Since this album is a benefit for victims of violent crime, where exactly is the money going to?

It’s really easy to go, ‘well if we sign to a major label, more people are going to hear us; therefore this is a good idea.’ The reason that logic is flawed is there is no guarantee more people are going to hear your music. You’re risking, you’re gambling a lot when you do something like this.

There’s one in particular called the Center for Victims of Violent Crime (CVVC) in Pittsburg, PA, where we’re from. The web address is cvvc.org. We’re splitting the donations; 50% of the donations are going there and 50% of the donations are going to education on violent crime. I guess that turns into your definition of the victim of a violent crime, whether it was someone who was actually attacked in a violent crime or in this case my sister’s two children that were left behind after her death, they are the true victims of the crime.

How come the album is being released on A-F records? Did you ever have issues with the major in regards to release material on your own record label?

Not at all actually. They’ve been more cooperative with this release than most things. The studio songs that are on this release were recorded in the same session as For Blood and Empire. We had them leftover and in February of this year, whenever I found out that my sister was killed, I didn’t necessarily know what to do with myself. Music and the band were probably the furthest from my mind and then as reality and real life started to kick back into gear, there became this real interest in wanting to have some sort of tangible win out of such a negative situation.

We put our heads together and realized we had these songs and we might as well release them and have the money go to people that really need it. As far as the label situation is concerned, we are currently in the studio finishing up a full-length album for RCA records that will come out probably spring of next year. This is a real personal release and they offered to release it, but we really wanted to keep it in the hands of our friends here in Pittsburg that help us run the label. It’s been a very rewarding experience

When you first found out about the tragedy, were you at home or out on tour?

I was on tour. We were playing a side show from the tour that we were on with Billy Talent and Rise Against. We were doing one day off and just playing with Rise Against. It was really the most surreal experience ever. The band, Anti-Flag, was doing a coat drive across Canada and most of them were taking place at malls. There was this particular store, West 49, kind of like your Hot Topic you’re one stop shop for all of your alternative needs; whether you like them or not they were giving us this place to facilitate a coat drive and a meet and great. Kids would come by and donate a coat for the local homeless/community center in a mall when I got a call from my bother-in-law and all these reactions came out at once. I was like, "get me the fuck out of this mall and get me home."

Then you have to deal with crossing the border, it was a difficult thirteen hours to get home from where we were. The real disconnect that a lot of people unless you’re in a band or work in a place where you travel as much as you do, it’s one of the things that you don’t realize; you have real life and you have touring life and so often I catch myself like, "yeah, just the other day when we were doing that, and someone is like dude, that was two months ago."

You blur the lines of home and away and home reared its ugly head into tour life. It was a difficult thing but everybody on the tour, Rise Against were amazing in helping me get back home, and my bandmates were amazing; the bus driver was incredible, he didn’t sleep at all, he drove straight home. Everybody was really great to me at that time and I’m very grateful to have the friends I have

Did you get to take some time off touring than?

Yeah, yeah. We had things booked and there was a little bit of question about whether or not we were going to do our headlining tour in March which was almost exactly a month later. You kind of realize there are a lot of things that are out of your control. People deal with things like this in their own way. I’m 100% completely sure that I’ll never fully come to terms with dealing with the death of my sister. I loved her to death and maybe there were things I should have done to help her to get out of the lifestyle she was in.

You’re always going to have these questions and insecurities. I realized that keeping myself busy and doing things was a lot better than sitting at home and either being furious with the social standards that we have in America that make it almost impossible for people to rid themselves of ghetto life or ghetto mentality, or just my own personal demons that I have to deal with and that I came face to face with thru this. It seemed like an escape; playing shows and being in this band is an amazing experience and I can’t tell you how many kids grabbed me and hugged me while we were playing shows. I really believe that’s what punk rock and the scene are there for.

Would you say you have achieved what you wanted to by going major, do you think more people hear, understand, and support your ideas?

