Against Me!

Before Against Me! took the stage in the middle of the world’s largest mall, bassist Andrew Seward took a few minutes to sit backstage and talk to site about what the band has been up to lately. After all, they’ve been pretty busy after releasing their major label debut New Wave last year. Countless tours across numerous continents, opening for the Foo Fighters, releasing a collection of b-sides and more. Not only did we touch on those subjects, but Andrew also let us know his some of his more memorable moments in Japan, the impact of the internet in today’s world and hearing Ben Lee cover New Wave. Thanks a lot to Andrew for taking the time to talk to us and for telling us some pretty interesting stories.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, you guys are coming to the end of this tour with Japanther and Saint Alvia. How has that been?

Andrew: Oh, it’s been great. Unfortunately, it’s been too short. But I mean, its just Canada – so Quebec City to Vancouver. I think its ten shows in twelve days so it’s not a really long one but it’s very extensive across Canada. It’s been great; Saint Alvia and Japanther are both super nice people and really great bands. Nothing but pleasure.

Bobby: Has there been any really memorable moments from this tour?

Andrew: Yeah, well the tour started in Montreal and we got to hang out for two days in Montreal. We just kind of practiced, we had this little rehearsal space and we just practiced for two days. It was fun. It was right on the Saint Laurent, like one of the main streets in Montreal, so it was nice to just walk to practice every day and meet at the local restaurants and local bars and hang out with friends.

Bobby: Last time you guys were here you were opening for Foo Fighters. It was at Rexall Place which sits around 17,000. Here fits around 1,700 and the time before that you played at the Dinwoodie Lounge which fits around 600 people. Quite a drastic difference. How long did it take you to get used to it and did you enjoy playing the massive arenas?

Andrew: Well the Foo Fighters tour was a lot of fun. I also got a picture of me on the Edmonton Oilers zamboni, so that was good. It’s weird, and I’ve said this before so you might have heard it, but if we were playing in front of thirty people it would be the same as if we were playing in front of seventeen thousand at the Foo Fighters show. We’re really lucky in the fact that we get to do everything. We have such a nice variety of shows. Like, the Foo Fighters are a super great band. Really nice people, their whole crew is really nice. That was a pleasure; it was like three months that we were on tour with them, all across North America. We’re just lucky that we can play the Dinwoodie or whatever and then play the hockey arena and now we’re playing inside the mall. I think it’s kind of like how it’s supposed to be. It’s a variety package.

Bobby: Yeah, not stagnant.

Andrew: Yeah, and it’s always interesting and I hope it always stays that way.

Bobby: A few months ago you guys released the deluxe version of New Wave in France through Fargo Records. It came with five b-sides from the recording sessions and was available to North Americans through Mail Order. Why did you decide to release the deluxe version in France?

Andrew: It’s actually Warner Brothers’ fault, because they never released the record in France. We’re on Sire, but it’s Warner Brothers, I’m not trying to make that mysterious. In France it was never properly released in a physical format, it was just available for downloading on iTunes France. So this really awesome indie label, Fargo, they really liked the record and they didn’t understand why it wasn’t released. They asked us and of course we said yes. They basically just asked at the right time. “Well, can we have some bonus stuff so people will buy it instead of buying the import version from America?” So we gave them those five songs. We’re not trying to make people re-buy the record. You can get the five songs digitally for five bucks.

Bobby: That was one thing I was going to ask. You said you weren’t trying to get people to re-buy the record and you did make the five songs available on iTunes and Amazon and stuff. But lately a lot of bands have been getting into the trends of re-releasing the CDs six months or a year after the release. Coheed & Cambria, Senses Fail, Taking Back Sunday, Bad religion. They’ve all re-released the deluxe version. Why do you think so many bands are doing that? Isn’t it a bit of a slap in the face to the kids who bought it on the release date?

Andrew: I mean, I don’t know. I would like to think that every band is different. I’m sure that there is a lot of stuff where record labels want them to do it and want another push and see if that sticks better or something like that. But I’m sure some bands were a bit rushed putting out the record at the beginning and this is the full vision of it. But it’s up to the consumer if they want to buy it or not. I’m trying to think… Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run. He came out with a deluxe version of it, but it was like thirty years after it came out. It had a DVD making of it, a huge book on it and it cost thirty or forty dollars and I bought it the day it came out.

