American Thought Leaders - What Happened to Rock and Roll?—Five Times August and Matt Azrieli on Building a New Counterculture

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

“People are looking for something to find hope in … because so much of music and movies and television spits in their face—for lack of a better term—insults them for having very simple, fundamental values, for having children, for caring about your family, for wanting to make decisions about your own body.”In this episode, I sit down with Matt Azrieli and Brad Skistimas, the latter of whom is also known as Five Times August. Mr. Azrieli co-founded The Post Millennial and is now CEO of Baste Records—a new music label for artists who refuse to conform to political and cultural orthodoxies. Baste just released Five Times August’s new single:“‘Ain't No Rock and Roll’ was sort-of my response to all of my musical heroes that didn't show up over the last three years. With COVID, and just worldwide tyranny, there was never a better time to speak up against 'the Man,' and very, very, very few of my heroes showed up to the fight,” says Mr. Skistimas.“You look at what Rolling Stone did, and how they lionized the Boston bomber: People don't forget, and people understand now," says Mr. Azrieli. "Rolling Stone Magazine—it’s certainly not a countercultural magazine anymore, right? It's another tentacle of power,” says Mr. Azrieli.

People are looking for something to find hope in because so much of music and movies and television spits in their face, insults them for having very simple fundamental values. In this episode, I sit down with Matt Esrielli and Brad Skistamis, who is also known as Five Times August. Esrielli co-founded the Post Millennial and is now CEO of Bass Records, a new music label for artists who refuse to conform to political and cultural orthodoxies. Bass just released Five Times Hoggett's new single. Ain't No Rock and Roll was sort of like my response

to all of my musical heroes that didn't show up over the last three years. With COVID and worldwide tyranny, there was never like a better time to speak up against the man and very few of my heroes speak up against the man. And very few of my heroes showed up to the fight. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Brad Skistemas, Matt Azrielli, such a pleasure to have you both on American Thought Leaders. Thanks for having us. It's great to be here.

So of course, you are better known as Five Times August, and Five Times August is now signed with Based Records, of course, which is incredible. And you've got a really wonderful, thoughtful music video out. And why don't I just actually start with a quick clip of that? Ain't no rock and roll. No Joni, no Bob. No one stuck around for the protest job. All the stars in the big farm of whores. Chilling for a check from their corporate shore. Where did this come from? Ain't No Rock and Roll was sort of like my response to all of my musical heroes that didn't show up over the last three years. I feel like with COVID and just worldwide tyranny, there was never like a better time to speak up against the man.

And very few of my heroes showed up to the fight. So this was my sort of musical response to those guys. It is actually remarkably shocking that few people that kind of made their names, right, and essentially speaking truth to power or supposedly speaking truth to power, just suddenly were absent here. It is amazing because you think about the countercultural movement of the 60s and the energy that was behind it. And it seems like so much of it was a sham. So was it really a sham or did people change their minds? I mean, I've heard both theories.

So in my opinion, a lot of it's demographic. There were many younger people around the time of the 60s. And as a result, you had certain economic, social considerations, just the result of an old regime being replaced by a new regime. Unfortunately, the children of the 60s are still extremely significant demographically in the United States. And they do not, under any circumstances, want to surrender power economically or politically. And this is symbolic of that. Fascinating. And so, you know, you've done a bunch of songs now. I mean, I think in a sense, this song, this new one that you've just launched is one of the tamer ones of your recent set. So tell me, how is it that you ended up doing these songs? Well, I spent a lot of 2020 examining what was happening in the world and I was thinking about the future that was being made for my kids and I felt like I had a platform as a

musical artist and like I said I was looking around wondering why my heroes weren't speaking up. So I decided to sort of step forward and start releasing these songs and say something musically, not just as an artist, but just also for the sake of my kids' future. I didn't want them to look back on this time and, you know, wonder why dad didn't say anything about what was happening in the world. You know, Fight For You makes me think of that, actually. Yeah, exactly. That one was for uh it was for my

kids it was for a lot of the parents in this movement that children are at the forefront of this fight I think. But you know you've been you see I don't think you've been treated very well by the music industry aside from a few uh outliers here but. Yeah, you really learn who your friends are the moment you sort of, you know, dip your toe into that water and start speaking out about what's important to you. So I lost a lot of friends in the music industry, but also gained a lot of new musical friends. And that's really exciting to see. It let me know that I wasn't alone. How is it that you came across Five Times August Nat? Well, Brad's a phenomenal talent. He's not only a phenomenal songwriter, actually the music videos for his songs, he puts them together. He's the artist behind the videos.

