This year marks the 30th anniversary of Filter’s 1995 hit song “Hey Man, Nice Shot.” In a new interview with The Jesea Lee Show, the band’s frontman Richard Patrick spoke about the song’s lasting popularity.
“God, I remember [when the song was first released] just being, like, ‘Boy, I hope this makes it,’” he said. “And the song was already taking off from the ‘Demon Knight’ soundtrack. And then it just kept building and building and building. And, yeah, it’s a staple of the set. We play it last every night usually. And it’s awesome.”
Patrick then went on to dispel rumors that the track is about late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, instead confirming that “Hey Man, Nice Shot” was actually written about Pennsylvania state treasurer R. Budd Dwyer – who was convicted of bribery charges and who took his own life in 1987 during a news conference that was broadcast live to viewers throughout Pennsylvania.
“I never wanted to say that it was inspired by R. Budd Dwyer, but people were mistakenly saying it was about Kurt Cobain, because he had killed himself,” Patrick explained. “But I wrote the song in ’91 [which was three years before Kurt’s death]. So the record company kind of just leaked it and said it’s about R. Budd Dwyer.
“It was inspired by R. Budd Dwyer’s public suicide. And I just was, like, ‘Well, the cat’s out of the bag.’ And so I never wanted it to be out what the song was about, but it’s out. And he did what he did. He made the point he wanted to make. And I saw it as a young man and wrote lyrics about it and it just resonated with me and I just found it to be shocking and I tried to understand it.
“And so that’s what the song is about, trying to wrap my head around, like, why would someone do this? And [it’s] interesting fodder for lyrics, in my opinion. ‘Cause I was so over — and a lot of people were too — I was just so over songs about like hot rods and chicks and all that crap that they had spoon fed us in the ’80s.”
Patrick continued: “Urban legend is that it’s about Kurt. But the great thing is, is I went up to [Nirvana drummer] Dave Grohl and I explained that the song was written way before Kurt killed himself. And I was already signed because of it.
“And then Kurt killed himself, and the record came out like a little bit later. And I explained it to Dave Grohl and I explained it to [Nirvana bassist] Krist [Novoselic]. And those are the only two people I care about. They acknowledged that they understood, like, ‘We know you didn’t do it.’ So, once I made it clear to them that it was written in ’91 and that it wasn’t about Kurt, and they reassured me that, like, ‘Hey, it’s okay. Don’t feel the weight of this.’
“No one wants to profit on someone’s demise, but at the same time, it is about suicide and it is about someone killing themselves. It’s wild.”
