Interviews: Anti-Flag, Part 2

And now the second part of our in-depth interview with Anti-Flag. Yesterday, the band released their major label debut, an album which is among the most politically radical records released on a major label in recent memory. Radical politics aside though, it's also one of their most accomplished and solidly written albums and our reviewer described it as "classic street-punk-by-way-of-pop-punk sound incorporating elements of folk, ska and `80s hardcore into the band's already powerful bag of tricks. "

In this second half, Chris and I talk about a lot of things, from Propagandhi to money, to hockey to Canada.
You can click Read More to see what #2 had to tell me.

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I saw you guys play with Bad Religion here in Toronto, and you got up there to sing the Sage Francis
part of "Let Them Eat War."

Oh man, theyâre such a fantastic band, like my, the first tape that I ever got that was punk rock had Bad Religion on one side and Cringer on the other side. I couldnât even tell you what that record was. To do that tour with that band was incredible. I sat next to Greg Graffin and was like "thatâs fucking Bad Religion" so that was a cool experience.

Did you sing at all the shows on the tour?

Elvis Costello said thereâs nothing more punk rock than spending your labelsâ money.

I tried to do as many as possible, I was so nervous the first time, it took me about a week, to work up the courage to do it but actually my nerves were broken down by Greg Hetson because he and I shared an affinity towards the game of hockey and we went to a lot of hockey games together and that broke down my fear of Bad Religion, he kind of let me in and that in turn made me steal their microphone when I was on stage.

So but, for the year, you guys have, I guess youâre going to Europe soon and youâve got the Warped Tour.

The tour with the Casualties Unseen…

I think we just ran something about that.

(Laughs) Its ok, you are a very busy man.

It seems like you guys might be even busier, with the European tour and Warped coming up.

well it changed, the Casualties, apparently George got sick and wasnât able to record the record right now and so theyâre recording in May so weâre going with the Unseen and Red Lights Flashed mainly in Europe and the Down and Outs in the UK.

And youâve also got the Warped Tour of course which must be interestingâ¦

A terrible terrible thing.

Really? The first time I ever saw you guys was on the second stage of the Warped Tour

the 30 minutes of playing is fun, but the rest of it is the worst experience ever.

Oh really?

I mean like, toward the middle and the end you have an affinity with everyone but for a while when youâre all like chickens with your heads cut off bumping into all these people and like "Hey! Oh where are you going to be?" "Oh Iâll just be in the sun for 10 hours" yâknow its like, that kind of gets old real quick.

But I feel comfortable about this year and its line up so far.

it looks really good.

Specifically with Against Me, Rise Against and Nofx, it will kind of be a coming together of a tour that once was.

it sounds like a family reunion really.

it is.

I remember seeing you guys play with Rise Against a few years ago.

and we had Against Me on that tour as well.

Did you?

I didnât remember that

After the Warped Tour what other plans do you have?

After the Warped Tour there are European Festivals being talked about. And, at this point itâs a little premature to know whatâs really going to happen, so, weâll be on tour somewhere. And we need to go to Japan and Australia, we havenât been there yet and weâre going to go there on the record so Iâm sure weâll be there as well.

So, have you had time to write your Grammy acceptance speech yet?

Oh I did. Its reads something like "thanks to the kids, no thanks to the man" itâs real like prolific.

Youâre not going to say that George W Bush doesnât care about black people?

(laughs) No, but I am going to say he doesnât care about poor people. (laughs)

Well it would be interesting; I really do hope you win now because I would love to see that.

We are coming to Canada too, weâre going to do a cross-Canada tour after the Warped Tour as well.

I know some kids who would be really happy if you hit some smaller cities.

I think, I think we will, thatâs the beauty of doing just a Canadian run, you donât only do the places that are right over the border.

well my girlfriendâs nephew lives in Thunder Bay and he would die.

(laughs) Well tell us his address, weâll play his house.

I donât think his parents would like that, theyâre rather conservative. But should be interesting.

Thatâs good. Iâm trying to remember the last time we played in Thunder Bay. I know we played there in like the last 10 years.

Well if you think they like hockey in Toronto…

Thatâs so funny. Um, going back to that Bad Religion Tour and all that hockey we went to; we were in Saskatoon and went to a Saskatoon Blades game and it was like sold out 5000 people, and Iâm like the New Jersey Devils can't sell out 5000 tickets, like what the fuck?

Speaking of Canada, do you think Quebec is going to actually separate?

Well I donât know I think its of those things where they just use it to get what they want.

