Interviews: Against Me!

"I sat down with Against Me! Saturday as they stopped by Orlando for Orlandofest, one of the best fests i've ever been to. The interview you see here was originally supposed to be longer, however there was no time after the show because the cops weren't playing games (Didn't like awesome bands rocking at 1 AM)...enjoy!"
Click READ MORE for Tom, Warren, and Andrew's feelings on their current label, major label pop punk, the Gainesville scene, and more.

Q: Say your name and what you do in the band
Tom: My name's Tom, I play guitar and sing.
Warren: I'm Warren, I play the drum kit.
Andrew: I'm Andrew I play bass.

Q: So how was your last tour?
Tom: It was awesome, we left on the 24th of April and we were gone till June 1st. It was weird because it was a segmented tour. We did a bunch of different parts with a bunch of different bands. The last half we did with 5th Hour Hero from Canada, and it's fucking amazing, they are the best band I've ever toured with. Those French Canadians.

Q: Are more tours planned later this year?
Tom: We leave August 8th. We'll tour for a week and a half, then up to Memphis where we are recording, then we'll come back home till like October. Then we'll be on and off till Febuary.

Q: What direction will the next album be headed in?
Tom: Its definitely Rock and roll
Andrew: It's in the direction of rock

Q: So it'll be more rock oriented than your first few releases?
Andrew: Ehhhh… .
Tom: I know everyone will be like "They fucking changed their sound. They're on Fat Wreck now! They totally changed" or whatever.
Warren: I know the difference, at least for me is like, I joined the band and I learned a lot of songs that already existed. Now, the new album is going to be all songs that I took apart in writing and the same is true for Andrew. I love the new songs out of the batch, I know people will always say "Play this old one" or "Play that old one". For me being apart of writing these songs… I'm just really excited about them.

Q: So how did you guys end up on Fat Wreck?
Tom: They asked us if we wanted to do the 7" and we asked them if they wanted to just put out the new full length.
Warren: We had just done the Disco 7" when they asked.

Q: What was your relationship with A-F?
Tom: Well, Justin, or Justin Sane or whatever from Anti-Flag is a friend of ours and a really awesome guy and he wanted to put out the Axl full length.

Q: What happened to that?
Tom: Eh, they asked if they could put it out. We hung out with them a bunch and talked with them and we just decided to go with No Idea because it made more sense. They were from Gainesville and stuff, but they still put the song (I Still love you Julie) on the comp.

Q: How are Fat and No Idea different?
Tom: There are none really, that's what's so great about it. The only real difference is that the guy who owns Fat is in NOFX.
Andrew: And that the guy who owns No Idea was in Stressface.
Tom: Yeah, and that NOFX has sold a lot of fucking records and are a really popular band. Both labels are run by a husband and wife. Both labels are independent. I mean Var said it himself one time.
Andrew: Who owns No Idea… .
Tom: Yeah, he said "It's a lot easier to sell millions of records in California then to sell a million records in Gainesville"

Q: Any plans for any Fat Tours?
Tom: Well, we're going on tour with Anti-Flag.

Q: Is that later this summer?
Andrew: No, that'll be in November/ December.
Tom: It'll be a full national tour, and go into Canada too. There are some bands on Fat that I'd fucking love to tour with like, Propaghandi or Dillinger Four. It's like any label, there are bands you don't want to tour with and bands you want to tour with.
Andrew: There's no perfect label out there.

Q: Any plans for a European Tour again?
Warren: I'd love to
Andrew: Nothing is planned out but I'm sure…
Tom: We're thinking that by spring time… we want to go to Japan and Austraila.

Q: How were the crowds in Europe?
Warren: Awesome
Andrew: Yeah, totally, but its weird because some places you can totally tell were like 10 years behind musically. Like, they were just getting into Chugga Chugga hardcore
Tom: Don't name names!
Andrew: Yeah, I'm not gonna name names, but like some places we're just behind musically. So we'd go there and you could tell kids don't really get it. But the first show we played in England, we took the ferry from France to England, yeah, London for the first show and a lot of people we're singing the words and you're in London, and you just get goosebumps.
Tom: It was like "we're in fucking England and people are singing along!"
Warren: It was fucking Insane.