And so my first exposure to Brad was through Sad Little Man, the music video for that. And I thought it was phenomenal. And the team loves Brad because at the end of the day, what we're trying to do at Based Records, it's not a matter of partisan politics. It's not a matter of left or right. It's a matter of creating a new culture. And that's what a guy like Brad actually does. He's an actual creator.

Rather than somebody who's just going out there being acrimonious he's actually trying to say something so come to think of it i didn't even ask how did you guys actually meet so we first met in person in austin right yeah that's true yeah i was introduced to based through chad prather actually he told me about you and um then uh you guys invited me down to Austin, and they were doing an event with Mines, and we all hung out that night, and I got to know the guys pretty well.

Wait, wait. So you're saying I was there. And you were there too. Yes, sir. You were there with your producer, Karis, who was a wonderful lady, not too far off camera. And no, it was a great event. Brad was there, Winston Marshall of Mumford & Sons was there. He came and he played a couple of songs. He was

great. We had a really fantastic night. We had Jeffrey Steele and Ira Dean, who are two very big songwriters out of Nashville. They wrote for Aaron Lewis, so I had the only one big hit song, and they played that song. It was a lot of fun. So Matt, Aaron Lewis, so I had the only one big hit song, and they played that song. It was a lot of fun. So Matt, tell me a little more about the different artists that you've signed or are looking at, and I can't help but think, is Oliver Anthony one of them, or at least have you reached out? What a great song, huh? Amazing song. Richmond, North of Richmond. Really incredible, especially that first verse. Really hit a lot of people right between the eyes.

You know, we reached out to tell him congratulations, and obviously if he ever approached us, we'd love to work with him too. You know, in terms of the artists I'm trying to work with, it's about a cultivated sense. It's about, first of all, the aesthetic, the quality of the music, but it's also about finding people who are easy to work with, people who are receptive. But we're working with Brad at Five Times August, working with Chad Prather, who also has a show on The Blaze, who has a real Will Rogers comedic, humorous quality to him. We have Chris Wallen,

who's a fantastic songwriter in Nashville, and he's working with talent, songwriting talent, all over town. And we found one incredible song called I'd Be Jolly Too, and Chad has cut it, and it's going to be a wonderful Christmas song. It's raunchy, it's fun, there's energy. We're also working with Hi-Rez, who recently put out his Trump the Dawn series. I'm sure that you saw First Day Out. He did an AI Trump parody rap. And we're going to put out an incredible song this November. It's about the Second Amendment, our need to protect our Second Amendment, and his personal experiences with it, which have been heart-wrenching. And then we're also in talks with Afro Man.

We're in talks with Afro Man to do a parody of Because I Got High, called Because Hunter Got High. The point is, you have to have fun. The new single Ain't No Rock and Roll is sort of a super group of superstars from Nashville as well as Pete Parada from The Offspring who was unfortunately kicked out of his band for not getting the shot. He plays drums on it, Ira Dean on bass who's a mega star, Chris who we mentioned a few times produced the track who's a mega superstar. Tom Bukovec on

guitars is a great Nashville guitar player. And Jim Moose Brown, who played with Steve Miller's band. So all like-minded, freedom-loving musicians who are on the track. And that's the other important thing about Nashville, by the way. Nashville is the one place where you can find like-minded people, talented people who are just incredible musicians. And a lot of them aren't being given their due because of their opinions, right? And that's why actually we started the office in Nashville specifically to find those people and work with them. It's hard to imagine in these times how it is that you could be profitable trying to do what you're doing. journalist, he still works there, Andy Ngo, who covered Antifa and what Antifa was doing in Portland. We had another wonderful guy, Ari Hoffman, in Seattle. And so we had the Pacific Northwest covered. And as a result, we had tons and tons of boycotts, right? The thing that I

learned about conservative media is that we're looking for something to sell in the sense that people are looking for something to find hope in, right? They're looking for art. They're looking for culture because so much of music and movies and television spits in their face, for lack of a better term, insults them for having very simple fundamental values, for having children, for caring about your family, for wanting to make decisions about your own body. You're right. No business is guaranteed to be profitable. However, what I believe, at least in terms of the mission, is that we have to exist. This kind of art has to exist. And because I think that the success of this kind of art is inevitable, the success of the business, you know, God willing, there will be proper stewardship and