Yeah, I mean ultimately there got to be some clarification on why a band like Anti-Flag would sign to a major label. It’s really easy to go, ‘well if we sign to a major label, more people are going to hear us; therefore this is a good idea.’ The reason that logic is flawed is there is no guarantee more people are going to hear your music. You’re risking, you’re gambling a lot when you do something like this. For us, we’ve always wanted to work with new people and grow the band, and honestly many times throughout our career, people have come up to us and said, ‘Hey, I’m JoeSmo!! from major label X, do you want to sign?’ We would say sure, if you can tell us we can do whatever the hell we want. Then they would say, you can’t do whatever they hell you want, but you can do some of what you want. We would say, no thanks we’re fine. We found ourselves on Go-Kart, and Fat, and putting out things ourselves on A-F records because of that. RCA, as evil as the corporations that funds them may be, the people that run the music side when you get down to it, those people have been really great to us and let us do the things we wanted to do.

So in that sense it has been amazing because they have been able to get us on television shows that we’ve never been on, they have been able to have our songs in places they’ve never been. Some people don’t like that and I understand. For us, when we write a song we would like as many people to hear that song as possible. They have been beneficial. Are we a huge band and do we want to be a huge band? Not necessarily. We want to write songs that will hopefully last longer than our band does and someone somewhere will have access to that song. So far our relationship has been rewarding to both of us I assume because they have not kicked us off their roster yet.

I think it is time to look towards the future; and not to say that there are many positives, but look toward the positive that have come out of the Bush Administration.

Initially when you first went major, it seemed you got a lot of criticism because of some of the views of Anti-Flag, do you think that that criticism has sort of blown over since your message is essentially the same?

Sure, totally. I think that it’s scary for a lot of people to think that not only a band because of their sound, but also the ideals of that said band; it’s scary to think that the time and effort you invest in something is going to change. I’ve lived with that insecurity many times; there are many bands that came through the ranks that I felt I loved and I felt betrayed by, but I realized that you can’t let what you think is going to happen get in the way of what happens. You have to let the songs and the actions of the band speak for themselves.

I love the last record we made; I think it’s a really great record. I think that when people heard that they realized, oh the label and the band weren’t full of shit when they said they’re going to do what they always do. Again, it’s like we’ve worked too long and hard to just say, oh man some fancy label wants to sign us, let’s play a song like Justin Timberlake. That’s ridiculous to me! It’d be great, it’d be cool; I really like Justin Timberlake, I think he’s funny, but I don’t think I could do that. I only know how to write a certain kind of song. Some people think it’s shit, some people think it’s good. You’re only in control of yourself and your own actions you can’t force people to think one way or another.

Since you are working within the system now, have your views change about huge conglomerates at all?

Not at all. I think that corporate globalization is just as evil as it was the day before we signed to a major label. There are many times in your life when you have to decide what is best for your vehicle, your vision, and your creative outlet. I think that the short answer to that question is not at all.

So none of these new songs are going to be on the new record, these were just leftovers and you’re looking on new material for the next record right now?

They’re not on the new album at all. We’re recording 18 songs and uh, when is this interview going to post you think?

Before the EP comes out.

Okay, well I’m just trying to figure out how many beans I should spill to you because we haven’t talked about the new album at all yet. We have a really legendary, amazing person [Tony Visconti (David Bowie, Morrissey)] is helping in the creating process in the form of a producer. We made the album in fields of green in Lexington, KY [Sainte-Claire Studios]. It should be finished soon and being prepped and primped and all the things that an album goes through before it reaches the public, which should be around early February or early March, the latest, of next year.

Would you say there are any surprising aspects on the record or anything unexpected?

I think that it’s all unexpected. If you listen to the last two albums that Anti-Flag put out, For Blood and Empire and The Terror State, I think you understand where our stance is on the George W. Bush administration, the war in Iraq, and corporate globalization. It is plain to see what our stances are on those two albums so on this record we talk about a lot of things we’ve never talked about before.