Bobby: I find that okay, if it is thirty years after, ten years after, more to celebrate the anniversary compared to six months or a year. You would have already had that material, why didn’t you release them simultaneously and give the consumer the choice in the first place?

Andrew: I don’t know, I guess it varies from band to band. Like our situation was France. It was basically that, they didn’t release it.

Bobby: Like you said, you released the songs as a five song digital EP which got me thinking of two other things I wanted to talk about. First off is the digital aspect of it. A few weeks ago there was an interesting article in the wall street journal which had a whole bunch of artists blaming iTunes for the derailment of the complete album by giving consumers the choice to pick and choose songs instead of buying the complete album. Do you think the industry has become a singles market instead of a complete, artistic, album?

Andrew: I think it’s going that way. But I also think there will always be albums. I also read an interview with – I forget his name – the lead singer of Slipknot. I think I read it yesterday, about him blaming record companies for just putting out crap, putting out garbage. But I don’t know. I still believe that albums will be prevalent in the world; but I believe that the album has to be good for it to be prevalent. I’m trying to think of the last good record I heard, front to back. I think the new Coldplay record is really good. It’s really good. I’m a big Brian Eno fan, the style that he produces and the weird instruments he brings to a band. From beginning to end, I never skip around on that record. I listen to it straight. It’s just weird. I guess some singles, it is happening with people like Rihanna, you know, kind of some hip hop or just urban music. But I think the album will always be there. I’m going to answer this question after I hear the new Metallica, which I think came out today. No, maybe it came out on Tuesday… wait, I think it came out today. I know records don’t normally come out on a Friday; they usually come out on a Tuesday in America. It’s a weird date; I mean, I’m in the world’s largest mall, I’m sure I could find it somewhere. It’s going to be crap though.

Bobby: What’s interesting with that record is how much they’ve turned around with the whole internet thing. They’ve released it all complete on Rock Band and Guitar Hero compared with 2000 when they sued Napster.

Andrew: It’s like a train coming at you; you might as well get on the train, not try and fight an object that cannot be stopped.

Bobby: The second thing the release of the digital EP got me thinking about was how you guys loved to release EPs. Six years ago you released The Disco Before The Breakdown, before that you had Crimes, the acoustic EP and the self-titled one. But like I said, it has been six years since you last released an EP; do you think you’ll be releasing another EP anytime soon or will Tom’s solo CD be counting as it?

Andrew: Well, Tom’s solo thing will be an EP, so I guess it counts for him. I don’t know if it counts for me. It’s six or seven songs, so I guess that will be the new EP. I don’t know why it’s been so long. I mean, it’s kind of nice to just put out a seven inch or something in-between. We always put out seven inches because we always have a bunch of b-sides. Like with Searching for A Former Clarity we had all the re-mixes that Adrock did and then for Cowboy we had acoustic or electric versions of songs that we recorded when we made the record. It’s always nice to put out as much material as you can and people can pick and choose what version they like. Hopefully they like both.

Bobby: Also that way you’ve given the songs to them instead of making them search through the internet for this long lost song that’s out there. Instead it’s like “we recorded it, here it is.”

Andrew: I still like physical records.

Bobby: Oh, of course.

Andrew: Not really CDs, just records.

Bobby: I still haven’t been getting into vinyl yet. I still want to, but the fact that I haven’t had a record player for the longest time kind of got in the way of that.

Andrew: You can still get the basic, nice Sony one at Best Buy or Future Shop here for like a hundred bucks. The best thing that record companies, well smart record companies are doing now, are putting the MP3 code with the vinyl; or in our case we just put a CD of New Wave in with the vinyl.

Bobby: Which is probably the best way, because people still want the physical copy but now we have iPods and we want to have that available to us through digital downloads.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean I want that. I’m not going to take my record player and records on tour with me. I have my iPod. It’s convenient.

Bobby: Speaking about EPs, one of my favourite EPs you guys have released is the acoustic EP. Looking at your history it’s kind of hard to overlook the acoustic aspect of it. Like you said, you recorded all of As The Eternal Cowboy acoustically too. I want to talk about Ben Lee. What was your reaction when you heard that he recorded the entire New Wave acoustically?

