Saturday, January 18, 2014

ANTI-FLAG interview

Indie sux, hardline sux, emo sux, you sux and what about punk rock?

by marcs77

The year that recently came to its close saw ANTI-FLAG celebrating 20 years around as a band and on June the 18th, the day this interview happened, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, punk rockers were a few days into a 6 weeks tour and about to play a gig with Bad Religion (out on the “True North” tour) in Milan, Italy at Alcatraz (opening were The Manges from Italy).
Anti-Flag last full-length album “The General Strike” was released on March the 20th 2012 but Pat Thetic (drums and founding member) has been more than happy to do an interview with us and chat about his band, punk rock, activism before the show.
Moving out of comfty air-conditioned venue to the mid afternoon summer sunlight, because of the noisy sound check going on, we sit-squatted right before a nearby run down store on a pretty traffic clogged Milan's street and recorded what you're gonna read.

gan: You guys have been around for many years now and so I was wondering how you come up with the set-list every night. How this goes? And what about this special year you guys celebrate the 20th year landmark?
I think it's interesting. So in our home in the States we did a tour of the East Coast and a tour of the West Coast of the US. Doing two night in all the cities and playing songs from our all catalog so two different sets both nights. Playing for about an hour and a half. It's interesting because the songs that we play normally are the one that everybody likes anyway. Like we tried out to put in old songs and stuff like that and kids were like “we don't know that song” and I'm like “it's a great song, it's on that record...” but they don't get it. So sometimes the songs will change a little bit but we know which songs people wanna hear and we know which songs we wanna play and we don't wanna play so...

gan: And out of all the songs you wrote, is there one song you're particularly most proud of?

One of my favourite it's called “Anatomy Of An Enemy”. We don't play it live. We have played it live and actually I did the vocals on that one. And it talks about how people in power create enemies. And it's an important song for me because we are releasing a 7”s retrospective in the USA and on every records there's two songs and they come in special packaging. But I listened to it again (to “Anatomy Of An Enemy”) because we were looking for songs to do and that song is just as true today as when we wrote it in 1999. It makes me happy is still relevant today.

gan: Going back to the set-list choice. I get the feel you value the opinion of the kids...

Yeah, for sure, I don't subscribe to the idea that the band is above the kids because when I go see a band and they play songs I don't know I'm like “Fuck you man, that's know what I want” and we go to see shows all the time. We are on the stage today but at home we're gonna be in the crowd watching the show. If I like the song and you like the song...let's have a good time together.

gan: And talking about venue/concerts? Club shows vs.festivals...

I like festivals. Those are fun because there's more people there but I also like have everybody around me. The reason why we're playing music is because we like the interaction between somebody on stage and somebody in the crowd and it doesn't have to be me on stage. So when you are at big festivals sometime people are so far away and it doesn't feel like is there any connections but when we're in a small room and everybody is right there, you know, that's the most direct communication and that's the best for me.

gan: We had already got a bit through talking about the 20th anniversary's celebrations. How did you actually feel about the shows you played?

Those shows were great because we hadn't played a lot of songs in a number of year so it was fun to play those songs and it was fun to see a lot of people who haven't come out to shows in a long time, people who get married, have kids and then they came out to these shows because this is something they are still connected with.

gan: You got there different generations of Anti-Flag fans...

Exactly, there was a lot of young people but there was older people there as well. That was good it made us happy.

gan: How do you guys feel like being a band for 20 years?

I feel like the battles are still relevant today as they were twenty years ago and I think that there's still a need for a voice of dissent to be out there. I don't think it necessarily need to be our voice and if there isn't gonna be young bands who come along to stand up then we'll keep doing it.

gan: Starting out I guess you guys set some goals to accomplish as a band. Do you think you managed to do that?

I don't think we have accomplished anything on a grand scale but we have got people out of jail and we had created an environment where people are free to be themselves despite they are gay or straight, male or female. It was interesting to play Pittsburgh, which is our hometown, because I remember back when we started playing in the 90's when there was so much violence, homophobia and nationalism and we believed that the music commune should have been more than that and then we're playing twenty years later and look around and didn't see any of the violence, homophobia and nationalism. I don't think it's because of us but it makes us happy to know that in this moment 2013 it's a pretty good environment.

gan: What punk rock means to you?

