Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Anti-Flag

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

This week on Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Chris No. 2 and Justin Sane of Anti-Flag. In the episode, Madden and the members of Anti-Flag discuss providing an inclusive environment at their shows, why Irish music is “rebel music,” and bringing along Punk Rock Saves Lives on their recent tour. Check out Anti-Flag's 13th studio album, Lies They Tell Our Children, released this past January. Additionally, Anti-Flag will celebrate their 30th anniversary as a band this year. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠Spotify.⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? It's Joel Madden. This is artist-friendly from Alternative Press. And today, I'm talking to anti-flag. Chris, Justin. What's up? How's it going, guys? It's going great. We've been on tour for a long time. Yeah, you guys never stopped touring. Yeah, well, that is true. We did get to stop touring when everybody got to stop touring, which was kind of sick. the death and the displays of inhumanity weren't sick, but a couple of guys who have never been home since they were 15 years old being at home for two years was kind of was an okay blessing,

sort of, kind of wild. Yeah. But this has been like we're in week seven right now, a tour of flogging, Molly and Skinny Lister, which the upside to it is you get to hang out with amazing friends. That's what rocks. And we knew going in that, you know, going out with them was going to be cool. But we also knew that we would hit this wall, which we have literally just hit.

Where you're like, maybe this tour should have been a week shorter. But truthfully, I mean, like last night, the show in Vegas, it was okay. Yeah, Vegas is weird sometimes. Yeah. But it was like to whenever I've finished, I was like, There's only three of these left. And it's remarkable to me, the amount of gratitude that we have for this entire thing is just heightened now, kind of going back to it being removed from our lives for so long. And, you know, often there are times when the cynicism will win and you're like, oh, man, a band like anti-flex has been banging our head against the wall for 30 years.

Like, we're still just doing our best. It's been 30 years. Yeah, this year's the 30th anniversary. years. God damn. So, you know, you guys don't look old enough to be in a day for 30 years. Thank you. That was the hour of makeup that we got before we sat in the chair.

Hair and makeup. We all just came from hair and makeup. Told a unicorn blonde we drink. It's never a good sign, Joel, when you get from hair and makeup and they put you in a hat. That's me. That's me. The first hair is the number one in hair and makeup. Yeah.

Well, you know, though, it is. And like we met on WarpTor, right? And like I used to get this thing. Like you would think after, I don't know, how long was WarpTor? It was like, it was a long time? Was it a long time like 10? A month and a half or? No, it was three months almost.

Oh God, whatever. 10 to 12 weeks, something like that. I know though that at the end of it, I would start to get depressed. Right. And like I last night, like coming back to it too, it was saying like I was thinking like, physically, I'm feeling it. But like, I was like, man, I'm going to go home. And I'm going to be.

all alone. Like, and I'm going to miss these people. Yeah. It's going to be really strange. And, and, like, and, you know, a tour is, like, this is the most quiet room I've been in. Yeah. And seven weeks. Like, there's always other people around being rowdy or just talking or, like, noise from a band in the background or whatever it is. And I was thinking, I was like, man, I'm going to walk in my front door. It's going to be so quiet. I was like, I got to have somebody meet me at home because it's just going to be like it's going to trip me out how long of a break do you get after this tour three weeks almost yeah so it's so we start back up um the second week of april um so so it's really like 19 days something like that 18 days it's not that long it's not that long

but sort of our whole year too like you're like you were like you were saying like we really we we grind yeah and we're we're gonna grind this year you know it's it's interesting though because we're spending more time in America this year than we usually do. Because Europe has been so kind to the band and so important to us feeling like our artistic growth is happening. They've been able to allow us to grow, but also like accept the failures of that growth. Yeah. Like there's something about making art. Like it's never it's never a science.

It's all, it's going to have peaks and valleys and failures and successes. Three steps forward. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's it. Like if somebody expects every record you make to be better than the last, that's an impossible achievement. Or to be the same.

Yeah. And to be the thing that they loved last time. Yeah. Yeah. But you're about, there's a real like appetite for, for new music. And it seems like they just digest it differently. Yeah. I feel the same way.

for whatever reason over the years, it was way more gratifying putting out a new record and going to Europe than America for some reason. I don't know what it is. Because, I mean, there's the front pocket ideal

where you want to keep that thing here and it's yours. And, you know, I don't know what that is about American culture or what that says about. I'm not a psychologist. I'm wearing my St. Pauley hat and my,

St. Pauli t-shirt and for those who don't know it's an anti-fascist soccer club in Hamburg Germany and like it it anti-fascist soccer club yeah I mean it's the in the top league never heard of that oh it's the bomb and it's the thing that's wild about it is it it harkens us back to like our early days in punk which were and I'm sure you ran into this in Maryland like when we got into the scene in Pittsburgh it was like there There was really cool elements of it that were really exciting and cool and things that we were really into. Like, you know, it was like open-minded in so many ways. And like, you know, there'd be like openly gay people in the scene, which like 30 years ago didn't really exist anywhere else in our culture. It was tough 30 years ago. Yeah. And like, you know, just like the acceptance of other ideas was like was in that scene in a way that it wasn't anywhere else in our lives. Also just in the way that it was like, yo, make up your own roles. Like there's no one here to tell you.

like what you absolutely have to be. But there came a point where there was a group of us in the scene that were, they were like, yo, there's Nazis here. Like, we don't want Nazis here. And so we basically like ran them out. You know, like that was a thing, right? We're like, we're going to turn this scene into what we want it to be. We don't want people here who are like, like sexist, homophobic, racist.

We want to build something that is like, if I want that, I could get that down at the corner diner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That was pretty much there, right? We were like, we want to build something that's counterculture, something that's with, you know, outside of that. What's cool about this football club is it was the same thing where the, when the industrial base dropped out of Hamburg, much like it did in many parts of the United States,

like the Midwest, where we grew up in Pittsburgh, steel mills pulled out all of a sudden, you know, you're living in basically the Great Depression, right? Same thing happened in a lot of other countries. So when their industry went overseas, all of a sudden, you know, the people who are solidly middle class are poor, neighborhoods are declining. You know, the infrastructure is falling apart. And when that happens in a lot of cities in a neighborhood that gets abandoned like that, the artist move in because it becomes cheap. So in this particular part of Hamburg, it's called St. Pauli. And the punks and the artists, they moved into that part of town.

And they, you know, they would hang out and just have house punk shows and all that kind of stuff. And they realized that there was a football team like up at the other part, the other end of the street pretty much. So they started going to the football games They're like, yeah, it's great. It's fun to drink beer. It's a lot more fun to drink beer up in the football game. So what they realized, though, was like, there were also like a Nazi element hanging out at those games.

And they were like, fuck that. Let's just run these motherfuckers out. So that's what they did, which I just love that story, though, because there's such a parallel to our scene in Pittsburgh. And a lot of places in North America. I know when we toured early on, you know, there was a lot of that shit going. Yeah. I think there's a parallel to be made to present day, too.

And that simply is that in these moments of suffering that we're in, like we're in currently in the world where there's so much division, you know, war in Ukraine, police murder the rates that it's at, et cetera, et cetera, economic constraints being what they are. People look for the quickest solution to that suffering. And often they blame their neighbor, they blame the immigrant, they blame the refugee, and that's what creates these sex. And that's why you see such a rampant rise in, you know, racist, sexist tropes being brought out to allow the powerful to maintain their power. So I think that we're constantly looking for ways to challenge those with whatever we have within our means.

Well, yeah, I mean, if you're Ron DeSantis, you want to scapegoat somebody's scapegoat the most vulnerable in our society, trans people. Right, exactly. So that's what you see happening now is you see these people in power that are taking these like hot button issues that are coming up with their base, right? Like the crime is up likely because of all these reasons over here. Or it's not even up. It's just like, you know. But so so you guys have always kind of been. outspoken against those things, right?

Yeah, I mean, again, it's about, it changes. And it ebbs and flows with our understanding of ourselves and what our roles are as artists and as a band through it. At first, you know, maybe you're naive and you think I'm going to write a song on Tuesday and Wednesday racism will be gone. And then you realize it doesn't work like that. That's not how people experience music. That's not how people experience art.