Thatâs interesting. A lot of people have said that this time they think theyâre going to go and I donât think theyâre going to go either, I feel the same way that you do.

I mean and itâs a really good bargaining position to be saying that. Well if you donât give me more money then Iâm totally leaving. Its like the guy who threatens to quit his job, heâs not really going to quit.

But the only thing, itâs obvious that they wonât go, when they tried to go the first time it was such a bad move for them.

You know what I mean? Didnât like 40% of the population leave?

Iâm not writing it for anyone whose already made up their minds about the band. Weâre sort of writing it for people who have valid questions and concerns about why we are doing something new. And thatâs the dichotomy of every time a punk band does something thatâs out of the ordinary.

A big chunk of the population left, they also lost a lot of their big businesses which was a really bad thing. The Bank of Montreal is headquartered in Toronto, not in Montreal.

everyone picked up and moved to Toronto.

Itâs bad for them but then theyâre in a weaker position and they still have a pretty strong link with the States, but lot of what theyâre hoping and counting on would be that everyone honours the agreements they have with them already. That might not happen so itâs a huge gamble. Its weird to me you know, itâs even dumber than people who want to create their own state for Christians, because having your own state for your language - really you can pretty much speak French in Montreal without anyone giving you a hard time, but not being from there, maybe I donât get it.

thatâs the thing; Iâve talked to different people. Most of the people who are from there seem to think that the new government is going to be able to get it done, but a lot of people outside are like "no way" and I just think it makes zero sense for them to actually separate. I think that they are - theyâre fairly…

It's one of those things like Ireland where the conflict has kind of outlasted the original reasons for it.

Yeah.

You canât really, just, I mean it stretches out, you donât want a history lesson but it stretches back so far, its wars that happened 300 years ago that people are upset about. But its tough.

Totally. You guys did just elect your first right-wing Christian prime minister.

He's pretty frustrating; a bunch of scientists in Canada came out and said that marijuana is less addictive than opium or tobacco, and he went on the record and saying "I donât really buy that". He has a Masters in Economics so he clearly can tell pharmacologists how to make decisions about science, right?

(laughs) "Oh fuck, well itâs a â¦ I donât know

I totally get how you guys have managed to keep writing angry, political songs, thereâs so a lot motivation these days.

To be honest I thought we were going to talk more Propaghandi than we did (laughs)

We can talk about Propaghandi, everyone always brings you guys up together.

well, and I mean I donât even think about it in that respect, I just figure like anytime one of the bands is mentioned, the other is mentioned, yâknow and itâs aâ¦

Well youâre both from working class towns, youâre both from Fat.

Well sure, sure, it makes sense but theyâve continually made digs at us, so I thought I was going to get a "what do you think of that?"

Well I was going to ask you that

Its ok, I mean in the end, to be honest, everything that Anti Flag does is about connecting it to a community, the punk rock community, I hope that when weâre on the Warped Tour and weâre playing to a person whose never heard our stance on the issue of militarism or the issue of equality that we have as a stance for the band - I hope they listen to that and then look deeper and find a Propaghandi.

I just didnât want to get into it too much, it seemed like a baiting question; like trying to stoke a feud.

And thereâs no way I can because theyâre fucking incredible. Like, you canât and theyâre untouchable and that is what makes them so special as a band, and to be honest, like, I want people that listen to Anti Flag to listen to Propaghandi, y'know, like, none of us, yâknow what I mean, its not exclusive to one style of getting across your ideas via song

Iâve never understood the whole competitiveness thing that people see. Its not like youâre only allowed to have one CD. You can buy both Anti Flag and Propaghandi and no oneâs going to get mad.

And beyond that, if you feel that itâs possible to covertly subvert the mainstream while using it, then perhaps Anti Flag is the band for you.

So which one of you is going to marry a movie star now?

Yâknow I would assume, because, see thatâs the thing, Iâm guessing Pat but Pat has been in the longest relationship with his partner, more than any of us, but I could see Pat marrying someone as a publicity stunt, so perhaps that would â¦

I notice you used the word "partner" and it reminds me that I used it once and suddenly got a lot of emails about that. And they stopped reading the thing I was writing and it became "oh is Aubin gay?" and itâs not that important, Iâm trying to talk about Against Me and I was writing a review and everyone was focusing on the fact that I wrote "partner" and frankly, I'm not really that important.

well exactly and think thatâs an obvious example of our indoctrinated selves that we all have where the second something like that is questioned, your sexual orientation becomes an issue. Yâknow like, "what?". But thatâs fucking from, childbirth baby, thatâs just in your head. Itâs going to be a long time, hopefully it happens, but itâs going to be a long time before people stop jumping on things like that.