Andrew: I thought that was awesome. He didn’t e-mail us or anything, we found out when everyone else found out. Someone sent over an e-mail “holy shit, Ben Lee covered you’re entire record.” I went straight onto the internet and downloaded it and checked it out. I think’s a complete compliment. It’s awesome. And we’ve met him since then. He came to our show in Cleveland, Ohio. He’s the nicest guy. I’m not going to lie to you; I don’t actually know a lot of his music. But what I’ve heard of it is pretty good and relaxed. We were actually in Australia and it was a day off, I was watching TV, just flipping through channels and he was playing live. Just him, an acoustic guitar and a guy on a piano. He was playing a bunch of songs and I was like “I wonder if he’s going to play any songs off of New Wave?” And he did, he played New Wave – the song. It was pretty funny because everybody in the audience, just normal looking people sitting there – it’s all very sit down. He’s like “There’s this punk band from Florida called Against Me! Has anyone heard of them?” and not one person said anything. “Well, okay, it’s really good. You should check them out.” He played New Wave and it was awesome.

Bobby: That reminds me of last time Rise Against were here. They played a cover of Jawbreaker’s Tour Song and they were like “who here knows Jawbreaker?” and pretty much no one knew them.

Andrew: Music is like history. Everyone should always know history, man should always be taught history so they don’t repeat the mistakes that we’ve already made. But people should know music history too, because there’s so much good shit that’s already done.

Bobby: And how do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? Like, where did this sound come from? What did it mean in the first place?

Andrew: Let’s say you’re writing a song or playing this riff. “Wait a second, this sounds familiar. It’s already been written. Fuck.”

Bobby: Last Thanksgiving you guys did an acoustic set as part of a fundraiser show for the Harvest of Hope. The entire show was filmed and directed by Lester Cohn. Many of the songs were released on YouTube as live videos. Do you have any plans to release that as a bonus content or DVD or anything?

Andrew: New Wave Deluxe, Deluxe, Deluxe edition! *laughs* Nah, but it’s there. We have access to it but we don’t have plans for it. Maybe the thirty year anniversary… I don’t know. But that show was actually tons of fun. I remember we played Pints of Guinness with no drums; I was playing the upright bass. Franz from World/Inferno Friendship Society and he’s also the piano player the Hold Steady. He played an accordion solo in the middle of it. It was a really fun show.

Bobby: I watched a bunch of the videos which were released and it looked awesome, the crowd was definitely into it.

Andrew: Oh yeah, it was fun. It was definitely fun.

Bobby: Those videos were YouTube videos, how important do you think viral marketing is to a band now? Like if you go to your MySpace page now, you have seven videos on it. Before New Wave was released, the first introduction to it was live videos of Up The Cuts and White People for Peace.

Andrew: We also did all those in-studio stuff.

Bobby: Yeah, so how important do you think youtube and this viral marketing is to promoting a new CD these days?

Andrew: I would probably say it’s pretty vital. It’s just another way for people to look on the inside of what’s going on. That’s good and bad. Killing the mystery of rock and roll and bands is kind of disheartening because you see how normal people are. You’re like “fuck, I don’t want to hang out with those dudes. They’re just normal.” But another part, like making those videos – those in the studios – those was just us filming and coming up with these stupid ideas to do. Then James would just sit there while I would be recording a bass track and edit it on his computer and put it out. It’s fun to do, it’s fun to make. I’m sure it does help and it is vital in getting people stoked for a record coming out. But it’s also just fun, because all of us are on YouTube watching whatever stupid videos are on. Now it’s completely ingrained in our culture.

Bobby: You also just started promoting a fan shot video for the Tegan Quinn duet, Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart, with the Rock-A-fire explosions.

Andrew: Yeah, the mechanical bears.

Bobby: What made you guys promote that out of all the fan shot videos out there?

Andrew: Because we thought it was awesome. *Laughs* We had never seen anything like it. It’s kind of like the Ben Lee thing; we were just stoked about it. We actually just made a video for that song with Tegan. It’s just a live video. It’s black and white and just us in a rehearsal space, playing. But it came out really good, we just played the songs over and over again like eighteen times.

Bobby: When do you think the video is going to be released?

Andrew: I would probably say within the week. You know how things get done. Hopefully, it was going to be done before we got to Canada, that was the plan.

Bobby: You guys also recently released a video for New Wave. It was very simple, just a record playing, which was an obvious homage to the Replacements’ Bastards of Young. Why did you decide to go with that angle for the video?