That's not how the world gets changed via those vehicles. So then it kind of changes and adapts. Now, I think that for us individually and collectively, the whole thing is about the alleviation of suffering. And if it happens at the show, it's about telling the trans folks that are there that they're welcome. The women that are under attack by draconian abortion laws across America, that they're welcome.

You know, it's that simple. Like, hey, here's an hour of punk music. where you're okay to be yourself. And that alleviation of suffering might be all that's within our power at that time. Sometimes it extrapolates into the tour and you raise money and you build a well in Africa or you do certain tasks like that that you kind of are able to sharpen the focus of that alleviation of suffering. But the butterfly effect of what you could do for someone at your show, so this is what I think

about when you hear you say that. I go, okay, they're out there every night doing. you know the Lord's work right the actual Lord yeah yeah the doing God's work which Lord we don't know whatever whatever I mean it in the

in the big sense of the right thing right when I think of that I think of the right to do the right thing versus the wrong thing you're at your show you have thousands of people and in that crowd there's that one person that either A, needed to hear it because they were on the verge of something terrible.

You know, and we all know the truth of what kids who are going through living in a small town. Yeah. They're gay. They're trans. When we were growing up, it was impossible for you to be anything, whether it was gay or trans or punk or anything that wasn't just in the group. Yeah. Yeah.

You have this, I think about this when you say that, because I don't think, but I think there's a, there's a really important value to the hand-to-hand combat of meeting people, talking to people, or standing in front of a small group of people who are, you know, and with, with punk music, you could say it it's we we were we were talking earlier about we see this trend happening where kids are getting guitars and they want to get into bands and they're starting to get into punk again but you could say that it's not it's not the most in vogue thing right now to be in a punk band like a true you know punk band right yeah and we could have a whole other podcast episode on the which is cool i get right because there's so much out there too like you were saying that wasn't

available for us for kids to discover. Right. So I get it where they might go in another direction. And that's dope. So, please finish it. So all the people that have come to this show have chosen, really chosen to be there. So it's a special kind of person, right? That's looking for something.

And I think that the opportunity that you have every night that you're acting on is making people feel good about themselves and their decisions and who they are. and I think the thing that we struggle with is self-acceptance and self-love and to be comfortable in our skin. And I think when someone is living somewhere where they're not accepted, every single day, every single day that wears on them. And there can be points where they can go down really dark roads until there's a moment where they can go down really dark roads until there's a moment where they, they feel loved and they feel accepted and that that to me is not a look we're in a dangerous lane where it's like we're patting ourselves on the back for for doing this thing that is that I'm patting you on the back you you know you guys don't pat yourselves in the back enough but what I'm saying

is is that person you help them realize something about themselves you help them have a moment that kept them on the path what the future will become from that person we don't know yet. That's what I'm saying is the, yeah. And I hate to, to jump off and get too heavy too quickly. Right. But that's a two way street. I love to get heavy quickly. That's a two way street. So, so, so a great example is, um, you know, anti flag's been a band for quite some time. Um, I experienced some heavy trauma in my life. My sister's killed. My sister's murdered. Um, it's, It's obviously painful for my actual family, but then it extends into this world because we're on the road when it happens and we've got to get home immediately and everybody's unsure

of what's going to do. And then I disappear for two months. And then there's like a year and a half of criminal trials and like all of this terrible shit that goes along with it. Until I shared that story and then interacted with people at the shows who. shared their trauma with me, I wasn't, I wasn't grieving my process at all. I was just living through it and doing the work. And then I thought, well, I'm in a punk band and we go on tour and we got to write records and this is what we do. And I just got back on the escalator. And then when you start

to let it out what's going on in your world, that person who you might be talking about who experienced something that was important to them at that show in the moment, that person gave it right back to me. Wow. And that happens to us all the time. Yeah, yeah. I think that that reciprocation is what separates the entity of punk rock. Yeah. And what we kind of hold to be, it's like greatest value.

Yeah. And like, you know, there's so many negatives in social media. One of the benefits is, and I would, you know, 100% agree with what two is saying and add that, you know, whether it's at a show or whether it's on. social media you know when you put out to people that you you've gone through something horrible what you find is you're not alone yeah people yeah there's every there's so many other people have gone through something similar and then when you start to connect with them and talk with them that's when the healing can actually begin people find comfort together i think music is is the most

healing our form um not only us that get to make it you know and the people they get to listen to it, but together there's this kind of magic in a room. Well, yeah, I mean, how many times have you just been standing there listening to a band you've never heard before and all of a sudden something stirs in you and you can't even describe it or understand why it's happening to you? Yeah, I immediately think, how can I steal that?

I want that feeling all the time. I want to harness it and bottle it and bring it. Yeah, I mean. But I do believe, though, like, you know, sort of like the motto from the beginning of the band was that, you know, a show should be a place where everybody can come and have an equal opportunity to have a good time and to be accepted, you know, as long as they're treating other people respectfully. Yeah, and that means dismantling the machismo bullshit. That means dismantling

the racism and bigotry that exists in all aspects of our world. And, you know, there's a lot of conversations in the ether about what that is and how do we attack it from political policy or how do we attack it from, you know, mutual aid and community organizing. We're just talking about how we attack it as a band and how we try to create, like I said, for just a few hours, this space where it doesn't exist. And sometimes you succeed. Sometimes the macho guys fight during the show and then you got to make them kiss or get thrown out of the building and that's always a fun experiment to do too um yeah and and it usually works because because the other part of the show is that the show should be a good time yeah and you know like we don't want people to come to the show and

and have to have a serious time in the show yeah it's not a TED talk yeah you know like that the first thing that drew me into punk i got there i was like this is sick like people are stage diving Fuck, yeah. And like, and, you know, there were some shows I'd go to and it would be like super violent. And I'm like, this sucks. Yeah, that was always scary whenever. Like as a kid, when you go, the first few punk shows that I went to, I was 14, 15. And they were like, it was like a very hardcore presence.

There was like a hardcore music. And for people listening that aren't as into punk and don't know as much about it or, you know, it certainly still exists. But back in the 90s, it was very kind of like the subgenre. us were even just so divided. And if you weren't this or you weren't that or you did this. So there was like all these hardcore kids and they would all fight. And when you're just getting into it, you're like, you go there and you're like terrified.

You're like, oh my God. They're beating each other up. Which I fucking hated that. And that was why when we started the band, it was like, okay, how can we have shows where there aren't fights? Yeah. Like how can we have shows where people just have a good time? As bad as we are at the internet.

Yeah. Me too. Because I don't, yeah, I don't particularly care. It's hard to keep up. Yeah. I will say that I'm really grateful that the internet broke down the tribalism. Right. It did.

Because now people listen to all sections and genres of music and they're not beholden to a label or a, you know. And so I do find it interesting that, you know, they're on the brain because they're around this building. But you'll find anti-flag next to architects. Yeah. And that to me is, that's the world I want to live in because that's kind people. Yeah. Goodhearted people. Yeah.

And that's it. Kindness will win. It's a revolutionary act in 2023 to be kind. So, I mean, if you want to be dark. If you want to, yeah. Isn't it weird that now the norm is not nice, is not kindness? The norm is kind of like throwing shit at each other. Yeah.

Well, I mean, but it's also like who you're talking about because I definitely, I definitely, think like with younger kids the norm actually is like moving towards kindness and I I think it's because they're they just don't have a lot of power yeah yeah you know but you know they're sick of like or the recognition recognition of their power because they do have a lot of power yeah yeah and they I think actually they are coming into recognizing that but I mean you know you do enough like gun drills at school you know and you're like oh this kind of sucks or like you know your friend's not your friend who you love because you grew up with them and you know you know now they're 15 and they feel like they have a place where they can come out and say that they're

gay to you you're like oh i guess gay people aren't that bad it's pretty shitty that there's all these homophobic motherfuckers out there so i think like young people are moving in that direction which is yeah it is like incredibly excited or they saw i definitely notice that with my own kids they're teenagers and they don't know they don't have a they don't care about what anyone they They don't, it's weird if you even bring up what, like a label. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's weird if you, if you mention someone is gay or if you mention someone's this. Yeah.

They're, they're so like, it's just normal for everyone to be whoever they are. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, which is dope. It's like exciting. Yeah. But I wonder, is that because we live in a city? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I wonder.