One quick question about the label, how involved is the band in that?

AF Records is 100% everyone is involved as far as the four of us goes and as far as Dan, George, Dave, Katie and Alex who oversee the ship while weâre not there. Everybody can pick a band to sign, everybody can be as involved in that band as they want. The only time where itâs less democratic than others is whenever it comes to paying for things because AF funds the entire operation so if that week things arenât going well we can veto doing something. Um, things havenât been going well for AF Records since the flood, it hasnât been a sort of prosperous work environment since then. It took a lot of time to get back on our feet, then we had distribution problems because of the Lumberjack merger.

I think weâre going to try to find a new life as far as distribution is concerned for AF Records and that will add a second wind to the label, I think now weâve built everything up and everybody feels good about it and we can go again and sign new bands and we can push the ones we have.

That's good to hear, bcause like you guys have put out some really strong stuff.

Weâve been fortunate enough to have the label serve its purpose. We wanted to alert the world about certain bands, and the bands have moved on to new life, Much the Same whoâve just signed to Nitro, New Mexican Disaster Squad have signed to Jade Tree.

And, to continue pimping AF Records, weâre going to release the picture disk of For Blood and Empire

That sounds pretty interesting.

And I think its going to come with, much like the record comes with a stencil. I think itâs going to come with an 11 x 11 or 12 x 12 stencil.

And a can of spray paint?

Well, we canât give the spray-paint, then weâre aiding and abetting. Weâre just supplying the tool (laughs)

You can always hope.

. If someone uses it to spray paint somewhere then that will be a travesty.

One thing that is bound to come up is the mechanics of signing to a major label.

The monetary aspects of signing to a major label?

Youâre not going to tell me how much it was are you?

No, because itâs not important.

Iâm kidding, Iâm kidding, everyone is speculating.

Well what is, and this is going to back to the criticism of signing to RCA, that we were well off as a band because of Fat Wreck Chords before we signed to RCA, so it doesnât make any sense to do it for quote unquote "the money". And that is precisely correct, we didnât sign to RCA to put money in my pocket or anyone else in the bandâs pocket. What we signed to RCA for was to use their resources in the form of guaranteed money to spend on marketing the ideas of the record. And that meant things like put militaryfreezone on every ad that went out for record. Things like putting underground action alliance on print, the web and any ad that they do for the record. So, to say that its not about the money is not 100% true, but its not about the money that
any of us take home, because it is a correct notion that the touring that weâve done and being on Fat Wreck made us have apartments and places to live and food to eat, so thatâs not the issue.

Because of the extra money they weâre making them spend on things like the packaging and things like that, yâknow, its not a, when you sell a CD on Fat versus a different label, Fat gives the best royalty rates of any label. Thatâs why theyâre the best independent label that they are. Theyâre the most fair and the most just to their bands. So its true, but whenever it comes down to promoting the ideals and the songs on the record, I think thatâs where the new distribution channels and the extra money that they spend is important. And plus that Elvis Costello fucking guy said thereâs nothing more punk rock than spending your labelsâ money. (laughs) But what does he know?

Thatâs definitely going in the little jump out.

Iâve seen your jump-outs.

Iâll pick that one for sure, thatâs a good one. But I mean there was no chance I was going to ask you what you guys made. I donât know why anyone would think that was cool to talk about. You wouldnât ask me that would you? You wouldnât say "Gee Aubin, how much money do you make there?" I mean itâs…

I donât know its one of those weird things that Iâve noticed, everyone seems very concerned about numbers lately and I mean I know a lot of sites, we donât do this ourselves but some people are really into posting Sound Scan numbers. Iâm like why do you care? Either you like it or you donât. If the numbers are high is that going to make you like it more?

thatâs ok you donât need to, weâre just. I actually read comments that were like "oh.. I canât believe that this Sound scan is only this high" and Iâm like "wha? Really? That really matters to you? Shouldnât you be like "this band really kicks ass?"

I donât know, like I donât know why people are so concerned all of a sudden. I want the band I like to make enough money to allow them to continue to make records, and how is that bad? As long as itâs the right amount to get them to the point where they donât have to go back to working at Burger King, you know, its fine by me because other than that itâs no oneâs business. I donât ask my friends how much they weigh and I donât ask them how much theyâre making.

well I think itâs a, um, yâknow itâs obviously a testament to the lifestyle that is around us and things are far more focused on money and numbers now than theyâve ever been.

but Iâm a finance person Iâm supposed to care about that stuff.

