Nationally-known punk rock group talks music and politics

April 7, 2008 —

Vanguard staff writer Patrick O'Hara spoke with nationally-renowned punk rock group Anti-Flag about the band's music, and the state of American politics. The following is the transcript of his interview.

Valley Vanguard: Children's choirs? Harmonicas? Pianos? The Bright Lights of America is certainly a far cry from your past projects. Are we seeing the dawn of a new age for Anti-Flag, or is this an experiment?

Anti-Flag: It's a little bit of both. First of all, we're a punk rock band. We've always been a punk rock band. The only music I know how to play and the only music I love is punk rock music. Now having said that, I don't think that punk rock music is narrowly defined as many people think. I think with this record we've created a punk rock record with different textures and different elements on it.

VV: What role does the band's political ideology play in the songwriting process?

AF: It plays a 100 percent role because the views we have as people filter through to the music that we create. We have a particular vision of the world that we have as people and so when we create the music that vision and that way we see the world is what sort of creates the music with us. It would be sort of impossible to create music that didn't have a social consciousness or have some sort of social ideology.

VV: Anti-Flag seems to stress the importance of their fans "getting involved." What is the role of a citizen in American democracy?

AF: There are a lot of activities. I think we need to rethink the way we see activism, because activism is anything from making a choice not to buy a certain product or a choice to buy a certain product, all the way up through living in the woods and living off the grid and growing your own food. So there are many different levels of activism and people can feel comfortable and should be proud about any level of awareness they have that they're making choices to make things better in their lives and hopefully in the lives of people around them.

As a citizen in American, I feel you have two responsibilities, ultimately. One is to vote, and if your vote does not count in the way you want it to, your next responsibility is to take to the streets to protest so people know the way you see the world and if the leaders of your country or your city or your state don't have the same vision of the world as you do then you have to take to the streets because that is the next step in trying to get your ideas across. And then there's further steps you can take, but at least those two are essential for people in the population to make sure that the leaders are in step with the people and do things in a way that are benefiting the people, not just benefiting the people in power with the money and the corporations but the people who live day to day and go to work and feed their children and try to live the life.

VV: It seems appropriate to at least touch base on the violence issue. As a nation, it seems the average person can't avoid media coverage of school shootings and street violence. Could you talk a bit about Anti-Flag's involvement with A Benefit for Victims of Violent Crime?

AF: I don't know if you're aware, but #2's sister was murdered last year. So, yeah, and we were not involved with the Center for Victims of Violent Crime and when the horrible event happened and #2's mother was helped out by this organization and we were like, "well, what can we do to take this really horrible experience and try and be proactive with it and try and do something better than just sit around and be angry and frustrated." So we created the EP and released it on AF Records as more as a way of us trying to deal with the situation. One of the things was to try and make it about something bigger than ourselves and try and say, "well these people helped out in our time of need. Hopefully we can give them some resources so in the future they can help out other people who, God forbid, have to go through the same situation we did." So that was sort of the vision behind that record and it's something you don't want to wish on your worst enemies.

VV: The five-year anniversary of the inception of the Iraq War is around the corner and the American people still seem divided, with some arguing for an immediate withdrawal and others the opposite. For instance, Republican nominee John McCain says that he'd keep troops in Iraq for 100 years if needed. Any comments?

AF: Well, obviously it's all bad. Nothing good has come of it. All of the reasons why we went to the war were wrong. It's just an example of how empires die, because the American Empire of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are fighting wars and ruining an economy for last century's technology and last century's energy sources, rather than investing that money into green technologies and the energies of the next century and positioning us in a place where we can be the leaders of renewable energy and things like that. We're spending billions of dollars for oil that hopefully none of us will be using in 40 years. It's bad decision making by stupid people, and as always, the people who make bad decisions don't feel the consequences. But the average people who are sent off to die and the average Iraqis who are just trying to live their lives are the ones who pay for the bad decisions of the people in power.

VV: Who would you say are Anti-Flag's main political inspirations?

AF: We all, throughout our history of watching political things and violent actions happen, know that the non-violence of Ghandi and Martin Luther King is clearly the only way of achieving political change. What ends up happening when people are assassinated or you have a violent revolution is the people who are most willing to be violent and most destructive tend to win. That is not me. We really need to have non-violent change where rational thought is the prevailing ideology, not who has the biggest guns because it is very difficult to go up against the biggest guns with ideas. I think ideas ultimately will win, but big guns are difficult to fight against. But if you go in a non-violent way, you can use morality and use good ideas, and they will prevail against violence every time.