That's what I do wonder that. Yeah. I would, I would make an argument. It's because they're yours. kids too. Maybe, maybe. But truthfully, I do think that most teenagers live that way. I think the internet's a big part of it too. The internet broke it down really big. And I, I can see like, you know, it's wild like about the power of the internet. And again, like, it's cool to me right now because the internet is so evil. I mean, there's so much bad about it. But we've hit on,

we did destroy democracy. But that's good. Let's talk about white screen. But we are hitting on the cool shit about it. But even like when we tour, there was a time where like, you know, things that we were bringing to a city, the people in that, and that, you know, city had never seen. It was like Quebec City, which was like, you know, the furthest reaches of North America. They spoke a different language, so it was very exotic to us at the time. Yeah, or Santiago, you know, wherever. But we go to these places now and people are actually asking us,

questions about the things from where we're from. Which, you know, and that's exciting because they're excited by it because, like, they found it like, oh, wow, that's a really interesting part of your culture. You can make up an argument or a parallel to, you know, travel. And as a band, we got to travel very young. As a band, you got to travel very young. The internet is just people's travel. How old were you guys when you started?

You were a little older. I joined the band when I was 16. Okay. At the end of 98. And Justin and Pat started the band in 93 when they were... Yeah, yeah. I mean, dude, I don't... I didn't really get on a plane until I was like 19.

Me. And I, yeah. And I flew from San Francisco where Pat and I had driven out to. I flew from San Francisco back to Pittsburgh. That was my first. My mom, Justin's dad was an immigrant from Ireland. My mom came from Italy when she was 13. Oh, wow.

And she got a job at the airline so she could get cheap tickets. And so I flew to Italy very young. So immigrant parents come here. How do they feel about punk bands? Because it feels like... We got two different stories. But he's also the youngest of nine. Right.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So by the time they got to him, they were done. Whatever, kid. Yeah. We want to be a kid. We're 16 and get in a van and go to DC. Yeah.

They're like, please. Just go anywhere. Yeah, please go away. DC, the black cat. That's going back. Which is wild because some dude, like right before they opened doors, some dude in just underwear and like no other clothes in a handgun just came running up the street. DC was wild in the 90s.

It was wild, man. And everybody in the crowd lurched out of the way. It's like wild. But yeah, I mean, I was the youngest and nine. And with my dad, you know, being from Ireland. and then both of my mom's parents were from Ireland. Right. And even my grandfather spoke Gaelic and wrote in Gaelic.

He never learned to write English. Like his signature was an X. I was like, so, but we were just like, like, oh, by the way, guys, happy St. Patrick's Day. Oh, yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah, I mean, yeah. You didn't realize that. There we go. That's how Irish you like.

I'm so Irish. I'm so Irish that my grandparents. that my grandma in Ireland would pick shamrock and send it to us in Pittsburgh. Wow. So we used to go to school on St. Patrick's Day with Shamrock on, which I thought was pretty sick as a little kid. That's cool. But so I was just like so incultrated in Irish music and Irish culture. And like it's there's so many elements to it in it.

But like obviously like Irish music was was rebel music, you know? And so, you know, my parents, like, I think when my oldest brothers and sisters brought punk around, my parents were like, oh, yeah, we're down with this. Like, we get it, you know. His parents were activists. They, they were protesting the Vietnam War. They had opened a vegetarian restaurant in Pittsburgh, which was one of the first to happen there. Like, they were fucking cool. Yeah.

They were, they were like hippies, but they were strange hippies and that they didn't. do drugs. Okay. My dad didn't even drink. Wow. Yeah, which is like, but that comes back to the whole- Which is why they kicked him out of Ireland. Yeah.

Yeah. We don't need to be. I'll be around with your patty. You won't drink the whiskey. But, uh, but yeah, like, um, but that is part, that, that came from, like being Catholic, you know, Irish Catholic, where. So you were raised Catholic? So I dodged that bullet.

Okay. I dodged that bullet. That seemed like a very non-anty Catholic. flag. Yeah. Right. Religion. Well, again, like, at all.

I'm not, I'm not Catholic either, so. Yeah. Well, I assume that though you guys were raised with religion. Born again. Heavy. Born again. Yeah. And that's so you had to go to like CCD and stuff.

All kinds of stuff. And it was really, really, really traumatic. Yes. So. When I met you, I could feel that we had to say. Were you in there too? Because I got. I, I, I, we were trying to scare us.

When we first met, I wasn't completely free from it. I felt like it took me till my late 20s to understand. Oh, yeah. It creeps its way in all the time. And I'm like, why did I just say or react that way? Yeah. I went to that programming school. Yeah, like a shiver.

You know, and I really struggled for a long time to have my own, to make my own sense of the world. And it took me until I was probably 30 when I actually started like making sense of the world, I think, in a real, my own, I gathered my own information and I made sense of what had happened to me because we had a, I had a pretty traumatic childhood. God bless my parents, as we all, you know, my parents tried their best. So, so I'm not blaming anyone. It is what it is, but they were very wrapped up in a church that was involved in like every single decision and all the people and the and I remember being young going like none of you seem happy.

None of you seem like you're that successful. Yeah, yeah. Why would I take advice from any of you? You're telling me what I should do. You're telling my mom what you should do at the time my dad had left and there was all the things that had happened, you know, and there was all kinds of issues and my mom struggled with all kinds of things. And there was all these people weighing in and all this stuff.

And it was like all these people that didn't have. have their shit together. Yeah. And so like, forget about religion. It's just the people that were like using it to control and gain one foot of the wrong higher. And I'm all about God and spirituality and all the different ways you can go with that. But, but I refuse to, I don't know, I refuse to, to, to, what's, what?

the word. I mean, be like them. Yeah, like let any human being tell, shame anyone for anything. And I look at religion and I go, I'm not anti-religion. I'm not anti-God. I'm not anti-spirituality. I'm not anti-personal growth. I'm not anti-peace, love, all the good things that are supposed to. But I am anti-those, as they say, we are against those thugs. Yeah. What I say are the preachers and the politicians and the people that beat...

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Well, keep thy religion to yourself. And you know what? That's a great Shakespeare said. Exactly, exactly. And I'm in that same boat because I think the people should be free to explore and find or not find whatever it is that, helps them grow as a person and helps them along in their journey. And listen.

But again, I just don't want them bringing it down. And I'm a realist too. Listen, if you want to talk about, you know, the pastors out there with the megachurches. Well, you want to talk about like the people who actually are grooming our kids. Yeah, exactly. It's not the trans people, the trans people put on the drag show. It's politicians. And time and time again.

And time and time again, the people that are supposed to be morally... I'm not saying I'm perfect. No. I'm saying that I don't want to hurt anyone and I'm not going to... And I don't even break the law. Yeah. Like, you guys are... You guys are, yeah.

To be fair, that's... That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. But here we are, as a dad, a father.

I'm trying to be a person. productive member of my community, of society, and I do believe in the right thing. Yeah. And that to me is, but I'm not going to also sit here and say that like I should be the leader of anyone. No way. Right. Like I just want everyone to have the right to be themselves and be safe.

The opportunity to. And the opportunity. And I see people in power that like straight up like, but it's kind of weird because we all know they're lying. We all know the Catholic Church has the problems it has. We all know the mega churches all have billions of dollars. Every one of them has that problem. Think about this.

The megachurches, right? They have billions of dollars. Pay no taxes. They pay no taxes. So no one's benefiting. And they do it under the flag of God, right? All the people of their church generally don't have tons of money. No.

If they gave the money to just their congregation, they'd probably change their lives. So I'm sorry, I have to interrupt. up because I might have to run out of here because I have a lot of money invested in some churches. So you're saying it was a bad idea. But unless you have equity in the church, then you're not a bad idea. Which, by the way, give me a chance to invest in one and I'll do it. But I think probably wouldn't. I think it's incredible, though, that God who's like omnipotent and just knows everything

and can just, you know, solve any problem that exists. is so bad with money. God's God's so bad with money. God just constantly needs more money. As the resident member of Anti-Flagg who is lighting the Bible on fire more than anyone, I love that you guys are leading this conversation. Because normally it's me and I'm like, let me tell you what happened to me when I was 10. Listen, listen, the pastor was like, that's the thing is I look at these people and I go,

I just know my experience. I was in the church of God. I was in an evangelical place, and I was terrified of going to hell. And I can proudly say, though, that of all the work I did on myself, because it wasn't just that. I wouldn't even blame that church for my problems. I grew up in a very tumultuous home, and there was a lot of trauma. The church didn't know. And you're searching for answers.

