Anti-Flag

This was a night I won’t soon forget – Bad Religion and Anti-Flag at Red’s. What a show it was, the anticipation leading up to it was amazing and neither bands dissapointed. Pat Thetic, drummer for Anti-Flag was kind enough sit and talk to be a bit before they went on. We talked about all sorts from the gouverment to their recent signing to RCA. It turned out to be a good interview. My friend Kevin also pops in every once in a while. Thanks to Pat for doing it and to Jesse and Dave for setting it all up.

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Bobby: Starting with the basics, you guys have been on tour with Bad Religion for three days now. How’s that going so far?

Pat: It’s going very well. They’re good guys; they’ve been treating us well. The shows have been great. Good people. Good tour. The weather sucks, but you can’t beat that. It’s Canada, it’s winter, what do you expect?

Bobby: Yeah, today’s the first snowfall we’ve had.

Pat: Really?

Bobby: Yeah, it’s actually been pretty nice. Normally we get snow in the middle of October.

Pat: So it’s better than normal? Still sucks for us though *laughs*

Bobby: Are you looking forward to seeing how it all turns out?

Pat: You mean the weather or…

Bobby: The tour.

Pat: I expect the tour to be great. Bad Religion are a professional band that handles things well and I expect it to go well.

Bobby: It’s been two years since “The Terror State” came out and you guys said that we’ll see a new record from you guys in early 2006. Can you give us any more information on it?

Pat: It’s gonna rock you’re fucking ass off.

Kevin: What style are you going with? Old stuff? New stuff?

Pat: I don’t know, it’s hard to tell you. It’s pretty much just a continuation of where we’ve been and it has some old elements to it, it has some new elements to it. The title of the record is “For Blood and Empire.” A lot of things about the war in Iraq and the election a little bit, and there’s a little bit about media. There’s a song that I put together about the war but I’m not sure if that’s going to make the record or not. So it covers a lot of different elements.

Bobby: Like you just said that you’re not sure if that song’s going to make the record, I’ve also read that you guys had over 50 songs written and are now down to 18.

Pat: Yeah, we always write a whole bunch of them and then widdle them down to the good ones.

Bobby: How many songs do you think we’ll see on this record?

Pat: Probably twelve to thirteen, maybe fourteen songs will make the record. We’ve been debating how many songs we want to put on the record.

Bobby: What are you going to do with the other 40 songs?

Pat: I’m hoping we can give them away on the website and things like that. Maybe on comps or something. There’s always somebody who’s looking for a song for a benefit comp and stuff like that. So I’m hoping to get them out that way.

Bobby: Going back to “The Terror State” – why did you guys decide to cover a Woody Guthrie song on it?

Pat: Woody Guthrie was an amazing person who wrote amazing protest music; and to be able to put music to his words was just an incredible experience for us. We went to the archives where he has all his material and we went through his lyrics and we found the one that we liked and put music to it. It was incredible. I recently watched a thing on Bob Dylan, that new documentary on Bob Dylan, and how much of just a schmuck he was and how he just ripped off Woody Guthrie and you realized that Woody Guthrie was the real thing and that Bob Dylan was kind of a schmuck.

Bobby: I think its funny how many people are doing Bob Dylan covers now. Drive-Thru Records did an entire tribute album to him, Against Me! did a cover for the PROTECT comp.

Pat: Yeah. I used to think he was cool until I saw that documentary and then I was like “I don’t think he’s that cool anymore, I think he sort of sucks.”

Bobby: On “The Terror State”, why did you make the song “Fuck The Flag” a limited edition bonus song only on the first couple CDs?

Pat: Because it’s a funny song and we just thought we’d throw it on to make it interesting for the first couple people who buy the record. I think you can get it online for free now. Fat wanted to do something special, so the first couple people who buy the record get a bonus song. The song’s a simple, funny song.

Bobby: I haven’t heard it yet.

Pat: You haven’t heard it yet? Oh it’s a gem! There’s like 52 fucks in a minute and a half.

Bobby: Now I’m going to have to go on the internet and find it.

Pat: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, go online and find it.

Bobby: Last year you guys also released the “Death of A Nation” live DVD. Why did you decide to release a live DVD but instead of having it all at one concert, why did you chop it up and have it at a whole bunch of different venues?

Pat: I don’t think we were that good consistently for one whole show so we took the best songs from different shows. And the kids who came out and video taped it; they would come out to shows here and there because they were going to school. So we just got them to shoot whatever shows they were at and picked the best songs.

Bobby: I also read on your site that you are always filming stuff for a new DVD and that you have a ton of material that you just need to sort through and put into a DVD. Do you think we’ll see another DVD from you guys anytime soon?

