As punk bands go, a few have always been at the forefront for me. Anti-Flag has been among those bands for a long time. In keeping with their roots, Anti-Flag’s new album American Spring is as energetic and communicative as ever. With a message of breaking down stereotypes, racism, sexism, and militarism Anti-Flag is back in full effect! I was recently able to snag some of the very busy guitarist/vocalist Justin Sane’s time between tours and here’s what he had to say:
I guess I just have to start by asking what’s it like to be so successful at only age 19?
[Laughs] Well it’s a little overwhelming, let me tell you. You kind of wish you had a little more life experience under your belt to know how to deal with all this shit.
Understandable. [Laughs] You’ve recently finished The Terror State 10th anniversary tour. How was that?
It was really incredible, actually. I think it’s pretty natural a lot of times when people are in to a band, sometimes you’re in to a band for a while and then you just move on. It’s not because you don’t like the band anymore but you find new things and have new interests. That happens to me all the time. I’ll find a band where I’m really excited about and really in to and then five, ten years will go by and I realize I haven’t listened to them in 10 years. What happened with the Terror State tour that’s really exciting and interesting is a lot of those kinds of people who haven’t gone to an Anti-Flag show in a really long time they came out to the shows. What was really cool about it is that quite often when we play live shows, I meet people and they tell me about how the band affected their life in one way or another and that’s really cool but with these shows, those stories were in a lot of ways more impactful. Especially because a lot of the people we would talk to would say things like “because of that record I became a social worker,” or “I became a lawyer and now I fight oil companies that pollute the planet.” A lot of stories from people who the band had an impact on their life and it was 10 years later and they were doing amazing things out in the world as a result of being inspired by the record or the band. That made the tour really special in a lot of ways that I had not anticipated.
That’s pretty incredible. I was actually able to make it out to the Pittsburgh show which was cool for me because the first time I saw you live was when you toured for the release of The Terror State.
[Laughs] Oh shit! That’s amazing!
Anti-Flag – Fabled World
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Yeah! That was really cool for me. How was it to revisit that album in full after 10 years?
It was really cool because a lot of those songs, when we wrote them, some of the songs were just too hard for us to play live. We just weren’t… I think that we could have if we had just worked with them but ultimately some of those songs we didn’t play live because they’re more difficult to perform. At this point in our career we’re much better musicians and we’re able to play the songs really well. It was fun to actually play songs that had never seen the light of day live. That made playing the songs really cool. Also, of course, when you revisit a record like that you kind of think back about where you were at the time and what was happening in the world and where you were with your life. It makes you retrospective and those kinds of thoughts too. It makes you realize you’ve come a really long way with your own life and certainly you reflect a lot about the way the world has changed… or stayed the same.
Yeah, actually my next question is how much of the albums messages for you still hold true currently?
Well, I think it holds really true. Ultimately the main point or the record was to rally against militarism and I think that message was accurate. I think that we were right. I mean when you look at all the damage that George Bush did you see the end result of it today with the rise of Al-Qaeda and ISIS and all of the issues that were a result of the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. So much wreckage, millions of lives destroyed and beyond that, of course, the damage to the planet. This planet is quickly just dying and at an accelerated pace. I think that we can point back to the Bush era in that too. There was absolutely no work towards trying to save the environment during his presidency. I’m talking even beyond global warming, which I totally believe in, beyond that our oceans are just dying. In a lot of ways the ideas on the record are very pertinent today. I guess people will look at it and say “Well then, is the record a failure? You guys didn’t fix things with the record.” And I look at it always that if a record or a song can affect one person or make their life better than the record is a success to me. In that respect I know, just from talking to many people over the years, that the record had a positive effect on people’s lives. What I kind of cherish more than anything is when people tell me that they were interested in joining the military and then didn’t because they found Anti-Flag. To me, that’s really important, you know? A lot of people don’t like to hear it but I think the deeper you look into it and the more you understand it, you realize the military is used to gain control of natural resources and wealth for a very few elite, rich people and it’s not used to liberate people and to help people as a force of good. It’s a force of imperialism for a very wealthy, elite few. I think that’s really unfortunate that people have been co-opted and used and their lives kind of thrown away so that a few elites can profit. That’s just something I cannot support. I know people in the military. I’m not saying that everybody in the military is a bad person but when it comes to militarism that is absolutely something that I’m against. When I find out that something that I said or a song I wrote caused someone not to become a part of that machine, to me that makes everything that we’ve gone through as a band worthwhile.
Absolutely! That’s actually really incredible. Was the turnout what you were expecting or hoped for?
