The War on Drugs Talks ‘Live Drugs Again’ and Playing on Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’: ‘It’s Arguably the Coolest Thing I’ve Ever Done’

Like many of the band’s progenitors, from Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan to Tom Petty, you haven’t truly experienced the War on Drugs until you’ve seen them in the flesh.

The War on Drugs Announces New Live Album

That’s what makes “Live Drugs Again,” the second live album from the Adam Granduciel-led project, such a gift. With live recordings of newer songs like “Harmonia’s Dream,” “I Don’t Wanna Wait” and “Living Proof,” the album is even better than 2020’s “Live Drugs,” which is itself an electrifying document of one of modern rock’s most consistent acts.

There are transcendent moments on new cuts like “Old Skin” and the decade-old “Burning,” on which Granduciel sings the opening lyrics with a newfound recklessness.

“Put your hands tuh-GETHA!” Granduciel growls at the beginning of “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” turning one of the band’s best songs into a timeless, stadium-worthy anthem.

On “Harmonia’s Dream,” the band floats into a shimmering, two-minute slow burn, until the song settles into a groove that drives toward an explosive climax — and then an even more exciting bridge.

“Somebody in the band said it sounds like a UFO is landing,” Granduciel says of the song, which opens the live record. On the tour, it was usually played midway through the set. “As a band, you have to work up to those moments. You add a bunch of ingredients, and then you get to the point where you can start stirring them together. It’s when you’re really clicking as a band … when you can really hear each other in a way.”

As the War on Drugs embarks on a co-headlining tour with the National, with support from Lucius, Granduciel called up Variety to discuss the making of “Live Drugs Again,” getting back into the studio, and playing guitar on Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter.”

What makes a good live album?

It’s a great thing when you have a definitive version of a song as it’s performed. That’s something that the live aspect of this band has been great at — reinterpreting all of these recordings as a live act. It’s like you’re working with completely new songs. So, for me, a great live record is one that feels like you’re on stage with this band. You feed off of the energy of what’s happening, and it’s a mix of having control over the recorded environment and not overproducing live records. (And that’s coming from a guy that possibly overproduced this one, so who knows?) But we had a great time putting it all together, and it wasn’t so much what version [of each song] was best. It was more about, “I remember coming off stage in this town we never played before and having a wonderful day and meeting all of these great people. Let’s start with that show.” It wasn’t sifting through looking for the best solo.

How many shows did you tape?

Because of the technology and the digital consoles, every show gets recorded. So, at the end of the tour, I walk away with, like, I don’t even know — 700 terabytes of audio. It’s an insane amount of audio. That’s why you have to start with a memory, because it’s too time-consuming to even open one of the raw audios and import it into a session. That alone can take a whole day. So, you have to start with, “I remember this night. Let’s see what’s going on with that show.” Assuming there are no issues with the recording, you can start making it sound like a record pretty quickly.

The live band obviously changes the shape and the feel of the songs. With the songs on your most recent album, “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” what were the discoveries that you made on stage?

Sometimes live songs will be a little faster. Sometimes you change the key of the song because it’s in the live environment, you want to push everything a little bit more. The intro of “Harmonia’s Dream” and the middle section, parts of “I Don’t Wanna Wait,” the arrangement of “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” all of those things really came to life after a couple of weeks on the road. Even just the nuances of “Old Skin” or “Victim,” which isn’t on the live record. I’m not one to wish that you could go back and re-record the record. Part of making the record is stumbling upon moments, and then when you perform them, they become something different. The record is almost like a demo, essentially. It’s like the first impression of what a song can be. You can fine-tune that thing and then go on the road and let it grow. Certain limitations you have in the studio, or live, in terms of equipment… sounds get filtered. Multiple keyboards on “I Don’t Wanna Wait” get filtered through Jon’s [Natchez] sax. So it’s always changing.

The live take of “Burning” is pretty remarkable, too.

Yeah, that “Burning” was the one where, when I listened to it, I was like, “The vocal is so good.” I would never sing it like that on a record. But live, that’s the sort of take I was looking for — that sort of passion. All of the stress and day-to-day stuff that happens when you’re on the road for months at a time… when you go out on stage, the only hours that matter in your day are those two hours. So you put in all of that energy and frustration and love that sometimes pummels these tunes. That’s the best part. That’s what it’s all about — letting these songs take their own shapes. And if I go up tonight, on the first night of tour, and try to sing “Burning” like that, it wouldn’t be that yet. That’s the interesting thing about these live records: they kind of put a stake in the ground for some of these songs. You have to work up to that moment.