I won't do anything stupid, but God willing, it'll succeed as well. Well, you mentioned art and culture, but there's also news. And just before going back to the music for a moment, I want to touch on that. The post-millennial has been a very important media property in the ecosystem, which of course we look to very often. And to add to your point, absolutely people are looking for just something closer, approximating straight up news at the very least, or straight up news. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Tim Pool, for example, is an extremely talented guy and he reads post-millennial, right? Other than Timcast, if he's reading something, it's often post-millennial, right? And you mentioned that people at Epoch are reading us too.

When I founded post-millennial, that was the entire idea. I looked at conservative media and I saw that everybody's reacting to, let's say, the New York Times or, in my case, to CBC. Right. But very little on the ground reporting, very little simple relaying of the facts was being done. Right. And so we can't always be on the back foot. We have to be creating art. And by the same token, we have to be reporting just the news and just doing it well. And actually, that was before COVID. You saw what happened during COVID and how certain stories, the bias was reflected in terms of the stories they wouldn't share, that they wouldn't report on. And that's what Epoch Times does very well, by the way. Well, so Brad, I first heard you at the D.C. Defeat the Man Days March. I can't even remember

what year it was right now, but it was sort of one of these moments where a whole lot of people got together in this town to talk about many of the things that you sing about and write about in your songs. And apparently, I didn't know this until I just learned it, construct into your videos, which are remarkably creative. How is it that you went from, as I understand it, you know, construct into your videos, which are remarkably creative. How is it that you went from, as I understand it, you know, doing kids, kids music, and even before, just trace your journey here as a musician for me. Sure. So I started Five Times August right after high school. And, you know, for many years, a good decade, I was touring colleges, just sort of singing pop love songs that a lot of songs licensed to MTV shows and

different indie films and commercials and that's sort of what I was doing for a really long time then I took a break from that and actually started a whole new kids project called the juice box jukebox and I was making you know probably the most pure music I could put out there about kindness and being thankful but doing it in like a hip way my entire intention behind it was to create music that was fun for parents and in teachers that they could enjoy it just as much as the kids and throughout that time I was making videos to go along with those songs.

So then 2020 hits and I kind of stopped everything I'm doing musically and like I said examining the world around me and sort of took that little new skill set of making those videos and turned them into what I was doing now with sort of protest music. So it was an interesting arc to go from starting Five Times August to becoming a dad. And that's where my headspace was and focusing on my kids and putting out this, that music and then pivoting into a protest artist of all things. I never would have thought that for myself, but that's where the road has led. So did you think to yourself, okay, now I need to make protest music. No one else is doing it. I have to do it. Was that the thought process? Not necessarily, because there

have been guys that have been speaking out a little bit. I mean, Tom McDonald's a great example of somebody who really practices freedom of speech in his music and he's been around doing it for a while and that let me know it was okay to start sort of saying things that maybe might be considered taboo or something. I felt like I had to just almost honestly just vent as a songwriter. I released a song called God Help Us All and that was the first song that I put out in this trajectory of things. And I thought that would be the one song that, you know, my sort of one say on what was happening in the world. But what happened was I started getting all this new feedback from people discovering that song, saying,

thank you so much for saying what needed to be said. And that let me know I wasn't alone. And it let me know that I needed to write more songs like that to let others know they weren't alone. You know, protest movements, right? You kind of imagine them to be bottom up, right? Very grassroots, like, for example, the Truckers Convoy in Canada. I can't think of a more grassroots. I know people who are kind of trying to track it on the inside.

It was shockingly grassroots. Then on the other hand, you also have these protest movements, which are BLM, for example, like BLM, which are very top-down, like huge amounts of money pumped into it from the top. And also, I guess the imprimatur or the sort of acceptance of, I don't know, the system, I'll say that in quotes, that they're both protests, or are they? I'm curious what you think about that, Matt. What you see in the United States is that there's one part of the political system that is very much in favor of certain kinds of protests, even violent protests, right? For example, in the United States, everybody was told, you have to be inside. We're under lockdown. In Canada, we had a curfew, okay? But then the summer of love came, and suddenly, go out, protest for racial justice, the looting is peaceful, and you don't even need to be contact traced if you're at these events, right?

