MILITARIE GUN: On collapse and confidence with God Save The Gun

On the third floor of Bread & Butter, the iconic Shoreditch café in London, Ian Shelton, frontman of MILITARIE GUN, leans back and smiles. There’s a calm to him that contrasts the turbulence behind the band’s latest record, God Save The Gun—a project that’s unflinchingly human, darkly honest, and, at times, surprisingly funny.

Shelton has spent the past three years crafting the album, wrestling with addiction, trauma, and cycles of self-destruction, all while trying to find moments of self-belief amid the chaos. Unlike the band’s 2023 debut, Life Under The Gun, which casts the vocalist as a witness to hardship, this record instead turns the lens inward. He’s no longer just observing—he’s the protagonist of his own unraveling.

“I thought I was playing a character,” Shelton admits. “But it was becoming my reality. Right before recording, I realized I was really losing control and needed to do something about it. When I read back the lyrics, they were saying, ‘Yeah man, you’re fucking up.’”

The album opens with the raw confession “I’ve been slipping up” on B A D I D E A, a line written late in the process but perfectly capturing the record’s emotional core. Shelton reflects, “Our songs are emotionally honest—they reflect what I’m living through. That track came at the right moment to embody it.” For much of the writing, he tried to mask his experiences behind a character, but by early 2024 the boundary between fiction and reality blurred. “The more I wrote, the heavier it weighed on me. By the time I got to the song God Save The Gun, I knew I had to live the words. Otherwise, it’d be ironic or untrue.”

Themes of collapse and confidence, self-destruction and self-belief, run throughout the record. Shelton explains that the three-year writing process allowed ideas to emerge naturally. “Some of the earliest tracks, like Fill Me With Paint and Kick, explore seeking validation and reflecting on trauma,” he says. “I don’t write with premeditation—these ideas surfaced subconsciously. It wasn’t until the record was complete that the themes became clear.” Kick in particular wrestles with Shelton’s complicated childhood—where he once used his past as justification for self-destructive behavior, he now found himself embracing it.

The band wrote God Save The Gun over three years, giving Shelton the time to process his experiences fully. “The biggest thing we had was time,” he explains. “We’re always writing songs, so we only make a new album when the songs are ready—not rushing anything.”

However, he doesn’t write with premeditation. “I might have a lyric or a title, but that’s it,” he says. “Everything else comes from my subconscious as I start singing.” Recurring motifs—addiction, trauma, self-doubt—emerged naturally, and only after the album was complete could he identify the overarching themes. “Without three years to process everything, it wouldn’t be the same,” he reflects. “I’d have had to rush through all these experiences that ultimately took years to work through.”

Alongside bandmates William Acuna, Waylon Trim, David Stalsworth and Kevin Kiley, collaboration was crucial to shaping the sound. Working with creatives Phillip Odom, James Goodson, Riley MacIntyre, Nick Panella and others, gave Shelton the chance to refine the songs collectively. “Phil pulls honesty out of me—if a lyric’s too guarded, he’ll push me. Riley ensures the emotion comes through. James and I work intuitively, and Nick helped solve a songwriting puzzle for God Owes Me Money. These people bring out parts of me I didn’t know existed,” he says.

The album’s cover art depicts Shelton as a cult leader offering salvation, subverting the idea of a charismatic rock ‘n’ roll messiah. “It’s about the impossibility of external salvation,” he explains. “Ultimately, only you can change your life. Cults, religion, and recovery are often sold as solutions but can undermine your mental health. I wanted the imagery to reflect that tension—the wish that someone could take it all away, while knowing you’re the only one who can.”

Tracks like I Won’t Murder Your Friend confront heavy subjects with unflinching honesty. Shelton calls it “a dressing down of suicidal tendencies. Music often glorifies martyrdom, but I wanted to flip that perspective. Suicide hurts others. Writing the song forced me to live by that standard myself. It was about taking that option off the table.”

The album’s emotional arc moves from introspection to empathy, from self-absorption to noticing others’ struggles. “After I Won’t Murder Your Friend, it felt natural to progress to Thought You Were Waving and beyond. It mirrors the challenge of stepping outside your own pain and seeing what others are going through,” he says. This tension between isolation and outward-looking connection threads through the record, giving it both narrative and emotional cohesion.

The climactic title track, God Save The Gun, functions as both narrative apex and personal reckoning. “Your people love you, they don’t let it show / and I know you’re out of control,” Shelton sings, addressing various characters, though he admits he was the one who needed to hear it most. “You shouldn’t have to wait until your life is completely destroyed to try to improve it, and I don’t want to lose what I’ve worked for because I have a drinking problem.” Its final lines—“If you want to keep your life, you gotta let it go”—resonate as both warning and credo.

Despite the darkness, Shelton approaches the album with absurdist humor, likening it to a comedy in the vein of The Royal Tenenbaums, where real pain is filtered through wit and timing. “Comedy allows the heaviness to be approachable. You can see something painful, but through a lens that makes it easier to process,” he says.

Three years of writing, countless collaborators, and a personal reckoning later, God Save The Gun stands as a record of confrontation, catharsis, and transformation. Shelton’s honesty, vulnerability, and vision create an album that refuses easy answers, inviting listeners into the messy, beautiful complexity of a life being lived—and survived.

Words: Mia Gailey

Images (Including The Cover): Nolan Knight

Cover Design: Robert Halls

With Thanks To: Prescription PR