Some of them are personal demons being exercised and some of them are many other things that fought with us ill, like the global landscape. It’s still very much Anti-Flag. There are a lot of sounds that are different, there are a lot of ideas and messages that are different. At this point, it’s our sixth full-length album and we don’t want to make one that someone’s already heard.

Not to mention that when you made the other two albums, Bush was still going to be in office for quite a long time, whereas now we’re coming up on the next election.

Yeah, yeah. I think it is time to look towards the future; and not to say that there are many positives, but look toward the positive that have come out of the Bush Administration. The huge one being, people care about global politics right now. People are paying attention to what is happening in the world because a mad man took over the Whitehouse for the last almost eight years, and has ran our lives and rights through Hell. More people than ever are energized and excited about progressive ideas and not allowing that to happen again.

Do you have any thoughts about the 2008 election? Are there any candidates you somewhat support and why?

Yeah, I mean Dennis Kucinich is really the only one that I can come out and fully support. He’s the only one I can blindly follow; as far as the other ones are concerned, it is one of those things where I haven’t even began to settle with myself whether or not I should endorse any of these candidates because it’s so fucked. You watch people like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who look to be our saviors, dance around issues like gay marriage, which is so fucking simple.

How can you in 2008 support someone that doesn’t support gay marriage? That blows my fucking mind. I don’t want to openly endorse any of these people, but it’s always been my belief that some change can come from the people, and I know that all positive change has come from the people. I only hope that that energy that comes from the last years or Mr. Bush turns into something positive come election time. I don’t necessarily believe we’re going to be replaced with a savior, but I think we’ll find ourselves in a better situation.

Since record sales are low and record stores are closing nationwide, what do you think is going to happen to the music industry in the next couple of years? It doesn’t seem like the independent record stores are sustaining and even nationwide record stores like Tower records are closing.

I really believe that I’ve got two statements about that. One: major record companies, my only analogy for what they are and what they’re doing is this, they are very large, and it takes a very long time for a very large ship to turn around. I think that’s what they’re suffering from right now; they’re not adjusting at all to what’s going on around them. It’s not necessarily downloading or CD burning, there’s just too many shitty bands that are getting pumped out there and marketed to be the next Nirvana or whatever is supposed to save rock, or hip-hop, or any of those things that people are just not interested in. People are deaf, dumb, or mute to it. It’s really created climate like it was when a band like the Beatles, who are my all time favorite band, started where it’s a singles driven market; people only care about that one song.

Once those things get weeded out and punk rock is no longer viable commercially, I think that’s going to be fantastic.

I think that that’s cool; I think that helps us, when I say us I mean people that are involved in the punk scene. That’s what we need to weed ourselves out of the people who are here just because it’s cool right now or just because Green Day, or Avenged Sevenfold, or My Chemical Romance had number one albums and think, ‘hey wow I’m going to start a band that has angst because I can be a millionaire if I do that!’ Once those things get weeded out, and I’m not saying that any of those bands started their band for the wrong reasons, but you get bands that copy that because they see that and they want that, it’s just human nature.

Once those things get weeded out and punk rock is no longer viable commercially, I think that’s going to be fantastic. I can’t wait for the day when there is the network that there was maybe ten years ago. It still exists, it’s still flourishing right now, and that’s the thing that’s amazing is that will continue to be the constant. We’ll always be able to set up our own shows, and do our own tours, and release our own records because we’re smart enough and have the infrastructure to do that. Because that’s not glamorous, we won’t have a million copycats out there trying to do the same thing and I think that can only mean good things for our scene.

Did you still have a second point, or did you just kind of combine the two points?

Ultimately we’ll always be doing this and that’s what separates bands, and musicians, and artists that are in it for the correct reasons from those whom are not. I like to think that even if there wasn’t a RCA records sugar daddy for Anti-Flag I know we’re still going to be a band because we were a band long before anyone gave a fuck about us. We were playing every basement, every house, and every place we could play because we loved our songs. I know that we’ll always be doing that. So to your question of I am nervous about record sales and the decline, not at all.