And so I never found solace in that, though. I always questioned, but I didn't feel that I had the power to. And now I'm not afraid to because I'm also raising two people that I want to, I hope that they feel they can go into the world and be themselves and be good, be productive and have a good life, to drop an anecdote of Justin's because his, I think I find this really funny because I was comparably being forced into religious situations all the time. And, and I, like, we were so poor and my mom was by herself and my brother was selling drugs and my sister was kind of a mess at the time.

And everything was uneasy and everything was painful. And there was a lot of violence. And there was a lot of, um, uh, uncertain. and anxiety for a child who was from six to 13. I just wanted out. And so then I started to find music and that just became the out. And so for me, it was a complete abandonment of all of those things. For Justin, the thing that I find so funny is he gets sent to church whenever he's a little

bit older. In eighth grade. Yeah. And his mom basically says, I'm afraid you're going to go somewhere and you're not going to have any friends or anywhere to go. So if you get hooked up with this church group, there at least will be some organizations that you could tap into across the country as you travel. Well, she actually said to me, she's like, I'm afraid that if you leave home someday, maybe you're in the new city, you might fall into a cult. Yeah. My mom saw something in me.

Yeah. But what's interesting, though, in talking like about breaking out from a cult, right? and then growing and giving you the power to grow. So my parents had all their kids go to Catholic Church up until me. And I was probably a mistake because I came four years after my closest sister. But in the 70s, the feminist revolution hit, and my mom tapped into that immediately and she identified with that because the Catholic Church and society had been so restrictive to her. Like my mother was a genius.

Like just her IQ tested a genius. And when she went to get different jobs, like she said when she got out of high school, her choices were it was secretary, teacher or nurse. There were three choices. And so, you know, and she went and applied for different jobs. And she would be told, no, that's a man's job. You can't have that, right? So when the feminist revolution hit, she was like,

yeah we need this i'm in she fucking bailed on the catholic church she was like out now this is a woman who had never missed church every sunday for her entire life and then she just went on this wild journey where and that was when my parents became like very open to like and and aware of they were already involved in like civil rights and and and a lot of issues but that was when they opened the vegetarian restaurant that was the restaurant became this beacon for people that that were gay or anything that was not of the norm in society you know it became an organizing place for people that were interested in civil rights or the environmental movement or anti-nuclear movement my mom was like she got into organic gardening like just all this crazy stuff because her world opened up in a way where in

the church it was so focused and so narrow and oh yeah there's no room for different Yeah. So that's my example. The funny thing, though, is that I grew up hearing religion was evil. Eighth grade rolled around, and she was like, well, I found this church, it's not that bad. They're called the Unitarian Universalist. I want you to go for like eight weeks. And the funny thing about that is I went. Did you go? I went. We had a deal. And I went. How was it? Well, the amazingly about it is I went to the youth group. Kids who grew up Unitarian are incredible because in the church, you're kind of encouraged to. it's more of a community, at least it was in Pittsburgh, where you're encouraged to just, you know, be open-minded about things. There's a lot of atheists that go to the church. And they, every Sunday at the church I went to, and I don't go to church anymore. But at that particular church, they had somebody from a different religious nomination come in every like once a month and like talk about share. That sounds neat. Well, it was dope. Like Unitarian kids are really cool

because a lot of them, they're just, like, grow up in this really diverse, you know, like, environment. I don't go to the church anymore, but I get what my mom was doing. She was like, if you leave home and you're lonely and you need somewhere to go. She wants you to have a network that you could reach out to. And that was like I was a kid then. I'm still, like, four or five of my best friends in my life are from that church, from that youth group, which is crazy.

And the original base player of anti-fi, they met. That's where they met. Oh, wow. Yeah. So thanks, Mom. His mom ruined all of our lives. Anyways, we could go on. Well, can I bring it full circle?

Because I love where you're going with this. So coming back to the show, the thing, like, the thing that is so cool about the show is, if you do the show right, you have an opportunity to use it to bring those things to the forefront. So, for example, like, we've always wanted the show to be more than just a show, right? Because at the shows we went to, we found, you know, things about vegetarianism or human rights or anti-war, you know, literature. Like people were out there tabling and they were pushing ideas out there. And sometimes there was stuff that I'd never even heard of before, which was really exciting. That was our internet, right?

So on this tour, we brought along punk rock saves lives. And it's a nonprofit. And their goal is to help people with mental health. their goal is really just to be there like for people who you know if you need something and you turn to them they're going to try to help you out and figure out various harm reduction uh installations at the booth so you can pick up narcan you could pick you know oh that's cool you can pick up birth control like and you know like they do a um a bone marrow uh you know registry registry for people who like basically like you can get your cheek swab there goes into this national

registry for people. And if you have a, if from your cheek swab, you're a match for some. You're a match for somebody. They'll hook you up. Just in the short time that that's existed, this little organization that we sometimes take on the road with us, they've already had well over, somewhere around 50 matches, which means that that's amazing. It's incredible. Like 50 people. Getting a swab at a punk rock show. Dude. And then 50 people who wouldn't be here today. So bringing it back to what we were talking about, what you're doing out there. And again, yes, you're not patting yourselves on the back. I am patting you on the back.

But I'm saying I'm trying to bring the importance of what this music is to the world. Yeah. And you guys are a big, you guys are a part of that. You guys are one of the OG punk bands that's still actively making records and touring. It's very hard to find that, I have to say. you've always been from my experience when we first came on the scene we were literally from the middle of nowhere and there was an adversion to your success

there was a major aversion to and to us in general because I think we were a little excited and everything was great and we were just stoked to be not where we were and poor in the middle of nowhere so we were seeing the world for the first time everything was amazing. We wanted to be friends with everyone. And that was our view of the world. You were one of the only bands, I have to say,

like, I would say a majority of people were skeptical of it or straight up, not friendly. Yeah, yeah. You guys were one of the standout bands we talk about all the time that was like greeted us with a really warm, nice. I remember distinctly being at my girlfriend at the time. parents' house and getting an email from good Charlotte. Very early on, you think you had cut your demo and you had sent it out to the anti-flag email account that for some reason I was in charge of responding to that year 16 here. That's crazy.

And I read the email and it was just kind of talking about your band and I was like, well, these guys sound cool if we ever play in Baltimore, the Maryland area, we should hit them up. And then sure enough, a year later, we were on a warp tour together. and your success was it had a spark to it. And to people that want to keep that thing in their fucking shirt pocket, it scared and concerned them. And I could see distinctly some of our peers at the time being less welcoming to young people who are enjoying success quickly,

specifically because they did. didn't. It was that easy. I mean, it was that clear to see. It was like somebody saying things like, well, I've been doing this for 10 years. Why is that happening to them? And I'm like, well, that's no reason for anything to happen. Like your path is your path. I mean, like our band, anti-flag, when we did Warped tour the first time, we did two shows because we were scared of it. Yeah. And when we did those two shows, we didn't have any friends there. And nobody reached out to us and nobody embraced us. The first

year we did the full thing was 2000 and we were on a side stage and we made a little island of misfit toy friends with one man army and flogging Molly who are on tour now and we've been lifelong friends with those two bands because of that. When we finally

met you guys which was like 2002 maybe, maybe four, I can't remember 2001 or two. Yeah. And I saw it happening. There were a few nights where we would play close to each other back to back. We were finally on the main stage. You had gotten moved to the main stage because the success was happening. To me, that was to be applauded. That made everybody better. To see the injection of this scene and this community into the mainstream discourse,

for us was always the goal of anti-flag. Now, when we played next to Good Charlotte, there might be a person who only came because they had experienced your song on the radio. And now it was our opportunity to explain to them what we do. And that commercial for this activism and this type of community, that's the whole reason we did things like the Warp Tour. And so I never saw anyone kind of have it. Like even Papa Roach had one of those moments. And I remember distinctly like there was a lot of elbow,

room making because they were getting moved to the main stage and somebody was mad that you know this new band took a spot from somebody else and it's like man fuck you i remember when screamo like broken oh yeah which i liked and well here was my thing right i was like i'm standing there with a bunch of old heads you know who i've done the warped tour like three or four times or whatever and they're all just complaining about these guys oh they're screaming I'm thinking to myself, first of all, I was like, I don't know a lot about this scene. I'm not like real tapped into the music. I was like, but, you know, first of all, you guys sound like a bunch of old people to me.

Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, secondly, like, maybe there's something cool about this that we can take from it. And like, and third, like, it's bringing like young people around to hear other ideas too. And like, I was stoked on it. So I, like, made it, like, very much. And we'd already had this, we'd already had this ethic with each other, where we were excited about other music other than just what we were playing and just about punk.

And so, but I was like, fuck, I'm going to go watch these bands and see what they do and see what it's about. And, like, actively work to find something in this that is valuable to me. And I can tell you right now, in the songs we write, that influence is there. And I don't think it's a bad thing at all. I love that. I mean, not to mention, you know, we meet going back to those warp tours, the Silverstein or a Lexus on fire or whoever.

And each one of them says, well, my first show was anti-flag. Yeah. And then you're like- So often, which is crazy. And it's, to me, is a great representation of what this is. Us as humans, we see the thing, we experience the thing. we digest it and it comes out in a different and new way. And so to say that you had an impact on any of those things,

that Good Charlotte is the gateway drug to the water parks, you know, like it's there. Are they carbon copies of one another? No. Because that's a person who ingested those ideas and that. And then you've your own ideas and you put it together. And that's what, for me, that's what music is supposed to be. And going back only, you know, touching on the religion thing to, I had a realization while you were talking because I was thinking like, I repulse from any group that tells me I have to be anyway.

Yeah. So like I feel the same way about the pure punk, purest punk thing as I do about Christian. Yeah. Yeah. Who are like out there telling, you know, shaming people for, you know, being themselves. in a box. As I do about Republicans, as I do about Democrats, as I do about any group that makes me feel like if I say what I think and then suddenly like I'm your enemy because I just

was just saying what I thought. If you give me the information, you'll likely get me to see your point. Yeah. And if you just tell me I'm supposed to feel a certain way and I don't understand you, I'm not, I'm going to hate you because I can't understand. like my brain needs the information and I need to go yeah you know what that is wrong so that is you know what I mean so I understand that and I accept that but I will also say that a lot of these things in our world currently aren't hyperbole hyperbole you know the planet is dying and it demands our

attention the the attack on trans and gay and drag is real is real and so police are murdering black people at an epidemic rate. The police in America killed three people per day last year. I mean, that's fucked. And so we have to have an understanding of what the real issue in front of us is versus the issue that we can get loud about and discouraged about and become enemies over. To me, though, those are the things that actually matter. Exactly.

Versus a bunch of shit that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So I totally agree with you. or not on the warp tour is inconsequential to me. You know, like, and that's the way I felt in 2000. Epidemics. Epidemics are epidemics. Like, they are real and that people are dying.

Yes. And the planet is dying. And it demands our attention and it demands response. And truthfully, that goes back to the very first thing that we talked about. The alleviation of suffering with whatever we can, however we can, wherever we can. Yeah, and music is a great vehicle to do that with. Yeah. Especially because the way.

that it does build community, and it builds a diverse community quite often. And if we can do that, that's a huge success. What would you guys say that from the beginning of, let's actually just start in 2000, 99, 2000. We don't have to go all the way back. Anti-flag in 99, 2000, 2001, that era, the turn of the century, right? What is the anti-flag? scary confusion then and who are you and what do you understand and what do you believe and then where is anti flagged today and who are you and what do you how are those two bands different

I mean they're just they're completely different as on a level of um maturity and understanding of the world um and you know in 99 I was the person you just described that you hate. Like I was like you need to if you're punk you are this right and that's it. Luckily for me that broke down very quickly and actually Warped Tor helped that because it put me around a lot of different music that I hadn't been. I think I helped him do that. Yeah. You can be would. Would you would say that? I would. Yeah. Yeah. Like you bought saves a day to me like certain things. I love saves a day. He literally I love that band. I mean he loved punk rock so much which is, which is admirable.

Which I still do. Yeah, of course, you know. And, and, but just like. But I only listen to the clash. That was it for like four years straight. We were kind of like the son of revolutionaries a little bit. Yeah, right. Right. Right. Right. But like, but so, but with the understanding like, you know, of, you know, it's I,

the name anti-flag immediately attracted people for better or for worse, right? And that was the goal of it because we figured if we have this. name that is really confrontational, then it will hopefully spark a conversation, which is what you're talking about. And then maybe we can win people over to our side. And our argument was nationalism, you know, the nationalism, which is the corruption of patriotism, will allow people with power to manipulate others to do their bidding and quite often not for good. For example, invasion of Iraq, just simple example. Okay. So, which is a great example where we were all of us who were activists at that time were proven right. Did we want to be proven right? No, but that was the

reason why there was a million people in the streets of London, a million people in the streets of Berlin, 300,000 in the streets of Pittsburgh. I thought about that time when I was coming over here today. I thought about that time stands out really strongly with me in watching you guys in that time and how active you were willing to give up your freedom, willing to get arrested, willing to do all these things, which is the true testament of like a belief in something. I'm going back to the Warp Tour thing. I mean, that was a switch flip for us in 2004

where all of a sudden all of these younger bands who were like, hey, we're watching this and we want to be in opposition of these things too. And they would say like, how do we do it? And then we would just be like, we just do it. Like it's just you just say what you feel. It goes back to your early days in Pittsburgh, right? And you say, the scene there were Nazis.

Yeah. Right? Which is so crazy to me when you think about like the Nazi. Literal Nazis, right? The opposite of the whole idea of punk music. And now what Nazis are is a whole different thing, which is like a whole other. That's another episode if we want to talk about back in the day, I remember Nazis in punk music. I will say, though, they skirt a very similar line where they say it's free speech.

And that was why they would come to the anti-flag show in Texas and wear the Squastika T-shirt or the SS shirt and they'd say anti-flagic. And you have a zero tolerance for Nazis, right? So you run the Nazis out of Pittsburgh, out of the shows in Pittsburgh, back into hiding, basically, as far as punk is concerned. And then Donald Trump is election. How did you do that? Was it physical? You actually physically thought them?

It really was not. It became to a. point where it just became so unwelcoming for them because it was just putting out the message through even just like our our first couple like seven inches right and like hooking up with other people in the scene to be like we're just going to talk about this on stage and we're going to say this in our music to the point that people are going to unify around this enough to the point where they're going to be like yo that's not fucking cool there were fights and it was it did it did lead to fights and that kind of stuff oh but it that wasn't it wasn't a media

like, oh, let's just go fight them. It was like... And they started it. Yeah. Yeah. But so to come back to your question, though, I think where we're at today is we do understand that... You make a movie about that. It's a lot of time.

I mean, it's real. Like, think about it. Like, where are those Nazis now? Now they're bankers and that's what's fucked. What are they doing? Are they still secret Nazis or did they stop being Nazis? No, now they're wearing polo shirts and they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, They've changed their self-image and they've done it.

And they know better than to say they're Nazis. Yeah. They just hide it well. Which is what, too, say, well, freedom of speech. Oh, we're protecting our tradition. Yeah. You know, we're, yeah. That's, that's where they're at today.

What a weird existence to be a Nazi. I think that there are, God, compartmentalize. Like a modern Nazi, like, whatever that is, it's just a racist. Just a racist. Yeah. But like, to identify, like, there's, there's, I guess there's, I guess there's, all these different kinds of racist people. And some of them are like, I'm a Nazi.

And you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? A fucking not. Like, oh my God. Literally, and I don't know what account. But I mean, on Twitter just recently, like, they're at a drag show. There were guys literally calling themselves Nazis. I mean, they were proud boys there. There were like people who were literally call themselves Nazis.

Like, they were like, they had a like swastika flag. Like that they're waving like on the back of a on the back of like a tractor trailer like Zieg-hiling. I mean, straight up Nazis. Do you guys know a lot about all this stuff? Yeah, we do. Like we follow it. How many proud boys are there in the world? Oh, God.