Pat: Yeah, we’ll definitely have another DVD. But as you know, we have the record company, we have Underground Action Alliance, we have the band Anti-Flag, and we have a whole bunch of things going on right now that putting together that release is kind of on the back burner. But we have some great acoustic songs that we recorded last year just sitting at home, just really good stuff that we have to search through and put together so that people can hear it.

Bobby: You guys are currently 19, have been for a while, and always will be. Why 19?

Pat: Because when we were younger 19 year olds, we toured with a band – you guys may know them, DBS. They’re a band from Canada, Vancouver area. And they were like 15 years old when we toured with them, they were really young. Maybe 14 years old. We also had a friend of ours called The Old Man who was maybe mid-forties, mid-fifties. And a lot of people gave us shit about it saying “why are you touring with these little kids and this old guy?” And we were like “Well, what’s the problem?” “Well, they’re so young, they don’t know what they’re talking about” or “he’s so old, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” And we thought that was a bunch of crap. Just because you’re old or young your opinions are discounted? So we decided to be 19 every year.

Bobby: We still have another year before we’re 19.

Pat *sarcastically* Oh, well you’re too young then. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Bobby: Speaking about DBS, early on in your career you released a split CD with the band. And then later on, you re-released it with some bonus songs on A-F Records. Why did you only originally release 1,000 copies?

Pat: Because the girl that released the record fucked us over so we just pulled the record away from her and released it ourselves. That’s all it is. The deal fell apart, it was a bad deal.

Bobby: I know you guys are a very political band and are currently working with organizations like Shirts For A Cure and PETA and have people from PETA at all of your shows. Why do you work with organizations like that?

Pat: Because I feel that’s an important part of being in a band. It’s a part of who we are. I personally think that music is an amazing way of letting people know about things that are going on in their world. Even though Bob Dylan was a schmuck, some of the things that he did was show people different visions of the world that they live in, give people other options. In some ways, that’s what we’re trying to do with PETA. Because a lot of people don’t know what vegetarianism is or what it is to be a vegan or how animals are slaughtered and things like that. And those types of things, once you learn about them, helps you to make decisions about your life. Much like Shirts For A Cure, they educate people about the treatments for breast cancer and things like that. That is a very important part of what we do and it’s one of the things that really excites me about the music industry – we can show people different sides of things that they might not have known about. Not particularly saying it’s right, but that there are other options out there.

Bobby: You guys recently released a limited edition acoustic song called “Welcome To 1984” for “The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out The Bush Regime”. Can you give us a little bit of information about that organization?

Pat: They came out of the people who did “Not In Our Name” – I don’t know if you’re familiar with that group. But they were a bunch of people who were trying to say to the Bush regime “Don’t invade Iraq in our name.” Because essentially, as Americans, we give the right to our president to do things in our name. And what they were trying to say in that campaign was “Don’t do this in our name. We don’t support it. We don’t believe in it.” The same people who were doing that campaign are trying to actively, forcibly remove Bush from office through impeachment. Bush has committed war crimes, through an aggressive war in Iraq, through torture, and holding people against their will – human rights violations. Those types of things are impeachable offences we feel. And we need to get people aware of that and drive him out of office.

Bobby: Speaking about the government, how do you think the government handle the devastating effects of hurricane Katrina?

Pat: I think that was just another example in a long line of examples of poor management in the Bush regime that took place from the botched war to the botched rescue operation in New Orleans; even the botched [rescue efforts with] Wilma that went through south Florida. The government, particularly the Bush regime, is more concerned about giving tax breaks to the wealthy people and contracts to Halliburton than they are about taking care of people. And hopefully that is what government is there to do. Government is there to take care of the least of its citizens. Make sure that they are protected from the tsunami and other disasters. Right now, the Bush regime is only worried about themselves and doesn’t care about the weaker people.

Bobby: What other organizations do you guys support that people may not know about?

Pat: Umm… That’s a good question. We’re hoping to put together something with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for the tour with the new record. Those are two organizations that we’re interested in and that we think are great. We have the Military Free Zone, which is trying to keep military recruiters out of the schools in the States. I don’t know if you suffer from that much in Canada, but military recruiters back home come into schools and prey on underprivileged kids and try to get them to join the military. Obviously PETA is one that we’re interested in. Music for America is another one. But I’m trying to think of any which would have reference to Canadian kids. I guess the main ones would be Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch is specifically designed to free political prisoners, but specifically, right now they’re working on the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and the other political prisoners that the US has in captivation.

