THE MALE PATTERN Releases I WAS SHOT IN THE HEART! LP

THE MALE PATTERN has released its debut album, 'I Was Shot in the Heart!,' out now via Barely Out Recordings. The Americana/alt-country concept LP blends narrative fiction with a 'Springsteen meets Ween' style and features a guest appearance from Daniel Bateman of FROG.

THE MALE PATTERN is a new project from Will Schwartz (he/him), a songwriter, novelist, and English professor from Queens, NY. The album tells the story of an unnamed suburban dad as he navigates his acrimonious divorce, spends too much time watching TV and on the computer, gets addicted to pills, loses his job as a mortgage broker, shoots and kills a small-time drug dealer, finds God, and commits suicide by cop at a 24/7 Stop and Shop in White Plains, NY.

Schwartz began making music in the early 2010s as a co-songwriter/vocalist in Uncles with Daniel Bateman (who appears on this album) and Tom White of FROG before issuing one solo EP via Monkfish Records. Schwartz then shifted his focus to fiction writing, and his work has been published in Newtown Literary, Ninth Letter, The Baltimore Review, and The Briar Cliff Review, from which he received the 2017 award for literary fiction.

'I Was Shot in the Heart!' is Schwartz's first musical work in over a decade. It is a character-driven, narrative work that explores and exploits Americana tropes to capture its time and place. It's a concept album in the tradition of Darren Hayman's 'Pram Town' (dubbed a 'Folk Opera'), Terry Allen's 'Lubbock (On Everything),' and Alex Cameron's 'Forced Witness.'

THE MALE PATTERN recently issued the 'I'm a Soldier' single, which sees the album's character begin to unravel as he attempts to provide unwanted pro-bono security to a chain restaurant before succumbing to the ecstasy of excess and sizzling fajitas.

This descent continues on the album's final single, 'Charlie (The Robbery),' which features FROG's Daniel Bateman on piano. It's a 'Meeting Across the River'-inspired song that represents the point of no return for the album's antihero narrator, whose continued search for ecstasy through idiocy has deadly consequences.

Track List

1. The Television Watcher (3:29)

2. I'm a Soldier (4:53)

3. Voicemail to Corporate [11/10/2024] (1:26)

4. There are Angels (4:53)

5. Mr. Good Time (5:22)

6. Charlie [The Robbery] (4:12)

7. All Points Bulletin [Police Scanner] (0:47)

8. Father, I fed Up (4:12)

9. I Was Shot in the Heart! (4:17)

Artist Introduction

'I Was Shot in the Heart! tells the story of an unnamed suburban dad as he navigates his acrimonious divorce, spends too much time watching TV and on the computer, gets addicted to pills, loses his job as a mortgage broker, shoots and kills a small-time drug dealer, finds God, and commits suicide by cop at a 24/7 Stop and Shop in White Plains, NY. The songs are character-driven and satirical. I drew on the work of Terry Allen and Randy Newman, while combining disparate influences like the narrative craft of a Bruce Springsteen ballad and the prurience and silliness of Ween.

I started writing these songs after spending about a decade developing my fiction, both in workshops as a graduate student and then as a university teacher, and on my own. There is a pressure, perhaps self-enforced, in the workshop model, to develop work that appeals to the people around you, aesthetically and morally, in the most immediate way possible. I had the feeling that most writing in this environment becomes an advertisement for yourself and your virtues. There is importance and beauty in writing characters and stories that are filled with the good you wish to see in the real world, but sitting around a table of like-minded individuals doesn't always leave a lot of room for narrative art that is ugly and weird.

The story I'm telling is ugly and weird. It's mean-spirited, it makes fun of its characters, it's violent, and I go for cheap laughs. The songs that emerged for this project, the first I've written in over a decade, probably speak to an urge to make art like that, which I've likely repressed in my fiction writing for polite academia and peer-to-peer workshopping.

The character in these songs is driven by a crass hunger for validation and free drugs. He attributes his faults to everyone around him, never himself. He looks at his failures as the subject of a grand tragedy with mythological beauty. He needs people to feel bad for him. He sucks. But he's a common kind of guy that you come across in the world and online. The songs are vessels for dramatic irony: we know he's an asshole, and he doesn't, but in the meantime, his feelings, while they might be cruel or perverted, are his own, and he feels them deeply. There are better people to write stories about, and somebody else will.' – Will Schwartz / The Male Pattern

Photo Credit: Andrew Piccone

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