That's, that I refuse to know. That's the thing. Are they Nazis as well? Well, arguably the problem is. And this is the thing that we don't like we need to have a little like those kind of labels really actually probably aren't that helpful at this point. Right. Because...

This is a dangerous territory. What do you mean like not helpful? I'm just saying, all I'm saying is that... If somebody doesn't have to... This is all I'm saying. This is what I mean by what I was going to say. Someone doesn't have to absolutely call themselves a Nazi to be... To basically have...

To be anti-Semitic, to be racist. The danger of this conversation is... is that the Nazis murdered millions of Jewish people. Right. Right. And so there is a false equivalency that can sometimes occur. And by saying that because somebody is overtly racist or overtly sexist or is using the white supremac tools that are in existence in America to their gain,

that they too are Nazis. Correct. Not always true. They're just plain racists. Exactly. The problem is the, it didn't start with murdering millions of Jewish people and murdering gays and murder, you know, like, so that's where it ended. Right. And so what we are doing or what the job of anti-racist people and socially conscious people is to challenge this and nip this shit in the bud.

Before it goes there. Yes. Yes. But it still gets there because you see people getting murdered or you see hate crimes. And it often gets there. In our hometown, like the synagogue, a guy walked down and shot a bunch of parishioners of the synagogue. It's the largest anti-Semitic attack in American history. It happened in Pittsburgh.

And it happened in 2017. You know, and this is not like so, so there is the danger of the hyperbole, but then there is also the actions. Which is why it's important to call it out. The inability for these people to distance themselves from it. That is what I take issue with. If you are a Trump voter and you want to buy the fuck Joe Biden flag or whatever it is, yeah, whatever it is, whatever it is. When you go to the flea market and you buy it, that stall also sells a Confederate flag

and they sell a swastika flag. And you have no qualms that shopping at that store. Right. You're saying like, why wouldn't you see that and go, fuck this store? I'm not shopping here. Exactly. Because I don't actually have a problem with like fuck Biden. Even though like I'm not I'm not a fuck Biden guy.

Like I'm not. We are. We're the first. I know you guys. We're a fuck Trump guy. We're a fuck Biden. That's what I love about you guys. And I actually think Trump voters would love you guys.

So you should go on that tour. Free free if you wear like a some kind of Trump memorabilia. But I'm not actually against. See, I don't really care. I don't, I guess I just don't like, I refuse to get into that, like, I'm going to be against that group or that group. Yeah. No, I will say my views are, they tend to be very liberal, but I come from a very conservative

place. So I actually understand a lot of the arguments. And while some of them, I just cannot accept, like, people's rights. Yeah. I can't accept blocking people's rights. Yeah. I just can't live with. And it really, that makes me really mad when I see people trying to block other people from living their lives.

The party of small government is the one who's passing all the laws. Right. People can't do with their body. Right. That makes no sense. Yeah. So, so, but that, all that being said, I get what you're saying because I would, I have a, a real problem with people making excuses to, of fly flags that hurt other people's feelings.

And that's the problem I have is like, is when you're saying something that hurts anyone about who they are, how they identify, right? Their race or their culture or how they identify. Like, that's where my feelings get hurt because of bullies. Because I just have a problem with bullies. Yeah.

And, you know. I would also say that this shit isn't wins and losses. Right. And unfortunately, people have on the individual level are so concerned about saying you took the COVID vaccine, you're an idiot. I didn't. I'm right. I win. Ha, ha, ha. What do you win? We all need to win. If we all don't win, what the fuck is there? I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't know. Exactly. Am I supposed to take it or not? Exactly. And that to me, that is not a sign of weakness. That is a sign of weakness. That is a sign of. wanting to do what's right. Yeah.

Unfortunately, it has been turned into this wins and losses. And we're all hiding behind computer screens saying it. So we're not, because if we're in the room, no one gives a fuck. I have to say like, like, I always have to kind of tell my mom sometimes to spit it out. Because she'll get super passive and she'll be like, did you get the vaccine? Yeah. I'm like, yeah, mom, I got it. Let's go.

Let's go, mom. Bring it. They told me to get it. I don't know. I just did, mom. I don't know. I'm not that worried about it, but I did. She's like, oh. And I'm like, oh, what?

Is that good or bad? Did I do that? But I'm just saying like, well, yeah, please. That it's like, then we get through it and we talk about it. And it's not a big deal. And we're all here and it's fine. And like God bless. Well, and coming back to the Biden, you know, Trump thing,

I can tell you right now that we have so much more in common with the people who we may disagree on politics. the average, you know, the average working class, Joe or Jane or whoever, and then we're ever going to have with Joe Biden or Donald Trump. You know, I mean, they're not going to invite you out for a beer. Yeah, they're out of touch with the people. You know, they don't want anything to do with you. The people that are. And I think that that comes back to a conversation we were just having the other day about, you know,

the problem with arguing about Ivermectin or what the fuck it's called, or, you know, whether you're an anti-vaxer, or, you know, whether you, you know, are died in the wool, people have to take the vaccine. The issue that at least where we are now, you know, coming out of this pandemic is what we should really be talking about, you know, everybody wants to expose this or expose that. We should be talking about the fact that we are the,

we live in the richest nation in the world. And we don't have health care as a human right. Yeah, this thing just happened where millions of people died. and we didn't take care of them. Yeah. He failed. And I just see these people trying to do this gotcha thing in terms of, you know,

what was right and wrong done by, you know, whether it was under Trump or Biden. You remember, like, Trump was the one that ordered, you know, them to put funding towards a vaccine and that kind of stuff, right? So it was both administrations. People want to do all this kind of gotcha game shit in terms of, you know, issues around the vaccine or how to treat COVID.

But I'm like, yo, we just missed this unbelievable opportunity to talk about this issue. It was our World War II moment. I mean, that's why you've been to Europe many times. That's why there's universal education and universal health care in the post-World War rebuild. They provided those services for people because they fucking needed them. And here we are. Leave no one behind.

Yeah. And here we are and we fucking need it. And we're abandoning our people. in the interest of profit. I think most people don't, are over politics now. I think I'm seeing a trend with people that like, like, it feels like it's starting to go. Don't say that.

We're trying to sell records. Well, I think that like, I think you guys, I think you guys, the interesting thing with anti-flag is what it means to me is it's, it's about no labels. Yeah. It's about people being able to. to be whoever they are.

Yeah. And like that's what I think anti-flag means to me. How do we break down structures that prohibit people from achieving their self-worth and dignity? Yeah. That is the job of anti-flag. Their ultimate happiness. Whether that's the war machine and military industrial complex, whether that is hyper-militarized police forces in America, whether that's a health care system that puts profit over people,

dismantle the systems that prohibit us from our dignity. And from being manipulated. And that's really important. You guys are an extremely pissed off band that only wants people's ultimate happiness. Yeah. And like that's what I think of. What I think of it. Contradiction, man.

I actually think that like when, because me and Benj were talking about it, you know, Benj loves you guys. And he, you know, and I know he's listening to this because he listens to every show. But he loves you guys. And we always talk about when we first met you guys how nice you were. And it contradicts what you see on stage and what you hear in the songs. Yeah. Because it's so it's intimidating as a kid.

It's like going, think about this. We get to Warp Tour and not, you know, from our first punk shows to trying to make a band in our garage with no resources and no know how. And, you know, fighting our way to the point where we get to actually get a record deal and get on Warp. tour and everything was at that time so exciting and and and it felt so hopeful it was like we finally had a chance in life right yeah yeah to be someone and to feel important or feel valuable and after feeling like trash your whole life yeah and then you get there and it's not quite what you thought it would be and it was like it was kind of overwhelming and then everybody's cooler than you are yeah and then you're there and you're kind of looking at your clothes and you're like

oh my god what did what am I doing I mean look at those guys and you guys are like to me me and proven, right, you guys are a very important punk band and you have credibility. You've earned it. You'll never not have, you'll never not be anti-flagged. Yeah. It just is what it is. Like you guys have built, like your legacy is punk music. That is one, going back to Benji, but yourself included, that is the greatest lesson you gave us

when we started working together was to not see our legacy or the decisions that we've made as a negative, as that we've already done these things and what's left to do. But as you've established yourself, you can now do whatever it is you want to do that fulfills you. And that conversation was very important to us. And going back to the life of the band, there are three chapters. You know, there's the first chapter with Justin and Pat. and they kind of grind their teeth and then head and I come in. Those two are such good friends in connected work,

trying to figure out where we fit in. Then there is the era of the 2000s where we hit our stride and it is the four of us together writing songs. And then I think when you guys come in to where we are now. Right. And it is a band that is a, we're better songwriters. We're better communicators of these ideas than we've ever been. And I think we're better performers because of it

because we're more in love with the thing than we've ever been, because we're more free than we've ever been. And that is, you know, you talk about those warp tours in the middle, like there was competition and it felt, you know, whether people didn't want to talk to us because they thought we were going to be like, fuck you, you're not vegan. Yeah.