People weren't allowed to go to the park, okay? And we gave up so many of our freedoms, the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, all in the name of a medical emergency. And the reality is, we have to cherish our freedoms. And regardless of the reason, we can't surrender these fundamental freedoms, whatever they are, okay, because they're the things that make us American or Canadian or part of the Western world. You know, I think there's a clear system in place that is, there's one side of the aisle that has sort of controlled the narrative where everything is okay to speak up for this group of

things. If you speak up for this group of things, it's not okay. This group of things happens to have the megaphone, so you see it a lot more in mainstream media. And that's what sort of pushed through the mainstream mass narrative. And then on the other side of things, there are these simplistic values that are being attacked, and it's not okay. Well, and by the way, when we were running or when I was running the Postmillennial, if you tried to post anything at all about COVID, even just a completely milquetoast news story, algorithmically, you're getting annihilated immediately. The problem was for a non-mainstream publication to even talk about that at all. And that's why it's so critical that we have Twitter now and that Musk has democratized it. For example, we would have had no idea about Israel and Gaza,

what's going on, right? So it's extremely important that we have some semblance of reality that isn't the New York Times. Absolutely. So why don't you tell me a little bit about your journey from post-millennial to based and frankly before that? So the post-millennial started out as a small blog about Canadian politics. I met Ali Taghva, a Persian-Canadian journalist and entrepreneur and still a wonderful friend of mine.

We went out for Korean barbecue, and that was basically that. And admittedly, we had a more partisan approach than other news sources do, right? The Epoch Times, we had a far more, let's say, classically partisan approach than the Epoch Times, as an example. But over time, what we found was that simply reporting the facts was something that was so difficult to come across in Canada that we became one of the largest news sources in the country. There was a point where we were hitting between 3 and 4 million unique Canadian readers every single month. So that's, you know, think about that in terms of equivalent numbers in the United States. That's roughly 30 to 40 million people in terms of the absolute size of the population. And that was because in Canada, predating COVID, we had a very out of touch

mainstream media. It's to the point, by the way, where you can't share news on social media anymore on Facebook because the government honestly believes that people are on Facebook to read the CBC, which is absurd. I don't think any of the three of us have ever gone on Facebook just to find a CBC article. I could be wrong. But the point is that these people live in a bubble, right? It's a very narrow bubble of opinion. And when you actually try to democratize media and you try to share things with people, whether it's news or whether it's music, you're going to actually reach an audience because there are people who are desperate to be represented in the media that they see. And so given the success I had with

Post Millennial, and I was blessed by the way to have a wonderful team, and we have a fantastic team at Bass Records as well. We have Chris Wallen who worked with Brad on this single. Chris is a number one hit songwriter. He's had a hit, a number one hit with Toby Keith. I think it was Love Me If You Can, replaced by another number one hit with Kenny Chesney, which is Don't Blink, which is a phenomenal song if you haven't heard it. And we have incredible people in operations. We have incredible people in marketing. I think that what we can achieve with BASED is at the very least the beginning of a platform to start a real cultural movement. Because in the 60s, to their

credit, there were some incredibly talented filmmakers, songwriters, poets even, who changed society. And God willing, that's what we're going to have here at BASE too. So tell me a little bit more about your vision for your writing and your music. I think what I try to bring back with the music I'm writing now is something with meaning, something with substance, something that sounds like you haven't heard it in a while. That's a little familiar but also unfamiliar, like where has that been?

