house… but we’re, like, 30. [Laughs]
Bringing it back to the “Nights Like These” video, does your dad have a musical background, or did he tap into his inner rock star for the first time at the shoot?
Dude, that was an absolute first. He’d never been in a band, plays no instruments, [but he] gave me an early intro to music.
It was really funny seeing our drummer’s dad and our guitar player’s uncle [before the shoot]. As it got closer, [they were] like, “What do I do? Am I gonna look dumb?” But I was like, “You’re gonna look awesome, don’t worry.”
[My dad has] come out and seen us one time since that video happened. [When “Nights Like These”] kicked in, he was side-stage and started inching closer to the mic. I was like, “Are you gonna get the mic? What are you gonna do?” [He did his] first stage dive at 61. He ended up doing three that night. He loved it.
Lexie Alley
What’s the story behind the album title …IS YOUR FRIEND?
This kid just asked me this the other day. He was like, “Dude, I just bought California Cursed, your first album, and in the liner notes it says ‘Drain is your friend.’ Then 5 years later, that’s the name of the new album. Like, was that [always] gonna be called that?” So, I told him the story…
I’m trying to formulate how this works… [but] I guess [it’s about being] the change you want to see.
I’m not a street kid. I don’t do graffiti. I’ve never held a gun. I’ve never been in a fight. I don’t really embody [a lot of] what I [see] in hardcore. So, it was like, “What feels real and right to me?”
You know, for every band that’s out there talking about certain things, using that kind of [violent] imagery… not all of them are walking that walk. And that’s OK! But [when Drain were starting out, there] was a show [and] all these guys were in front of this backdrop [that said] “Seattle is your enemy” or whatever city it was. And we were like, “Damn… that’s cool, if that’s how they really feel, but we should do our own backdrop that says, ‘Drain is your friend.’” We’re just gonna be ourselves, and I guarantee there’s a lot more people like us out there, too, you know?
And that’s been the M.O. It’s OK to be a good person. You don’t have to be hard.
California Cursed ended with that warped-and-wavy sample of the Rivieras’ “California Sun,” while the way that Living Proof’s closing title track slows itself down is a nod to KISS’ “Black Diamond.” This ties back to what you said earlier about wanting to put a lot of yourself into this album, but the last line on this album is, in fact, “Drain is your friend.” How do you reflect on the way you focused the ending on yourselves this time around?
You nailed it on the first two, and I always love little Easter eggs. But with this one it was like… what a cool way to go out strong! Just say the title!
In a weird way, it’s almost been a mantra [to] live by. And I feel like it is a perfect summation of everything you’ve heard for the last 30 minutes.
By integrating yourselves in these songs more forwardly, are Drain in a more confident place than you had been in the past?
Definitely.
Between California Cursed and Living Proof, we only played, like, 15-20 shows, just because of the way it was [ed. Due to COVID-19 precautions and the absence of touring at the time]. But we played probably close to 200 shows between these last two records. Even though we already felt confident, [now we’re] way more confident [in] what we play, and also [with knowing] what parts really hit with people.
[We’re] ready to be like, “Yo, we’re here. What’s up? This is it. Boom.” Every song’s a banger.
This interview has been edited and condensed for flow and clarity.