THE MALE PATTERN to Release Debut LP I WAS SHOT IN THE HEART!

Daniel Bateman, known for his work with the band FROG, has introduced a new project called THE MALE PATTERN, described as combining the songwriting sensibility of Bruce Springsteen with the eccentric edge of WEEN. The act is set to release a single titled I'M A SOLDIER ahead of a full-length debut album, I WAS SHOT IN THE HEART!, arriving in the Americana and indie space.

Released on September 25th, 'I Was Shot in the Heart!' is the debut album from THE MALE PATTERN, a project by Will Schwartz (he/him), a songwriter, novelist, and English professor from Queens, NY. He 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.

His first musical work in over a decade, 'I Was Shot in the Heart!' 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,' Terry Allen's 'Lubbock (On Everything),' and Alex Cameron's 'Forced Witness.'

It's a funny, intelligent, and violent album that shows Schwartz relishing writing a different kind of fiction, which is ugly, weird, unworkshopped, and most importantly, free of the constraints of academia and publisher appeasement.

Pre-orders launch today with 'The Television Watcher' included. The singles, 'I'm a Soldier' and 'Charlie (The Robbery)' will be released on August 14th and September 4th, respectively.

Artist Introduction for 'I Was Shot in the Heart!'

'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

Artist Quote for 'I'm a Soldier' (Single / August 14th)

'Our guy reveals himself to be an internet-addled right-wing divorced guy steals valor from veterans, imagining that his struggles against lib-friends-and-loved ones online transfer some veteran-status to him. There is nothing funnier than someone who feels that they are constantly wronged and victimized but aren't, who imagines persecutors and foes everywhere but they're only in his head. It's also the most common type of person that exists in America. Failing to steal veteran valor, he poses as a security guard at a restaurant, and faces embarrassment. He heals himself with food.

For years, I've wanted to write about the feeling of watching a sizzling plate of fajitas leave a restaurant kitchen, the way the restaurant falls to a hush for a moment as the patrons listen to the sound of the meat frying on the platter, people across the restaurant regretting their order as the tray makes its way to the diner. Some stories are too fine, too real for art. This outro was the closest I got.' – Will Schwartz / The Male Pattern

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