That's sort of the goal. It's what I love about music. It's what I grew up listening to. A lot of that music from the 50s and 60s and those artists that I admire. That's what I hope to bring back to music because a lot of music right now in the mainstream is sort of just fluff and it's just sort of there and doesn't really mean much. It's just marketing really. For a really long time in Hollywood, you know, we admire these people because they made a movie, right? Or because they made a song that we connect to. And then they win an award and they use that moment to pretty much just tell us how to live or what we need to support. And we're kind of tired of that in a little bit. I think that the average person is tired of that. But I think that that's going to be important moving forward in entertainment is who's making the entertainment

that we are all absorbing. But actually, if you're saying you're getting involved in culture or the culture war, that's what I'm hearing when I read this. That is also kind of telling people how they should live a bit, isn't it? Well, culture matters, right? The stories that we tell each other, they matter. And the music we listen to matters. It's not a command. I don't want to tell anybody that they have to do anything. But a suggestion, maybe you could be a nice person. Maybe you should give people the freedom to make their own decisions. Maybe you should allow people to assemble freely. Those are the things we value. Brad, I can't help but think I want to go back to listening to the music that you made for kids. It's become morally acceptable to manipulate people. I doubt any of your songs are about how

that's the case, right? Right. No, especially with the kids stuff. I mean, that was the most pure, honest stuff I could put out into the world that had absolutely no agenda to it. It was sort of just, you know, in a way, a gift to other families to say, you know what, when you need a break from the agenda stuff or you don't want to question what it is that your kids are watching, you know, just listen to this stuff. Well, the, you know, so-called woke culture, right? There's a kind of, you know, there's a really excellent book titled Cynical Theories that kind of explains sort of the birth of woke culture and how it works. And specifically that it's very cynical, and people that believe this deeply have a very cynical view of humanity. They view every interaction like ours right now would be viewed as a power play. It's just my attempt to exert power over you, your attempt to exert power over me. That's how things work, right? So when you're going out and you're saying things like,

you know, just kindness is incredibly important, and this is how you should be, that's actually an incredibly subversive thing in this day and age, bizarrely. You know, what do you think, Matt? Yeah, to be earnestly kind. Yeah, it's a little controversial. I don't know. Yeah, it is. Is it worth the risk? As far as what's happening in culture right now, it's the fact that there are values that are being lost within the culture. I think what's happening in the mainstream avenue is that there's this constant push to be more and more controversial as far as

what it is you're doing. You know we're seeing rappers now doing lap dances on with the devil or we're seeing videos music videos where it pretty much just looks like you're in a strip club for the entire three and a half minutes. I think people are just getting tired of that so like these simple messages are it pretty much just looks like you're in a strip club for the entire three and a half minutes. I think people are just getting tired of that. So these simple messages are just sort of reminders of there's innocence out there to be celebrated as well. Absolutely. Well, the thing to remember also is throughout this entire cultural revolution from the 60s onward,

the satanic imagery and stuff like that, it's used in abundance we've always decried it at the end of the day we shouldn't be shocked we shouldn't even be horrified anymore we should just laugh at it right because it's so clearly absurd at the end of the day the best revenge is to live well and you just have to laugh about it, because if you don't laugh, you're going to cry. Why do you think that imagery is so popular? And, you know, specifically, I'm thinking about this, these awards that happened, you know, recently, where it was just like the most kind of extreme version of this somehow. I think it's just part of the demoralization of America. When you're pushing it further and further along the way, just to sell records, just to make money, just to drive an agenda home, it's just going to keep getting worse and worse and worse until I think eventually it does come back around to those more

simplistic values. You can only push it so far before people start going, well, we've seen that. What else is there out there? One of your songs, if I recall correctly, got to number five on iTunes. Do I have that right? The most recent one, I think, got to number three on the singer-songwriter chart. So far, as of the date of this recording, God willing, we're going to get up there on the total chart. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, Sad Little Man got to pretty far up there.

Actually, the entire album that I put out last year, that was all protest music. The album was called Silent War. That got up to number five on the iTunes charts, and hopefully we'll do the same thing even further with the new single. What was the reaction of the music industry, aside from bass records coming and saying, we want you?

Yeah, I think that when they see success, the idea is just to sort of either ignore you or take you out of certain things. Like along the way in my journey of releasing these songs, it's sort of been a stair step to the realization that there is very much an agenda to silence you. I mean, I've had my Wikipedia page deleted. I've had... Wait, deleted completely?

Completely. So the five times August Wikipedia page was up for like 10 years, wasn't bothering anybody. It wasn't taking up prime real estate. But after I released a song called Sad Little Man about Anthony Fauci, I guess I pushed the wrong buttons with some of the overlords on the internet and they just completely removed my page. And what the pretext was? The pretext was that I wasn't relevant enough to be on Wikipedia. You were relevant for the past 10 years, but suddenly. Yeah, all of a sudden. I mean, comical isn't the right word, but it got removed precisely because it became more relevant. Right, exactly. Right.