For us punk rock was meant dissent music. Music that was anti-establishment. Music that isn't afraid Fuck You! to what is going on. Music that was created by people who were going to do it themselves no matter what the music trends out of of punk rock were about. That is what I thought punk rock means and that's what we strive to do. To create music dissenting from the mainstream and that it's still very important to us.

gan: Some punk rock can be criticize to be all about slogans which stand as empty words that don't always get to really spark something into the listener. What's your personal view? What if somebody takes your lyrics just like slogans without digging further than what's on the surface?

For sure that's always been a criticism that people are saying against us. However, I believe that a slogan sometime is a good thing and people attach to slogan and then dig deeper into what's going on. Sure there's a lot of people who just grab these slogans and move on but slogans are very powerful in many situations and if you are entitled by the slogan, come to the show and here what we are talking about and buy the record and read the liner notes then you find out a lot more about we are doing. Then I don't think that the slogan is a bad thing.

gan: Yeah, I get your liner notes as an invitation to go and check things yourself...
Yeah, for sure I'm not the smartest kid in the world. There's a lot of smarter people than me. So if I'm wrong tell me “Fuck you you're wrong”...I'm fine with that...haha.

gan: Did everybody understand what you stand for since the very beginning?

We were young and we had that a lot because people didn't understand what we were about. Now when you say Anti-Flag which has been around for a long time so people sort of get what we are about but when we were young nobody understood and we've been X'ed from a couple clubs and stuff and then after September the 11th in the states there were some shops who didn't wanna us to go into them. They took over our t-shirts and they wouldn't play our stuff on the radio...not that they were playing a bunch on the radio anyway...we are on a black-list. So when people become afraid they're always like shout against to the people who are talking about things that are different to them and that's always how it's been through out history but I think when the rest of population is afraid is when you really need to be speaking out differently and offering different solutions.

gan: In your view which can be some of the tools to do something for a social change?

Well, the easiest things are also some of the most effective things. The organizations like Amnesty international are getting people out of jail every year. People who were in prison because what they believe not because anything that they have done. So just something as simple as writing a letter is an amazingly powerful thing. But the point to me is that activism is everything you do in your life. The money you spend, to the products you buy, to the things you eat, to the people you vote for, to the protests you go to. All of that are different levels of activism, and if you chose not to buy thing from sweatshop, you know, that is a form of activism that's making a difference in the world. So as long as you see your decisions as choices for the betterment of people in general than you'll be an activist everyday.

gan: Sure you guys have so much to care about what's going on over in the USA but what's your view on Europe?

I think Berlusconi is a sh##head.

gan: Hehehe...

I don't know how you guys got him back in there but you did...I think that the French are homophobic right now...I don't know what's going on with the French, they hate gay people for some reasons...we've been in France and they said it's not all of them so I accept that but it looks pretty sketchy for gay people in France. I know in Turkish people are protesting in the streets and that's awesome. Turkey is right on the edge of Europe. So hopefully the protests will stay peaceful and they can get a real change in their country. The thing that I have learned over the years is that when protest become violent the powerful always use violence but as long as the people on the streets can be as passive as they can that's the only way to change what happens. If people pick up arms the revolution falls apart...like in Siria were everything turned in that horrible bloodbath. The population has to be non-violent that's the only way it ever works.

gan: And what you think of the European Union? Can you compare it to some extent to the USA?

I think that it is different right now only because it hasn't got in the power that they want. So I think in a hundred years it will be exactly the same, I think the culture would be a marginalized and money will control everything. But money control anything anyway it's not a difference.

gan: Let's take a trip down on your personal memory lane, what have been some of the highs, and if you want to talk about it, the lows, of being with Anti-Flag all these years?