Yeah, yeah! It was pretty much exactly what we were expecting as far as number of people coming out. I think the shows ended up being more exciting than I anticipated and that was really great.
You’re about to embark on a multiple country tour in support of the upcoming album “American Spring.” Going almost straight from tour to tour how do you find time for anything else?
A lot of time you don’t find time for anything else. [Laughs] Just cleaning your house, you know, or paying your bills. Those things, when you come home, are like a mad dash just taking care of things that are usually considered pretty normal but are not for us. Going on tour brings a lot of really great times and a lot of awesome opportunities so I’m not complaining.
As a band, you’ve released records on several notable record labels. What made you decide to go with Spinefarm Records for the new album?
With the new record we kind of just took a chance on ourselves. We made The General Strike and The People or the Gun before that in our studio in Pittsburgh. I really love both of those records but I know kind of where we were at that time we didn’t push ourselves hard on those records. I feel like they’re both really good, strong punk rock records but as far as pushing ourselves to kind of push past the genre and the extremes of the genre I just know we didn’t. When we were discussing making American Spring we thought to ourselves “If we’re going to make a record we should push ourselves in a way that we’ve never done it before. What’s the point of just making another record? Let’s make the very best record that we can possibly make. Let’s really commit ourselves.” That’s where we decided to bring in Kenny Carkeet from AWOLNATION. Kenny was somebody that we knew a little bit. What we did know about him was that he was really talented as a producer, a really creative songwriter, and that he loved Anti-Flag. Kenny grew up listening to Anti-Flag so he was really familiar with what Anti-Flag was phonically and ideologically. He really wanted to produce our record. He kept telling us “Let me produce the next Anti-Flag record!” Ultimately all those stars aligned and it just made sense to work with Kenny so that’s what we did. We really pushed ourselves to get up out of our comfort zone musically and to really, really knuckle down and focus on writing. We put a lot of time in that process. We left Pittsburgh and flew to Los Angeles and locked ourselves in a room and worked really hard at writing music and writing lyrics. In the end we recorded the record with Kenny and his producing partner Jim Kaufman. Jim has a studio in his house and we recorded the record in Jim’s house and then we were done. We were like “Here we have a record, now we need a record label.” We hadn’t talked with any labels. We wanted to make a record first. We just wanted that to be our prime focus. A friend of ours from L.A. knew that we just finished our record and he knew about Spinefarm Records. I had never heard of Spinefarm. He said “You know you guys should really talk to these guys at Spinefarm Records. For one thing, a few of the people who work there are really big Anti-Flag fans and for another thing, the label is really going through this process of retooling and it’s getting kind of a whole new look. It could be a really good fit for you guys.” So we set up a meeting with them. We met with the president and vice-president of the label and we knew that we were going to sign with them at the end of that meeting. They really understood the band. They were really excited to work with us so they were really committed to help us achieve the things we wanted to achieve with the record. Furthermore, Spinefarm is truly a global label. They have offices in Finland, London, Berlin, Paris, New York, and Japan. So we’ve been on labels that have that kind of global reach before and we know the benefits of that especially when you’re a band like Anti-Flag and you’re trying to bring with it ideological imperialism. We’re a band that has something to say. We want as many ears to hear it. When you work with a label that has a global reach like that, that goal is more easily accomplished. In the end it was a label that I never expected to sign to. I’d never even heard of it but I think it’s been a really great fit for us.
Awesome! I’ve been listening to the new album non-stop and it’s incredible. How are you preparing for the full release of American Spring?
Well, right now we’ve been so caught up with press with that being part of Spinefarm being a global label. We did press in London, Paris, and Berlin. Then we came home and made a music video. We’ve really got our plates full. It’s pretty amazing in a way. We’ve never been on a label where they actually set up press in other countries before the record came out. We went and did “press days” where normally that would be part of a tour. We’d normally do interviews when we’re in a city. Maybe when you’re in London you might have a day off and you do press then. This has been kind of a different experience and it’s been exciting because we get to discuss the ideas of the record with a lot of different people.
Do you like that format a little better than you’ve previously done?
Yeah I like that we go after it and do a ton of it and it will be out there before the record comes out. I think that it certainly gives people a better sense of what the record is about and what we were thinking about when we wrote the record. For me, just as a music fan, I think any time you can understand a concept or when you have an understanding of a concept or you experience something in any kind of art it makes it more interesting.
I’ve been reading the essays that go along with the record and I think it really solidifies the beliefs that Anti-Flag has, I think.