Andrew: It was Tom’s idea for the video and he just wanted something simple and kind of an homage to Westerberg and the boys. But I think it’s hilarious just when he knocks into it.

Bobby: Yeah, and it jumps up to Stop.

Andrew: Well, there are two versions of it. One version skips to Thrash Unreal too. I don’t know; its art. We’re all fans of art and we like seeing what people can create and when they do it to our music, it’s awesome.

Bobby: That video for New Wave was very polarizing. People either love or hate it.

Andrew: That’s our band.

Bobby: Exactly. That has happened to your band throughout your entire career. But a lot of people have gone further than that, slashing your tires, holding protests shows…

Andrew: Yeah, that was a long time ago.

Bobby: But what do you think it is that makes a fan want a band to be this thing so much that they react so viciously when something doesn’t go as planned? What makes them hold onto this ideal so much that they don’t let the band evolve? Why do you think people do that?

Andrew: Well, this sounds like a condescending answer but I’m going to speak from personal experience: complete immaturity. I would always talk shit about bands when I was younger, just being “why the fuck did they do that? Why did they do that?” and not thinking or knowing those people. People make their own decisions and they have every right to. I was immature when I was saying stuff like that and I’m not mad at people when they viciously hate us or viciously love us either way. It’s their own right to do it, but there are way more important things in life. If people took the amount of energy that they did talking shit on the message board and actually got involved in their local government or city council or fucking cleaned up the litter for an hour – the world would be a much better place. But that’s not how it happens.

Bobby: Just one last question. I was reading Tom’s blog and he was saying that when you were in Japan for the Summer Sonic Festival you were stay at the Grand Prince Hotel in the Akasaka district in Tokyo. This past May, I had the chance to visit Japan and we stayed in the Akasaka-Mitske district which is a few blocks away from Akasaka. I remember one night we got off at the wrong subway station and got lost at Akasaka. The place just blew me away, the lights, the way it was all set up. That was one of my most memorable nights of the trip in Japan, so what was your most memorable moment when you went to Japan?

Andrew: I would probably say the most memorable moment was when we played the show in Tokyo. Now our set, our set was fun but I went… There were many, many stages. It was a huge fest; there was Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Biffy Clyro and all these dance bands. It was just a massive thing. But my wristband got me anywhere, there were no different stage wristbands and I just walked straight up and watched Alicia Keys play. *Chuckles* The thing was, it wasn’t just watching her, and I saw Coldplay as well, it was just how polite the audience is. It’s ridiculous. There’s like eighty thousand Japanese people in this huge, enormous dome and Coldplay came on and it’s like “ahhhhhh —-“ (Cheers and then cuts off) Just complete silence, just waiting for the music to start. Nobody’s talking. It’s just so different from us, from America or Canada or Australia or Europe.

Bobby: Exactly. Jimmy Eat World played here a while ago and Attack in Black were opening. Everybody was there to see Jimmy Eat World so everyone was talking. They actually overpowered the band with their talking which is just insane.

Andrew: It’s a very polite culture. That’s only the second time I’ve been there and I would love to do a proper tour there. I have good times over there.

Bobby: Yeah, like I was only there for a week but it was insane just wandering around and seeing the different culture and everything.

Andrew: Oh yeah, the electric city – what is it, Shibuya?

Bobby: Yeah, Shibuya, with the three way cross walk.

Andrew: And I felt really tall over there too.

Bobby: Yeah, I felt really underdressed there too. Everyone’s in suits and the there’s just me. Well, I guess that’s about it, thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Andrew: I was just going to go into my Osaka story.

Bobby: Well, go ahead.

Andrew: We had a translator with us; she was from Osaka so we went out the night before the festival began. We began in Osaka. She took us down this really weird, dark alley. Up two flights of these discreet staircases into the most amazing restaurant I’ve ever eaten at. But you would never find it.

Bobby: Yeah, we did that when we went to the electronics district – Akihabara. We had been walking around in dress shoes for days since it was a school of business trip and our feet were killing us. So this guy who had been living in Tokyo for two weeks before and came to help us out said “okay, I’ll buy you all foot messages.” So we went down this alley and up this discreet, creepy staircase. Like “are you serious? Up there?” You would never find it if you didn’t know, there are hidden secrets everywhere.

Andrew: It’s such a small place, with everything placed on top of each other. Just like the West Edmonton Mall!