A couple of the highs were when we released “Die For Government”. I remember being in a room where there were probably a two hundred people in the room and it probably held a hundred people and there was a release party for that record and I remember I just sat underneath the table because there were too many people in the room and I was like “this is pretty cool this is our high”. That was a good day. It was in '94 or something like that. Another good day was just last year (2012)...maybe the year before... we played in Poland at the Woodstock fest in Poland which is a free festival and 300000 people were there and we headlined that show.
Some of the bad days are when our personal lives are falling apart because we've been playing music too far away around the world instead of being at home, so there's been a lot of that in the last 20 years where people had their relationships falling apart because of rock n roll took up too much time.
The music stuff is usually the fun stuff and trying to keep your life together then it's the hard thing. The hardest thing over 20 years.

gan: Do you think it was easier when you were younger to live through all this?

It's hard when you're young and it's hard when you're hold. When you're young everybody keeps waiting feeling grown up and when you're old everybody keep waiting feeling grown up. So it's tough no matter what it is. You are away for six months of the year and it's tough to have friends and family at home. There's lot of stuff going on at home and you're not there.

gan: Where do you draw inspiration for your lyrics, beside the obvious topics which everybody can catch up with easily?

Just No#2 (Chris Barker - bass) would come up with some ideas either musically or lyric-wise and I would be talking about something in the van and then a couple of months later comes back in his songs. It happens in different ways all the time...whatever is going on. One of the things is just us traveling around the world, just see things, talk to people and they're like “hey you know about this...” and I'm like...“No, tell me about it” and they tell me about what is going on in their world and that sort of filters into the music. Obviously we're not genius, we don't know anything about everything but we're just lucky enough to have so much people tell us about things and inspires us to see in a different way and then we create music about it.
It's like kinda of a cycle, we are inspired by activism from somebody somewhere in the world and write a song about it and we put that song out and hopefully that person hears the song or someone in a similar position hears that and then it inspires them to continue their struggle and then we are inspired by that. A cyclical process that's us being inspired by people taking into the street and being active and believing that the world could be better and us writing songs about that.

gan: Many times bands are kind of stuck in the routine "record release and promotion interviews" but I am happy to be here today and you are talking to me and don't have a new record out. What's your view on these routines and on that fact that some label guys, or even bands, think it's a waste of time do interview when there's nothing fresh to promote? Perhaps you had better things to do to crack to your time now...

hehehe...No, no, no...that's the important part of doing this. Us as a band never...other bands are like we need to put a record and do the work while for us this is a life style. That's what we do all the time when we're home that's what we do, when we're on tour that's what we do. It's not like I have a record out so I need to talk to people. I love talking to people all the time about what we're doing and what they're doing and you I get a lot of information out of you than you get out of me. We are not worried about the record side of this.

gan: Are you guys working on new stuff?

After this tour we go home...we have six weeks in Europe...we go home we have the rest of summer to start working on the new record and then we will have some touring at the end of the year in the states but then we have probably the new album coming out late spring or early summer next year. So we'll see. It depends on...at this point after being around for this long we don't have to release a record. So the only point we releasing a new record is because we something interesting to say. We have to make sure what we say it's interesting enough. Then we would put out a record.

gan: Your tour just kicked off. What about tonight where you share the bill with Bad Religion?
I love Bad Religion...we've known those guys for years so it's gonna be a great show.

gan: And what about the kids coming to your shows in the different countries you play?

In Europe the Italian kids are more animated, more excited where the German kids are like “ehh I've seen that before...” and the French kids...the Italian kids and French kids are excited, they're fucking stocked to be there and you would expect the Italian kids and the French kids, but mostly the Italian kids, to be very excited about the punk rock show.

gan: Does it differ from America?

Yea, yea...in America it's more like a tough guy thing. While in Japan nobody says anything, they're really silent...north in Europe they're really excited about the show but then after the show they don't care about you anymore which is interesting because in Italy like you saw there are a lot of kids who want to say hallo, take pictures and chat for a bit. So you know every culture it's different.

I guess you'll have a lot of typing to do...

gan: Yeah man! But I thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with Gotanerve-zine.

Check: www.facebook.com/anti.flag.official www.anti-flag.com/

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