Bobby: You guys recently signed to RCA Records and when you announced it you guys received some bad criticism along with a lot of positive…

Pat: Did we? I didn’t see any of that! *laughs*

Bobby: Yeah, on punknews.org and sites like that you were getting some good feedback for getting so much control over the deal, like being able to release vinyl and singles on A-F Records, and most surprisingly only a two-album deal. How did you manage to get all those benefits?

Pat: The beauty of that and this is the same thing I tell our bands on A-F Records, the only way to be able to do what you want as a band is to have power, to have your own power. When we were young, we would drive all over the country and play shows. We didn’t go to a record company and beg for them to put out our record – they came to us and said “we want to put your record out.” And we said “these are the things we want to have on our record” and they said fine because they knew we had the power to handle it. That’s the same way, luckily, we’ve been able to be our whole career. And then with the RCA deal, there’s been major labels sniffing around for a long time, but none of them would get up and give us what we wanted. We finally got to a point where we had enough power where they were willing to give us what we wanted. And we were like “well, if you’re willing to give us these things, then it makes sense to us. But it doesn’t make sense unless we get to do our own thing.” So that’s how it went down.

Bobby: I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal…

Pat: Oh, you saw that one too! Very good! You’ve done your research.

Bobby: Yeah, I try. Well, they said that labels like Sire Records, Geffen Records, Columbia Records and RCA were all having a bidding war for you guys. Out of all those labels, why did you go with RCA?

Pat: Because the people at RCA made the most sense to us and they didn’t try to put any restrictions on what we do creatively. They gave us the things that you read off, like we’re able to release records on A-F Records and do all the other things. That’s why we went with RCA. The people there made the most sense to us.

Bobby: Alright, I know when major labels were scouting your former label-mates Against Me!, they took them out on a whole bunch of nights outs, like baseball games and stuff like that. Did they take you guys out anywhere to convince you to sign to them?

Pat: They didn’t because that’s not the kind of people that we are. We are not partiers. We just get angry when people try to get down with us and be like “hey! We’re gonna take you out!” That’s not what we do. We did go to dinner with one or two of them, but nothing special. They didn’t take us to clubs or anything like that.

I’m not saying that in anyway that was bad for Against Me!. They should do whatever they want to do. It’s just not the kind of people that we are. We’re lame.

Bobby: You just mentioned A-F Records, on October 25th you guys re-released Inquisition’s…

Pat: Oh! It’s an amazing record! Have you heard it yet? It’s fucking amazing.

Bobby: Yeah, it’s amazing. I actually gave it 5/5 for my review. But why did you guys decide to re-release that?

Pat: Because it’s a great record and nobody was hearing it. It had gone out of print and we loved those guys. We knew Thomas from Strike Anywhere and he said that nobody was doing it and we said “we love the record let us put it out” and he did and it’s been amazing. It’s a great record, I love it.

Bobby: Are there any more records that you guys are releasing in the next couple months that we should look out for?

Pat: We’re gonna be doing the vinyl of the new record that’s coming out from Anti-Flag and we have some other things in the works. Nothing that I want to talk about yet, but there’s some more stuff in the works.

Bobby: Okay, if you could pick any person or band, dead or alive, to tour with, who would you pick to tour with and why?

Pat: It would be Woody Guthrie for sure. A guy name Phil Oakes maybe. Billy Bragg. And let’s say, just to fuck everything up, Billy Idol with Generation X. That’s just off the top of my head today.

Bobby: Now onto a bit more unusual questions I like to ask at most interviews. If you were a member of the opposite sex for a day, week, month or however long you wanted, what would you do and why?

Pat: What would I do and why? If I was a member of the opposite sex for a day, I would sit down and watch TV for twenty four hours because I wouldn’t have to play drums for a fucking punk band – that’s what. Yeah, I’d probably take the day off if I didn’t have to play drums. Lately we’ve been working so much that we all need a day off. So if I could be a woman for a day I would take the day off, sit in front of the TV and watch it.

Bobby: Could you tell us something about the band or one of its members that not many people know about.

Pat: Justin is addicted to soy ice cream. #2… umm… what’s something nobody knows about #2… Chris Head is really a mute and I have goldfish. I have three goldfish. And I can’t think about anything for #2. He likes hockey. I don’t know. I don’t have anything to say about #2. But those are probably the things that nobody knows about us that are the most interesting.

Bobby: If you could have one thing at this moment, anything at all, what would you have and why?

Pat: I would have somebody else in the White House. I would have redistribution of wealth and I would have all chocolate chip cookies be vegan.

Bobby: I guess that’s about it. Thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts?

Pat: No, I just want to say Dave Brigade says that you do nice stuff for A-F Records so keep up the good work. And yeah, thanks a lot.