Earlier this year, you were on the Beyoncé album, playing guitar on “II Most Wanted,” the duet with Miley Cyrus. How did that come about?

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That came from my friend Shawn Everett, who recorded and mixed my last two records. He was working on that and one day was like, “Hey, why don’t you come to the studio and play on this thing?” I did not expect for it to actually end up on the song, but it just was what it was. I’m not really sure, to be honest, how much I’m allowed to talk about what I was playing along to, but basically I was playing along to just Miley singing the whole time. It was fully a Miley song.

So you didn’t even know it was a Beyoncé song?

I had heard that it was possibly a demo — that it was a song that Miley had worked on that was going to be submitted to Beyoncé. I didn’t know much about it other than that. I was just like, “This is a great song. I love this song.”

I imagine there was a pretty serious cone of silence surrounding the project?

No, it was definitely not at all top secret. There was nothing about anything that I did that was… I didn’t even know until I heard the song, the day it came out, that I was on the song. It got turned around in five weeks or something. It was very quick. Shawn is an amazing producer and engineer. But it was exciting! When I heard the song, I was like, “Is that me?” They definitely chopped it up a little bit, but the melody line was there. It’s arguably the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

Did you ever meet Beyoncé or speak with her after?

Oh, no, nothing like that.

You’ve done a lot of covers for compilation albums and TV shows — most recently, you covered Tom Petty’s “You Wreck Me” for Apple TV+’s “Bad Monkey.” Would you ever consider making a covers album?

It doesn’t interest me, but I like doing covers that mean something. With the Tom Petty thing, that was like, “There’s a show happening, and they’re going to use all covers of Petty songs, with all these other artists.” I was like, “Oh my God, of course. Sign me up. I want to be a part of that.” And then it was like, “Maybe you’d want to do ‘You Wreck Me.’” And I was like, “You mean my high school anthem?” In high school, I only wore corduroy pants. I didn’t wear jeans until I was early. There’s a line in that song that’s like, “I’ll be the boy in the corduroy pants.” So that was always my fucking anthem in junior high, because I always had corduroys on. To be asked 30 years later to do a cover of it was amazing.

And then, obviously, we’ve done songs on the road. We’ve done some Warren Zevon songs, we’ve done Bob Seger, we’ve done John Lennon. A lot of that is just stuff you really want to perform. You want to sing it and play it in a space for people, maybe for a special reason. A couple of years ago, we recorded some stuff that we’d been covering, and I don’t think I’ve ever listened to it because it’s out of the context of performing it for people. And so I’m not really interested.

On “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” you sing, “We danced to ‘Desolation Row.'” How does one dance to “Desolation Row”? It’s not the easiest song to dance to.

Maybe you’re dancing to the live version, with the early-2000s band. I saw [Bob] Dylan at Newport in 2002, and it was the first time he had played [the festival] since 1965. I don’t recall if he even played “Desolation Row,” but I have seen him play it with his full band. But, yeah, it’s just one of those things where the line happens. I’m sure at some point there’s a demo of that song where there’s basically every Dylan song I tried to fit into that line.

After this tour, is it back to the studio for you? How much of a new album have you started to configure?

I’ve started working on a record for sure. I have a creative space in Burbank, and I go every day. I’ve been working on something . But without having a label, it’s my first time making music without… I’ve always had jobs, since I was 14 or 15. So [having a label] was sort of like having a boss. You have a structure of having an A&R guy, you gotta write songs, you gotta submit them. I don’t really have that structure. So, I’m having a hard time with the idea of the finality of any sort of music. But when this tour is over, I’m going to get home to L.A. and start putting the pieces together on the new record. I’ve recorded a lot of stuff, and there’s still a lot to write and record, but I also just want to exist and live life a little bit. When you tour this much and you get home, you want to spend time with your kids. You don’t want to go right back into the studio all the time. I enjoy a fairly mundane day-to-day life, picking my kid up and hanging out and doing errands. I want to enjoy the process, and I want to make music that I feel is reflective of whatever life I’m living. But, in the winter, I’m going to start getting serious about it. Serious!

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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