And those are the tactics. I mean, I think the idea is that they would rather just try to erase you from the conversation altogether. It's the same thing with YouTube. They've attacked a lot of my videos and just have pulled them without any warning whatsoever. You mentioned the megaphone. I actually use that term as well. I think of it as the mechanism that's used to manufacture perceived consensus in society. I don't know if that's what you were, when you say the megaphone, if that's what you were, just the giant machine. In a Chomskyite fashion, manufactured consent, that type of thing, Jan? I suppose the thing that I observed was we're very susceptible to the idea that the people around us

think a certain way about something, especially if it's a lot of people. It's sort of like, well, that's just how things are. And even if you're very contrarian, like unfortunately or unfortunately I am in a lot of ways, I realize I myself am quite susceptible to that perception. is consensus view is actually, as you were pointing out, a very, very tiny sliver of society that actually believes it, but just has the ability to push it through the culture, to push it through society. That's what I'm talking about. Well, it's a civil religion, right? There's a set of secular precepts that we all seem to just take on faith alone, right? So the COVID crisis or the COVID pandemic rather wasn't the only thing on the agenda, right? It was also, for example, the climate crisis that got paired right alongside it, right? There were protests in Brooklyn, for example, for Black trans individuals, right? Happening at the exact same time that Hasidic Jews were getting arrested

for attending funerals. What we as a society, as we've become less Christian and as we've become less Gnomian, is we're trying to find new ways to express that very necessary religious aspect of our identity. Pardon me, less gnomian? Gnomian. So Carl Schmitt defined the Greek word gnomos as meaning the ethics of a polity when it begins to occupy a space. Meaning, for example, our founding fathers, right? They wrote the constitution, right? The American nomian ethic is freedom of speech, for example, the ability to own a firearm. Core, core, core values, core assumptions about what is good in the world. That's what we're talking about. Absolutely. And in America, it's the constitution and in Christianity, it's a Judeo-Christian ethic. And both were torn apart effectively by our response to COVID and our response to each other,

where we as Americans were refusing to talk to each other. We're refusing to love each other. But the message has to be that we have to rekindle that love for each other. Because at the end of the day, we're part of the greatest country on earth, right? So there's no reason we should be at each other's throats. Why do you think the whole music industry is so, why do you think it's gone in this direction? You know, we'll call it the progressive direction, call it the antinomian direction. Yeah, I think that it's an organic unfolding of events.

I used to make a joke where I would say, this is all Elvis's fault for shaking his hips on TV. But really there's some truth to it because that hadn't been seen before when he appeared on Ed Sullivan and shook his hips. That was controversial back then. And then the next thing you know, the Beatles come along and long hair is something and then free love, make love not war, that became a thing. And so over the decades, it just has naturally unfolded where some of it I think was innocent and wasn't intentional. Eventually, there's been underlying satanic themes

for just shock value, right? But eventually those themes get taken hold of by a generation and brought into another generation and are taken more seriously. It's just organically unfolded in that direction to where it's a constant, a constant desire to push the boundaries. That's very interesting.

Matt, what do you think? Is it organic to push the boundaries or an agenda-driven thing? I don't think that it's agenda. I think everything is just as stupid as it appears, just as stupid and accidental. An instructive example of this is if you look, actually, there's a church of Satan, I think, and I think the head is some guy in Austin, Texas. But when he talks, you know, there's not even any, they're not sacrificing a goat, you know,

for example, in the satanic temple of Austin, right? There's no child sacrifice. I mean, come on. Again, I'm not advocating for it. I want to be very clear. No, but the point is, no, he just sounds like a moralizing Calvinist or something like that. He just sounds like a CNN news anchor, right? So at the end of the day, people say things for status. They want to look cool. They want to have prestige. And in the name of that idol of prestige, we've just gone down a rabbit hole of stupidity in order to look cooler to each other.

