DRUG CHURCH / COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Drug Church / Cognitive Dissonance

Drug Church’s set at Outbreak 2025 has been spiralling inside my brain for the past month because I cannot let go of the cognitive dissonance utilised by the frontman Patrick Kindlon. I must first establish that I am not accusing Kindlon of anything or suggesting that his actions reflected poor intentions. I am merely venting my personal confusion at his brainwave that for some unexplainable reason keeps creeping into a corner of my mind in unexpected moments. 

Outbreak festival’s beginnings as a small basement all dayer and its consequent rise as the largest scale hard-core festival in Europe mean it has seen an abundance of artists speak out against world states and political turmoil, due to the inherent and irremovable connection between the genres presented and their activist nature. Hardcore is a movement of both communal fight and individual empowerment, a huge section dedicating itself to animal rights and straight edge lifestyles (abstinence from all substances). It’s the kind of festival where it would be stranger not to mention a cause that personally touches you than to say something absurdly political and awkwardly imposing.

About halfway into Drug Church’s set, Kindlon stops for a moment to acknowledge how meaningful and well spoken other frontpersons have been. Albeit not necessarily being a Drug Church fan I have managed to see them thrice now, each occasion looping this one moment almost identically. Without so much as indicating any specifics, not in theme or demographic and much less in fact or lo and behold, a name - Kindlon essentially drops in around four sentences to praise his peers for using their stage as an instrument of awareness and speaking out about the cruel happenings of our world. Again, no name, no movement, no political perspective; just (in a paraphrased nutshell): It is so important to use our platform to speak out. Followed by: 

“I’ve never been someone who had the right words, my talent is how much I care” 

*cue Mad Care guitar intro*

So let’s break it down, through phenomenological schools of thought and logic laws:

The first and second facts I deduce as shared truths in this instance are that Kindlon both is and considers himself an artist. I will use the fact that he is holding a microphone on stage in front of thousands of people to prove both. 

The third fact I will point out is that Kindlon’s personal artistry revolves around both writing and singing words, referring to spotify writing credits as confirmation.

Fourthly, I suggest the following idea that artists are defined as people who are able to express feelings. That is the singular trait every single artist from any medium shares. The instruments, the form, the media used differ greatly between a novelist, a saxophone player and a charcoal drawer but they all undoubtedly share the motive and gift of translating feelings into art. Even art that is purely aesthetic is still about expressing feelings, feelings are not consigned to emotion. Visual pleasure is derived from how looking at something makes you feel, is it not?

So, 

1. Kindlon is an artist

2. Kindlon considers himself an artist

3. Kindlon’s specific artform is writing and vocalising words

4. Artists express feelings

5. Kindlon has never considered himself as someone who can say the right words? Error code, paradox, computer crashdown, Fanchon puzzled at Manchester Bowler’s Exhibition Center in June of 2024 and 2025

Now I know what you are thinking, expressing feelings is entirely different and not as connected as one might think on a venn diagram to articulating political ideologies and calling a crowd to action or awareness. Okay. 

I honestly, really do not believe Kindlon has orchestrated this moment to receive brownie points for touching upon activism whilst staying neutral and secretive enough to not be called out for suggesting the wrong ideas. I’m saying that’s how it comes across. It is received as both laziness to find the words and cowardice to be associated with them.  “Well done everyone else / I respect the people taking this opportunity and platform to spread awareness and call a fight for goodness, but I personally am excused from that responsibility because I care!” *cue guitars*

I immediately reacted to that moment with an impression of ‘wrongness’, that he is choosing not to find the right words and so addressing a topic without so much as naming it, just to lead into a song called mad care?

In conclusion, I do not have a personal vendetta or disappointment against anyone who does not feel comfortable addressing topics that are so stigmatised, so complex, in some ways isolating and incredibly difficult to wholly grasp. 

One of my truths is that if you are not actively fighting against something, then you are actively allowing and enabling it.

I have trudged through numerous sleepless nights due to my own personal confusion and horror regarding the state of our world. I also do not know what to say and would never pretend I knew just because I was given a platform I felt I should use. But I would also never half haphazardly refer to something bigger than me in a way that felt like cheating.

Another one of my truths, which I gratefully and shamefully learnt from personal childhood connections of Ukrainian backgrounds, is that the one action that is always correct in the middle of these unhinged social media live streamed human rights violation terrors pulling from so much untaught historical context that we simply cannot distinguish agenda from fact anymore - is to raise the voices of those affected. 

I suggest to Kindlon and anyone as lost in all this as me, that it is always worth saying something specific. But that something has become more and more blurred and I do not have a big enough ego to pretend for a second I could have anything of value to say either. Reshare. Reshare their words and photos and statistics. Because facts are facts and science evolves and counteracts itself and the fault of our society in my eyes is this linear idea that truth is always and ever one thing, but we must rely on the truths proven to us in the present time if we are to rely on anything at all. And I know for a fact that the number of bodies is statistically correct information and I know for an unchanging fact that I will never condone violence and that the idea of it makes me wake up at 3am panting from a nightmare because I do not address this in the day. 

Last year at Outbreak, I saw Have Heart on that same stage at a similar time. Again, not a band I would go out of my way to see but a band I was glad to have a chance to. The frontman shared a personal story of his own terminally ill child, silencing the entire crowd and placing tears in our eyes. He then segued into war and how crucial it is to humanise victims, because if the story of one child can move us this way then why don’t the numbers do.