There definitely were some themes that we wanted to drive home and obviously Anti-Flag is a band that has always stood against bigotry. One of the issues we really wanted to address in this record was that of inherent bias. This is the idea that everybody, no matter how open and accepting they are, has some bias in them. Sociologists will tell you that that is true because of the society we live in. We’re always receiving messages and internalizing them. Subconsciously we’re picking up messages all day and as result of that everybody has some sort of inherent bias. We’re really trying to illustrate that with the artwork. You know when a Fox News viewer from Middle America sees a Muslim woman they think “terrorist.” When a punk kid sees a cop he thinks “racist.” We’re really just trying to point out to people the idea that everyone these inherent biases and it’s important for us to identify that within ourselves. Once we indentify that within ourselves, that’s when we can rise above it. That’s when we can let it go and when we get to be more open and accepting. We need to try to be more understanding of people who are different than us. That’s a concept we were trying to take further with this record than we maybe have in the past and see it in a new way rather than just saying “Well fuck racism, sexism, and homophobia.” We wanted to take it a little further than that.
Anti-Flag — “This Is The New Sound”
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I think that’s a really important message to get across and try to break down those broad generalizations. I’ve read somewhat recently that you had plans for some more solo music. Can you tell me anything about that?
Yeah it’s funny, you know? Everybody seems to know that which is funny because I don’t remember mentioning that quite as much as apparently I have. [Laughs] The reality is I have been so caught up making this Anti-Flag record that there just hasn’t been time for anything else. I would love to release another solo record and do some solo touring this year just needs to be over first. [Laughs] I can start working towards that direction but it’s going to take a little time. I do think though, in the best case scenario it is something I would like to do. I think that people expect it.
How do you feel about the state of the punk scene or the music scene in general?
I think it’s really cool. With the Terror State shows we almost always had a local band opening. From what I can see there’s so much exciting and vibrant music happening in the underground scene. There are bands with a really cool point of view. There’s a lot of bands that are political, bands that care about making a statement and trying to do what we’ve done over the years which is carry a message forward and let people know they care about the world and making things better. Musically a lot of these bands are really exciting so I think that there is a really vibrant and thriving punk rock underground and obviously that’s great. That does my heart a lot of good. I think, in a lot of ways, punk rock… when I started going to punk shows, it wasn’t taken for granted that it’s a place that’s free of racism and sexism and homophobia and bigotry. I think that those were ideals that a lot of punk rockers had in general and the kind of community that punk rockers wanted to be a part of. I know that we did. That was a big part of starting our band and saying the things we said and had to do with the idea that we were trying to create a punk scene that we believed in and made sense to us. Nowadays, what’s cool about that legacy, and we weren’t the only people out there doing that, there were a lot of people trying to take the punk scene in that direction and I think what’s really cool and exciting nowadays is that is just a standard for the punk scene. The punk scene has really led the greater society as a whole and in a lot of really progressive areas. That would definitely include those areas of discrimination and equality. It’s all in the larger society trying to catch up to this example that has been set in the underground. That’s what’s really exciting about the underground is that it is a creative place and an open place. It’s a place that challenges the status quo and leading the greater society into new ideas of what should be commonplace. In that respect, I think that punk rock has come a long way and is a pretty cool place right now.
I have to say, of any of the recent punk shows I’ve been to the sense of community and brotherhood is just so much greater than it was even five or ten years ago. I think that bands like Anti-Flag have been at the forefront of that.
I totally agree and I think that’s true even with people in the underground that don’t listen to Anti-Flag or don’t care about Anti-Flag, and that’s fine but I will say that I think Anti-Flag is a part of the legacy of creating that kind of community within punk rock. Of course there are many other bands and activists and punk kids having ‘zines that are making statements in different kinds of ways. I do feel really proud that we were part of that movement. It does my heart a lot of good whenever I go to an underground show and it feels exactly like what you just described, you know. It’s a great sense of unity. It’s a safe place for all people to be. That always makes me feel good to this very day. That’s something I want to be a part of. That’s why I love punk rock. That’s why I’m still here! [Laughs] Years later, still fighting and still caring for it. It’s a really special community and it’s a really exciting community to be a part of.
Connect with Anti-flag(click icons):
ANTI-FLAG w/ The Homeless Gospel Choir and After the Fall:
6/18 Syracuse, NY | Lost Horizon
6/19 Providence, RI | Simon’s 677
6/20 S. Burlington, VT | Higher Ground
6/21 Portland, ME | Port City Music Hall
6/23: Buffalo, NY | The Waiting Room
6/24 Toledo, OH | Frankies
6/25 Columbus, OH | The Basement
6/26 Grand Rapids, MI | The Intersection
6/27: Erie, PA | Basement Transmission
