The name might suggest some kind of internal struggle, but Battleme tries to keep things intuitive, says bandleader Matt Drenik. “Other people have these interpretations of the name: ‘Are you trying to battle yourself with your pop songs and your loud songs?’“ Drenik jokes from his home in Portland, Ore. “I’m like, ‘Not really. I don’t know what I’m doing.’” When listening to Battleme’s latest, Future Runs Magnetic (El Camino Media), the idea that Drenik doesn’t know what he’s doing sounds far-fetched, with his bedroom-pop sensibilities somehow finding common ground with the record’s brasher rock songs. But the first Battleme tracks were very different. While still a member of Austin stoner-rock band Lions, Drenik recorded some country/folk songs under the Battleme moniker for Sons Of Anarchy. Drenik will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand-new feature on him.
Drenik: I remember seeing the Whigs a few years back and admiring the singer’s guitar.
“What is that thing?” I asked some random guy next to me.
“I dunno. Looks like a flat face or something,” he said.
“What’s a flat face?”
“I dunno.”
So I left the Triple Rock Social Club, went back to my hotel, and fell asleep.
A year later I’m in L.A. finishing up a record with Doug Boehm in Highland Park, and low and behold the same flat-faced guitar is hanging off the back wall.
“What is that?” I asked.
He looked up, “a shitty old Gibson,” he said.
I looked closer. Gibson L6S. I was in love. I didn’t even care how it sounded.
So I ended up playing most of the overdubs through this forgotten monster and eventually found one in Portland a few months later.
“L6S.” I’d tell everyone.
A few months later I met Nate, or as most call him Natron, at my friend Steve’s house. We were BBQ’n and talking about guitars. All of a sudden Natron offers up, “I’ve got one of Kurt Cobain’s guitars.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Steve sold it to me.”
Pretty soon it came out that Nate owned a highly touted music store up off Mississippi in NE Portland.
“I’m only open one day a week. And that day is usually Wednesday. But if there’s something you want, just call me, and I’ll let you in.”
His store, Black Book Guitars, is filled with a beautiful assortment of vintage acoustic and electric guitars, amps and everything in between. It’s highly curated and worth the stop if you want to play on some of the best gear in the Pacific Northwest. And if he doesn’t have what you want, just ask him, and he’ll find it for you.
“So you’re an L6S guy?”he asked me.
“Yeah. I like the way they look,” I said.
“Just let me know. I’ve got two but I can find more.”
“OK,” I thought.
“I heard you locked yourself in a coffin for eight hours before you played a show,” I said.
“Yup. That wasn’t fun.”