Q: What do you think was the best country?
Andrew: We really don't like to judge like that…
Tom: It's really unfair, because when we did the UK, we did it with this band called No Choice.
Andrew: Welshman.
Tom: They were the fucking coolest. They were all 40 year old fucking Welshmen who all had families and a fucking amazing band. We did the whole country with them, which in turn made it the best part of the tour for me at least.
Warren: Although we spent most of our time in Germany and out friend Ingo set up the whole thing and he was with us when we were in Germany and he showed us local sights and tell us the History of the places.
Andrew: Basically There were no band times. I mean we got to hang out in… is it called the Spanish Riviera? Fuck, we're all kids who grew up in the southeast our entire lives and…
Tom: Well I grew up in Italy part of the time.
Andrew: Yeah, the majority of the entire band's life has been spent in the southeast.

Q: Did you all grow up in Gainesville?
Andrew: He (Warren) was born there. Basically the most majority of time spent is Warren= Sarasota, Tom= Naples, James= Naples, myself= Huntsville, Alabama.

Q: How did you all end up in Gainesville, did you move there for the music scene?
Tom: I live there because of the music scene. And Warren… well if you live in Florida… plus his dad lived right outside of town.
Warren: Sarasota is a good town to grow up in. But as soon as I got out of high school I was ready to go. No hard feelings against Sarasota.

Q: So who are your favorite Gainesville bands?
Andrew: Right now, Reactionary Three, because I thought they rocked extremely well in the rain.
Tom: But there are so fucking many. Grabass Charltons are really good, fucking Army Of Ponch, Fucking Gunmoll…
Warren: Great now all the Gainesville bands are gonna see this.
All: Laugh
Andrew: Uhhh… Hot Water Music, Stressface
Tom: The thing is, they are all good, there are so many bands that are amazing. (Points to my shirt) I Hate Myself! Radon! Floor are technically, an exclusive Gainesville band, I saw them recently and they blew me away.
Andrew: Basically there is not a lot of bad music going on. A whole lotta good music.

Q: So, what are your thoughts on the mainstream "punk" thing… the Good Charlottes, The New Found Glories of the world?
Warren: Well…
Tom: It sucks.
Warren: How loosely can you define punk? That is the experiment being conducted by Good Charlotte.
Andrew: Good Charlotte's fucking ridiculous.
Tom: Yeah… my whole theory is yeah, I don't enjoy listening to their music… so I don't. It all boils down to that.

Q: What did you think about fellow Gainesville band Less Than Jake being a part of that tour?
Warren: More power to 'em.
Tom: We're not really here to judge anyone.
Warren: Different strokes for different folks.
Andrew: But Johnny Quest thinks they're sellouts.

Q: What really is the stance, in Gainesville, on the mainstream, major label deal?
Warren: I wouldn't say there is a consistent stance, there are a variety of opinions amongst the residents of Gainesville. There are a lot of residents of Gainesville that could care less about major labels or punk rock at all.
Andrew: Gainesville, sometimes people view it as like, I don't even know the right word…
Tom: Oops, sorry Kevin (Tom's toothpick falls on me)
Andrew: There's an awesome sense on community in Gainesville, but it's like every other community, a lot of people don't see eye to eye with each other, people disagree.
Tom: With the sense of community, a lot of times, people feel like "ok, we're together!" and we tour together, play shows together and a lot of the times everyone's on the same label. So when someone moves on, and wants to do something different sometimes people will be a little weird about it. Like, you know, they think "Are we still in this together?"
Andrew: But the thing is, with Gainesville, after 2 weeks, its like it never happened.
Tom: People like to talk a lot of shit and then it's over.

Tom: It's time for Abe Froman!
All: Alright let's go watch them!