Well, so let me use that as an example for a moment, right? Because, yes, the satanic church, so to speak, what it is about, though, is very much is kind of the inversion of all the Judeo-Christian values. So to me, that suggests a very deliberate attempt to foster a different kind of culture, a different kind of mentality, as opposed to something accidental. That is an example. And you have, you know, Herbert Rockstar, Berkeley, you know, philosopher Herbert Marcuse back in the day, concept of repressive tolerance, essentially saying, you know, if you are, if you have a progressive left wing view, all you do is morally right. If you have a progressive left-wing view, all you do is morally right. If you have a conservative traditional view, everything you do is morally wrong, and you have to struggle in the appropriate way to get rid of those things.

So to me, there seems to be some sort of, it's not just happenstance, whether it's the satanic church or whether it's accepting of these progressive values as creed. I mean, you talked to yourself earlier about this religion, right? Secular religion. I think Ariel Pink made a very good point about this. It was just in some kind of offhand tweet. But his point was, if you were really anti-Christian, would you begin doing all of the terrible things that Christianity says that an anti-Christian person is going to do, the traditional argument behind abortion was, well, you know, it's not a wonderful thing, but unfortunately it has to happen sometimes. That's what it was. And now it's a completely different thing, right? Now you have people like Marina Abramovich, who I think was awarded some kind of a role with Ukraine for whatever reason of all these, of all these,

who's, you know, she's an artist, kind of a shocked, kind of a sensationalist artist. And so much of her art is simply about that subject of abortion and lionizing it, right? So at the end of the day, it's kind of easy to sort of predict where our society is headed because it's just of easy to sort of predict where our society is headed because it's just decaying, right? So it's like the thing that we're doing now that's pretty bad, right? So like forcing in Canada, if you didn't get a COVID vaccine, you couldn't ride a bus, all right? You couldn't go to the grocery store, all right? You couldn't watch your wife give birth to your child, okay? Often you couldn't receive medical treatment right so

if you were on a list to get organs for example a new kidney and in canada most people die before they ever get uh you know and working on the donor list that's for many different reasons but we took people who were about to get organ transplants we we took them off. We essentially said, you're not getting a vaccine, you're going to die, okay? And it's not our problem. And now, if you look at what's happening with medical assistance in dying in Canada, as of March 17th in 2024, people just with mental illnesses are going to be able to have access to a made provision, meaning that a nurse is going to be able to kill them if a couple of doctors sign a waiver. Okay. So it's very predictable. It's very sad. But is it a central, for example, conspiracy?

Unfortunately, we're just as stupid as we seem. That's my opinion. You know, Brad, you mentioned global tyranny. I think one of the earliest things you mentioned in our interview, and I wanted to go back to what do you mean when you say that? What I'm referring to are all of the mandates and restrictions that were put in place that happened all around the world during COVID. were put in place that happened all around the world during COVID. I mean, people were being told to stay home, stay away from your friends, your family, don't speak up, you know, subconsciously, cover your mouth. So there was a lot of that happening. And it wasn't just in cities. It wasn't just in states.

It was the entire world in every country. Are you seeing what you're doing, respectively, in your music and, you know, I guess in the music industry, based as a kind of like a renewal to counter that degradation that you're describing? I think so. It's interesting that, you know, to speak out against those things is now the counterculture to speak up. It's a weird inversion of what it used to be because you're still speaking out against the man. You're still anti-establishment. But because you're not going along with the government and what they're telling you to do, you're the bad guy. It's a weird, like I i said inversion of what being anti-establishment used to be 100 but that's why we can bring this cultural revolution and do our best to impart it

well cultural revolution you typically think of the destruction of culture no famine not right no famine this time so well you just mean something different by culture i don't mean like now's cultural revolution god forbid cancel culture right well and that's the thing right like at the end of the day if you're a an incredible poet an incredible songwriter an artist who can you work with there needs to be an underlying infrastructure for talented people and the thing that we're so bad at, people who are not part of this, I don't know what you want to call it, system or, you know, this oligarchy kind of bureaucracy, we're terrible at organizing with each other

and supporting each other. I'm a singer-songwriter, a little bit an amateur, amateur, but that's not my job. My job is to support people like Brad. It's to support the other artists we have, like Chad Prather, so that their music and great music can come to the forefront of the American conversation. Ain't No Rock and Roll is a piece of art that's a testament to what the Western world lived under during COVID. Because it's important that we don't let anybody ever forget. We can't allow that to be erased, that memory. There are all sorts of people now claiming that they never told us to wear masks, for example. It's completely absurd.