Whatever people think they're going to get from high school and anti-life. Or, yeah. As I sip on my meat drink. Exactly. I'm just kidding. But, but, you know, I think that so that when we would interact with people like yourself, we were outwardly nice because there was such a preconceived notion. Oh, you guys were some of the nicest. I say. And so I think that that's, that was,

that's how we carried ourselves. And it's still how we carry ourselves to this day, because we are so used to people thinking that we were, we're judging them based on, well, who'd you vote for or whatever. And it's like, I don't care who you fucking voted for. I don't know. Sometimes I think it's, it does go back to the things that we hate about those groups of people that we're talking about like going to a group of people where you feel judged for being just what you are and you didn't choose what you are you just are there's enough of that out in the world but you guys aren't that you guys aren't that and I always say like it also I mean it also just comes back to like just treat people how you want to be treated yeah you know I really don't enjoy

I just don't I don't you say but like I the famous philosophizer yeah But like I just don't really enjoy like negative shitty people. I just don't. It's a bad time. It's a bad time. It's not. Everyone deserves to. Yeah.

And I would just rather be kind to people. I really would. I feel the same way. Yeah. So it's like it doesn't mean that I don't like being a smart ass sometimes or fucking off. It just means like but but definitely like it's it really is like a do on to others as you'd have them do on yourself. Yeah. what um do you guys feel like the the next few years for anti flag is like what do you want to get out of it

like what is your hope it's it's both very clear and very cloudy to me um because the record is still new and we're just like kind of hitting it right now that's a good record i feel as if we've got some legs here um but songs are really good but then i also if you said to me um you know in five years you'll maybe slow it way down and you'll be playing just a show here and there i might be okay with that too you know like like i don't if i'm honest like we're we've hit it so hard the last two years that i think we have to slow it down yeah i see burnout coming right and i'm like i'm like we can't keep going and i think it's hard because i don't think there's been a time where the two of us have been as driven as we've been over the last few years.

Usually it's like, and you know what this is like, you're in a collaborative machine as well. Someone picks up the slack when the other person. And right now it's like the both of us are going. Yeah, we're just like pedal to the metal. That's why there's so many shows booked and so much stuff happening. So. Well, and I remember last year thinking like, man, next year we got to like take a break.

And then I was like, oh, shit, a record's coming out. And then all these opportunities opened up. And like we finished touring last year on December 11th. We flew to Germany together, the two of us, to play acoustic shows. The week the record is coming out. We loved on January, January 2nd. And we've been pretty much going since then. So I do think like just in the back of my head, like even in like just in the forefront of what I'm thinking is like next year, we need to find a balance.

But beyond that, man, I don't know. do feel like so musically creative right now in a way that I haven't in such a long time, which is crazy. I want to make a weird record. Let's go weird. Lise is like one of my favorite records. It's just the best record. The songs are great.

Every song's a banger. It's just a great record. I think we had a really good time making it too, which was like, I mean, it was really one of the most collaborative records. I mean, because we'd been apart for so long because of the pandemic. and then it was like, oh, we can get back together. And when we are all four together, we actually have a pretty good time.

Like practice is like, I would say, like, probably pretty 50, 50, like fucking off and just talking about shit and 50% working on songs and having a good time. And it's like, so we really just were like throwing ideas at each other. And like, I come up with a riff and too, it would be like, yo, man, we should take that riff and go here with it. you know and then some you know somebody had a lyric idea or whatever like i think that we were just we enjoyed being around each other and just being able to bounce ideas off each other and just that's pretty much how we built that record yeah the only thing i'm about i'm like a little

bummed out is i do love when we come here to work on the records um for for not because of what it does to us as much as interacting with the people who flow in and out of this yeah That is always, like you bring somebody in and like Dwayne listens to a track or like somebody's here. And then you're like, is that good? And then they're like, no. And so I think there's a lot of value in that energy transfer. I know that you and Benj had both dropped in on the song and be like, you guys should try this. And then we literally did it.

And it was like, I know on he conquers all, Benj came in on there's like a break at the end of the verse. and he was like, and we had like a whoa, whoa, or something there. And he was like, I would get rid of that. I'd put a guitar like there. And like now it's my favorite part of the song. That's dope. That happens around here, which. And he's yet to be compensated and will never be compensated.

That's the whole point of the building. I know, man. I wish Benric stopped fucking blowing me up about his cut on that song. He's a, yeah, he's a greedy motherfucker. Speaking of bullies, he's just shaking the change out of me. Benj is. He's, man, he's one of a kind, I'll tell you. I have to say he's been the key to my personal, what I would define as my success in life

is he's the key. He's the guy. He just has always been like that guy. Well, I will tell you, and this is what we're talking about. It is, I know that as like if you want, however you want to define success. Yeah. Maybe just people giving a fuck about what you create. Yeah, I would even go further, like happiness in doing it.

Oh, well, that, yeah, right, right. But I will say that when we do our best, we're together. And you guys have that too. And we see that with so many people. It's like partners, you know, like where people just, they're stronger together. And safe. And I think one of the environments that kind of invites success to happen and things to happen is a safe one, where you can just be yourself and you feel like your ideas matter and you feel like you matter to

people and i think that benj has always had a way of creating that space with us and he's always had a good measure on people like if someone just isn't there he he he has a really kind way of being like like that person isn't there yet he shouldn't be in the space yeah yeah because you're not I'm not because it's not because they're not ready to be like the optimists that we need or the But don't you think that all of this stuff comes from I stepped in this dog shit. Mm-hmm. I'm going to tell you right where it is. Yeah.

Don't walk there. You can walk there. Yeah. But I did already and it's terrible dog shit. And so I think that a lot of the time that, again, that energy transfer comes from life lessons learned and experience and all of those things. And so I think that it's not as much of a, you know, obviously the idea is good. But that's not what you're getting.

It's the emotion that comes along with it and the intention, I think, that drives it. For me, that's always been the value of, like I said, coming here. You know, we write the songs together. We're pretty much together. We send you demos. You know what's happening. There's a producer. There's other people.

Yeah. But really it's about just like in the moment. Being in the, in the, in the, in the, in the environment, like, like, the, the, the, the building is like this open door. Yeah. To artists. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like even artists we work with.

Most of the time, it's 90% of them we don't even work with. Yeah. It's just people that are like, want to be around it. And they, it all happens because you guys are here and then he's here. And then, and the idea is like, we all win together. If you do well. we all do well so like don't be worried about like there's no the imaginary pie doesn't exist it's like we're actually at an all you can eat buffet and it's all around us and you should just

like enjoy like coming and and like just make if the studio is open use it if and then what happened over the years was it wasn't even us it was just the idea that like a place like this would matter when like you don't know if it will but you think it will you're like I think it would be important if there was like a building with studios and artists could use it for free yeah yeah right like it sounds like a really good idea but then you tell other people in the music business and they're like I don't know why would you do that you're like because I think there's like a thing there I think it's funny because we call it the clubhouse yeah and and that's what we always called it I mean from the minute we made we made American fall here we made 2020 vision here

And then this year I had hurt my knee. And so I had to stay home and rehab it while. So that's why he made the record in Pittsburgh. But we bought a building two years ago in Pittsburgh because of this. Yeah. Because we saw it. And we're like, they've got, well, let's open the East Coast Clubhouse. Exactly.

But the artists need it. Yeah. Because there's these artists that are like getting left. That's the thing is we're like, what if a band didn't need the label to make the record or the video? and they could just start. And then, like, we'll get there. If they want to sign to a label, whatever, I'm not against labels.