Well, you are (laughs)

But its music, its music you know what I mean? Like its just weird that everyone was so concerned, for you guys you probably want to make sure you recoup but, I donât know if its something that people sweat as much if theyâre not in the band.

and well you know also, its like, thereâs a different school of thought that no one will ever be able to understand whenever it goes to doing something like this because this, yâknow, anything in life, there are crossroads that we all come into and only us will know what direction and path feels right, yâknow what I mean I donât know what your situation is with you and your partner, for example

But, yâknow, if you made a decision, Iâm not going to question that decision in that relationship because Iâm not in your shoes. Yâknow so itâs very simple and its part of why punk rock is great because it is very cynical, um yâknow its part of the culture that weâre all in to questioning decisions and not saying whatever. I think thereâs a little bit of faith that needs to be involved, especially if you are quote-unquote "part of the band community" or something like that, so I think as far as the faith issue is concerned, anyone who is on the fence about Anti Flag and this decision, the record will show them the motive behind it. And yâknow obviously, to us, its obvious the motive was not to pocket a bunch off
money and find coke and hookers, it was.

Stretch hummer, that's what you really need.

well Willie Nelson runs his bus on vegetable oil man.

Well you know those vegetable oil ones, you need a permanent mechanic, right, you canât just drive them for 100 000 miles, you have to really, I think he has a crony who just works on the ..

Oh he has a Mac Truck, two buses and a van, all of which run on vegetable oil, and thereâs part of the touring technician is a on-site mechanic.

so um, I guess the last, sorry weâve been talking for a while, Iâve been wasting your entire day.

No, not at all, I had a lot - I hope that it comes out well cause I know Iâm going to murdered! (laughs)

Yâknow like I said, you know youâre going to get - some kids are going to complain but I think its one of those things. I donât know, I donât think people are as cynical as - like, I donât know what they like, honestly, reading the comments, I donât even know what they like.

(laughs)

Yâknow I mean, I try to talk about bands that I like, and thereâs some bands that I talk about that I donât like, yâknow what I mean?

Well and, its your civic duty as a forum to post on whatâs going on, and what some people regardless of how big or small the margin of majority vs. minority is, youâve got to report on it.

Plus, who the hell else is going to write about Discharge?

No one does, and the fantastic thing is that you do write about My Chemical Romance and Avenge Sevenfold and there are people that are into those bands finding out about Discharge and reading about the new Anti-Flag song, so

I think youâve just found our secret.

(laughs)

Like I said its been really good to talk to you today, I think the first time we talked was when you first signed actually and were nice enough to call me back about it.

I apologize if I was a little distraught that day, we, to be honest, thought that we were going to have a bit more time than we did.

I think somebody from the label leaked it soâ¦

The truth was, like, in one sense we are going to report about stuff, if we have somebody on the record, so it was good that you were able to confirm it.

But I mean, yâknow, its kind of hard to keep something like that a secret. That was one of those things likeâ¦

I mean, and thatâs the other flipside of it, is - no one wanted to keep it a secret, it just forced, I felt like, I donât want to say forced, because you didnât do anything wrong, but I felt like we were put in a situation where if we didnât say something about it on just the little talk that I had with you, but if we didnât say something to the kids that were flooding our website that day, um, we were going to upset people that had been involved with the band for some time. And thatâs the interesting predicament that you get into when you write a "we are doing something new, please donât freak out" message.

Um, because on one hand, Iâm not writing it for anyone whose already made up their minds about the band. Those are the people who are going to take it and run. Yâknow weâre sort of writing it for people who have valid questions and concerns about why we are doing something new. And thatâs the dichotomy of every time a punk band does something thatâs out of the ordinary.

Well, you handled it very well under the circumstances. I usually tell people that Anti-Flag handled the signing properly. Some other bands talked about their signing with almost a "fuck you" to their fans and the people who supported them, and it was a little disappointing.

You guys took the time to say "Hey, we did something you werenât expecting, but letâs talk about it" It felt more like "hey weâve been together for a long time so letâs have a chat" It was so much respectable.

and I mean people took offense to some of the abrasiveness of ours, and thatâs one of the things that I do regret about it, is that early on it said something like "people can fuck off" or somethingâ yâknow what I mean, I kind of felt like in retrospect I feel like we should have waited for that. But at the same time itâs a true statement, because there are people who despise Anti Flag and theyâre just going to use it to throw it in the face of someone who is sort of on our team and that to me was - I do think that those people can fuck off. I think that there are so many greater things that people can be spending their time and energy on whether or not weâre on the label thatâs part of Sony BMG or not, so ..