But that song is going to last, right? And that's the legacy that we're trying to leave for our children, which is the legacy of living in the truth. You know, and you also write about that in the American Beat, right? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, at the American Beat, it's a side project that we're getting together. We want to talk more about culture. We want to talk more about culture. We want to talk more about art.

We want to talk about aesthetics. All right. I mean, you look at what Rolling Stone did and how they lionized the Boston bomber. And people understand now the Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone magazine. Right. It's not it's certainly not a countercultural magazine anymore, right? It's another tentacle of power, right? And it's a depressing realization to have.

What's in the future for Five Times August here? Well, we're going to put this song out, and it's out now, Ain't No Rock and Roll, and see where it goes with bassed records. I'm really happy that something like bassed records exists right now. I think that's really important. You know, what's bubbling up right now in this sort of counterculture arena is things that didn't exist three years ago. So bassed records didn't exist three years ago, and that's exciting because now it's here. Now there is an avenue for artists like me

to work with and collaborate and find other artists, and we are finding each other. You know, I've connected with so many different artists over the last three years where we all support one another. That support system is in place. We want to collaborate with one another. And so I look forward to doing that over the next year or so and seeing where those collaborations lead to. You know, there's a whole parallel economy, right, that's been developing in the, you know, as I guess Vaclav Havel conceptualized it back in the day. And this is, you're very much part of that ecosystem.

Listen, if we're as successful as the Velvet Revolution, and we have our own Charter 77, right? And somehow I'm elected the president of a new regime of, you know, of New America, you know, I'll take it, you know, that probably won't happen. All right. Apparently you have some pretty high ambitions, Matt. Well, listen, I want to start a successful record label. Let's start there. That's a pretty monumental ambition, actually, all things considered. So where can we find the song?

You're able to find it wherever music is streamed. And we're actually very excited to announce that we're going to have Mr. Five Times here on vivo on YouTube, which is hopefully going to really take our movement forward culturally and just introduce us to a huge audience. Well, so I think we have to hear the song. So maybe we'll actually finish up with that. Matt Azrieli, Brad Skistema, such a pleasure to have had you on. Thanks for having us. Thanks, Jan. Ever since they sold out Rolling Stone All the words that were sung in the past Will never feel the same when we're looking back All the old men sitting in their makeup chairs

With their gold record walls really couldn't care All the fame feels the same when you've had enough, so they don't bother standing up. Because every pop star's bought and sold. No, there ain't no, ain't no rock and roll. Thank you all for joining Matt Esrielli and Brad Skistamis and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek. Well, there ain't no rock and roll Ever since they sold out Rolling Stone All the words that were sung in the past Will never feel the same when we're looking back

All the old men sitting in their makeup chair With their gold record walls really couldn't care All the fame feels the same when you've had enough So they don't bother standing up and there ain't no peace in love ever since the 60s kids grew up all the drugs and the girls and the cash after all the songs it was gone in a flash all those bad boy rebels in the attitude After all the songs, it was gone in a flash. All those bad boy rebels in the attitude. What a show, we didn't know that none of it was true.

Only self-serve, anti-establishment. We were all so innocent. Because there ain't no rock and roll. Thank you. No, there ain't no, ain't no rock and roll And there ain't no Jonah, no Bob No one stuck around for their protest job All the stars in the big farm of whores Chilling for a check from their corporate shores All the actors say what they're paid to say While the fans take the blame

All the once cool fools that were me and you Well, they pushed us all away Because there ain't no rock and roll That were me and you. Well, they pushed us all away. Because there ain't no rock and roll. And the blues has lost its soul. All the punks gave the man control. And every punk star's balling so so No, there ain't no Ain't no rock and roll

And there ain't no boss, no queen Never was a rage against the damn machine No, there ain't no fighter in the fool no more rocking in those free world shoes all the high strong neo young wannabes

yeah their silence has been deafening all the suits lick the boots of the government what they sang they never meant Because there ain't no rock and roll And the blues has lost its soul All the punks gave the man control

And every pop star's falling So, no, there ain't no Ain't no rock and roll No, there ain't no Ain't no rock and roll No, there ain't no rock and roll No, there ain't no Ain't no rock and roll No, there ain't no

Ain't no rock and roll Oh, oh, oh.