I'm just saying, like, what if you didn't need, what if you got the resources you needed to make the music first? And, like, what if it was a building where there were established artists meeting new artists and everyone was on the same level? Well, that's the thing, because you have that wisdom to pass on. And we just see it all the time. Young band walks through the door now, like, at our building. And they're just talking about this or that.

And I'm just standing there and be like, well, I'm just, I'm just saying, well, I'm just just listening, I'm hearing them out. But I'm just making a checklist in my head. I'm like, they don't want to do that and they don't want to do that. Oh, that's a good idea. And you can explain it to them kindly why they don't want to. And they're hungry for that because nobody wants to fucking go through that make the wrong choice or just.

The thing that's like right here, it's the largest because it's right here. How do you think about the thing that's down here that's actually the largest thing? And that conversation goes a long way and explaining and sharing expertise and explaining and sharing failures and successes. And not taking advantage of an exploiting. You know, that's what I think. I think what we battle against in the music business is this. It's, I'm not saying anything about anyone. I'm saying is there are good people and bad people.

Names, let's go. No, I'm saying like there are good people and there are bad people across the world. It's not just this industry. But going back to all of the major. Yeah. Going exactly, right? There's plenty of indie's fucking bands and majors who are not. I'll tell you that. Yeah, there's good people of major labels and there's bad people of major labels.

And there's good people to indies and bad people in these. The key is find the good people. There are plenty of major labels that have made a license deal with a band and indies who own their whole fucking catalog. And those are two different things. And so. Andy might not be paying them a royalty. Or whatever.

And guess what? The Indy's never given those records back. Exactly. You know, at the end of that 10-year license and the band gets all their records back and when they retire and they own their records,

I'll say, good job. Whoever managed you did a good job. Yeah. And certainly there's lots of, there's a whole spectrum of versions of deals and people and they have their reasons why they signed them and I'm not,

it is what it is. I'm just saying that there's plenty of examples where we could say, the indie was worse than the major. Luckily, we've had good experiences on both, again, because of the people like Fat Records, which was like an important home for a long time, one of our best music experienced,

some of our best friends to this day. It's a very fair contract. Which is great, great. But we all know that it doesn't matter. It's the person, not the place. What I'm saying, though, is being the good Christians that we are, it seems to be the theme of this conversation to go back to do one to others, right?

If you can be the guy that you wish you would have met when you were 18 coming into this business, then you can do a good job. And that's what I always remind myself and binge. Because you could certainly probably analyze the last, you know, eight years of building this company, nine years of building this company. And you could probably pick out all the things we've done right. You could pick out all the things we've done wrong and where we tried too early on that or all the mistakes we've made or, you know, but the value that I feel like we've never broken

and I feel like you guys share this value. That's why I think we have a connection on this. And that's why you bought that building and that's why you are who you are. Like it's a value you don't really talk about and you don't even recognize it. But then when you say it, it makes sense to you because that's what you're already doing. It's can I be the person I wish I would have met? Yeah. Yeah.

Wholeheartedly for no other reason than to be it. Not for money, not for this, not for that, not for credit, but literally just to be, because it's the right thing to do. Can I also say there is one bit of selfishness in all of this? Yes. And for me, it's that I love this stuff. Yeah. And I love this type of energy and this type of music and these type of people.

And so I want them to win selfishly because I think it benefits. fits all of us. Good for the world. So there is an element when you meet that person and we put out that record on AF records and we are doing 200 pieces of vinyl for them or whatever. But I'm like, this is a cool record and it deserves to exist in the world. Yeah. It might not hit everybody's radar, but this deserves to exist because it's important. And somebody worked on it and they bled and they cared and they loved it. And now they can hold it in their hands and feel fulfilled. And not to say, too, that we're not all building businesses too because that's the other thing I teach artists about

is the cost of things is the cost of things I mean no man I want costs see but I want nothing more in life than to have made an album produced an album and then that goes on to sell a billion copies and I don't get paid because I love that story

I never got paid he never took a dime from a neuter up well I want to be one of those I appreciate that too for me it's more like like I want my dream is to build things at scale is to build things that are that can be big enough to compete with the biggest and to have it have originated here and do have come out of where we all come from which is like like it's no nothing makes me feel better than when I see a servini song that he made in that little room over there on the radio crushing

And I'm like, yo, you know how many times I've poked my room, my head into that little room and they were playing something? And I was like, this sounds wild. Yeah. And then now it's dominating. You know, but like, you know, you just had chase on this thing. Yeah. Great example of outside of the culture. Yeah.

Makes their own way, does their own thing. And it wins because of that. I dress another one. Another one. Yeah. I just watch it happen. Crazy good. Like, I don't know it.

It doesn't. Yeah. Like, like, this person is so fucking cool. Super cool. That's why they're winning. Great story, too. Yeah, yeah, great story. Yeah.

And so when it, when, when you see that, obviously our trajectory is different. It doesn't exist in the same lane of a Spotify game or a whatever, you know, but I see the intrinsic value of anti-flag as something different. We measure our successes differently than most bands and artists do. And it's interesting because what I'll say, and then I know you guys have to go, but what I'll say is this, I think it's strange. Where you're at today in your career, 30 years later, we're a bigger band than we've ever been, which is wild. You're bigger than you've ever been.

Arguably, I think you're one of the most important punk bands. I mean, you won't say that. I'll say that. Thanks. Because I grew up. Well, if you think it. Well, listen, I would love to argue. I would love to argue with people online about this, but I doubt I would have to.

You're one of the most important bands, and I'll tell you why. Because you're not, you're not, you are active. You're not just cashing in on some, you know, nostalgic thing. You're not doing that. You've never done that. You are literally making records you carry. about. Modern punk records where no one else is doing it.

There's not good punk out there today. I miss the it. The itch doesn't get scratched the way it used to, right? It's like I said, it's not in fashion right now to be in a punk band. That day will likely come. It's cyclical for sure. But the truth is, is that you're poised for something. And the fun part is going to be like, what is that something?

We're going to be the Kate Bush of Stranger Things 7. You know what I mean? But you don't know that. That's what if I zoom out and we take this conversation and we go to anyone out there listening who doesn't give a fuck about bands or this or that, but listens to this because they want to hear how other people have done things and they want to find the confidence and the courage to try to do something, whether it's in art or whatever else.

I always try to pull things out for those people listening that need some inspiration to accomplish their own dreams and to try and build their lives out the way they want. And what I see is a group that has persevered 30 years and worked really hard and have gotten actually to a place that not only do you have a legacy that's rich in a very important and cool genre of, music and art um but you're poised for something that we're going to find out in the next few years i guarantee there's a moment where we'll where we'll go oh that was the something i think and that's something likely leads to something else because something always leads to something and that is the one thing i always share with young bands it's like if you're or anybody who asks like even people who have been creating for like five years and they just feel like it's gone nowhere yeah It's like, look, if you're not creating, nothing happens.

And if you can be out on the road, that's where it really happens. Yeah. Because you're interacting with people and those people can see what you're about and what you do and see the authenticity in it. And so when things happen and things really happen for us, I'm sure the same thing for you, whenever you, the fact that you're out there doing it, that's what leads to it happening. whatever it is. And it's going to be something that you just don't even, you couldn't imagine what it would be.

We won't discover it unless we go forward on the road and discover it and put our best foot forward and always stay prepared to meet that opportunity on the road with optimism. If we always said, yeah, it probably won't matter if we do this. And it probably won't lead anywhere. Then we're never going to take that little opportunity that leads us to the next one, to the next one. And that's what I always remind myself is like every little thing matters.

And you don't know. A lot of times you don't know at their time. The enemy of progress is cynicism. Yeah. And it will always be. And unfortunately, it's considerably easier to be cynical than it is to be optimistic. And that is why the cycle persists the way it does. And we have to do again, whatever we can, however we can, to just stay on it.

And up the punks. Yeah. Up forever. Forever. Forever. Forever. Thanks guys. Thanks, good hang.

Great job, man. Awesome. Oh, bad times. I don't want to bed. Hey, thanks for listening and tune in next week. This car only take premium gas. I love my engine. I'm not smoking on gas.

I'm smoking on piv. That's my kind. I don't want no bad times. I don't want to have bad.