Transcript
This is an auto-generated transcript of a conversation with Frank Turner about the Against Me! EP Crime as Forgiven By. It's imperfect but I don't have the time/resources to do something better at the moment. I might add more of these but for now it's just this one.
I'm catching you between what's the tour called what's this sort of Mega endless tour called well so basically many years ago um uh we made a bunch of uh tour specific merchandise that we didn't sell through at the end of the tour which was kind of a problem so I slightly sarcastically started referring saying well next time we'll just call it the never-ending tour of everywhere and then you can use that kind of whatever it was posters or t-shirts forever and it's kind of stuck um I've gone with it harder than usual in the last couple of years but yes the never-ending tour of everywhere we're we're on a pit stop at the moment yes and the pit stop so this is amazing and impressive the pit stop is uh record a record record is that what you've been doing yeah I've been making a record I mean I'm speaking to you from my studio right now I'm fortunate enough to um in the pandemic I moved I moved out of the big city um and one of the nice things about moving to the countryside so they can afford to have a studio down my garden um it is uh small and perfectly formed as you can see uh but we have done we're doing backing vocals over the next few days but otherwise we're done um uh for the next album um people should calm down because that doesn't necessarily mean that um it's coming out immediately soon it'll be kind of spring next year but I'm excited about it that's cool and so you carve out that time and you have the you have like a good sense when you go into the studio to spend two weeks or whatever that you're gonna be able to do it yes there are bands it took me a year years to figure out like when you read sort of stories about band spending six months in the studio so I was like doing what like um because I've always been I mean initially out of necessity like I've always arrived at the studio with everything ready to go and it's just a kind of it's a kind of documentation thing and it took me years to realize that bands were actually kind of writing in the studio and working out Arrangements in the studio and it was like oh wow no what a waste of on money um yeah and that's probably not incidental to like this conversation we're having with you and again you're the type of people writing songs you know your songwriters and so you're okay yeah but even I mean and we'll we will get further into this but like you know for me like this record that we've just made we probably spent about two weeks total making it we've been rehearsing it for six months you know like so I mean and I guess some bands do that whilst also paying studio rental which seems idiotic to me but um but yeah so so you know we we were in good shape when we started so we're kind of talking I'll give you a little bit of my background with this is like I I I don't need to say this too much because otherwise I'm gonna say it on every [ __ ] episode of this podcast but grew up listening to some punk music and then with my family's like singer songwriter music and then this thing happened in like the 2000s where in in whatever way big or small in a way that just fully caught my attention these two things found uh like they crossed paths in a way that was that happened definitely with against me and then I pulled it up just because I want to mention it I looked it up online but some I had one year where I was subscribed to Alternative press Magazine and there was it was June 2008 quiet is the new loud I don't know if you remember stuff like this or if they even interviewed people but it just was uh Paul Baraboo Frank Turner Andrew Jackson Jihad now ajj and it was about this like idea of kind of full companies and I was like I literally wrote down all three things because I was like like and that magazine I'll be honest like it was a lot of like I think 2008 it was a lot of like uh emo emo music doing like Emo music becoming Mall music or something yeah totally diagonal haircuts yeah yeah was not which was not not my jam it's diagonal haircuts yeah yeah yeah you know what I mean by that yeah exactly that was a yeah you know I always think this is not really relevant to this but there's a fantastic line in uh propagandhi song where he's he's the um back to the motor League where he's just kind of dissing kind of mainstream quote-unquote punk bands and his line is rounding off the jagged edges and I feel like there was a real process because I mean this this isn't really relevant to what we're talking about but it's on my mind but like you know I got into emo before My Chemical Romance and it was like there wasn't really a clear defining line between emo and screamo and the emo was a kind of this kind of pretty weird left field discordant noisy type of music and then it sort of slowly got kind of sanded down into something that could be on the cover of AP I suppose but like um that was a I mean and of course in saying any of this I sound like a kind of uh typically sort of male gatekeepy uh [ __ ] basically because I probably am being that um nevertheless you know that was a that was a process in that period of time but I mean well to try and bring this around something relevant to what we're trying to talk about like one of the things I always loved right from the word go with against me for me is that they didn't seem to fit that particular model of what of what was happening to punk rock more broadly
it's like I'm dying to forget our sleepless night slime perfectly alone and still I can drink till Victory I'll drink to the mighty drink until I die at least until the sunrise when honesty as popular as a play comes to remind me [Music] me going nowhere right down the street a prostitute is selling the closest thing to love about this country has to offer yeah all right so beautiful that that feels that way to me too and yeah what I thought I think because in my mind I associate your music so much I don't think I really like grasp that like what against me was doing started at like 2000 and can't find punk rock comes out in like 06 so by the time you're making the full things like You're basically making love Iron song when New Wave is happening almost right yeah yeah oh definitely they um as a band feel like they're kind of like uh unmaded generation is too strong away but like a couple of like high school years above me you know what I mean I mean there truly are so um but I mean so my experience of it like in in 2000 I want to say um when I uh I would I'd sort of just kind of properly moved to London and I was kind of staying uh in kind of uh kind of Dos houses and squats and that kind of thing and just sort of like trying to be a full-time punk rock person and go to show time playing bands and you know the usual kind of thing and kind of working crappy Talent sales jobs during the day and I remember being at a house party and a friend of mine gave me a cassette that had crime as forgiven by on it um uh as if it was drugs is the thing I always remember like he slightly palmed it off to me you know what I mean and he was like this is going to change your world and it's funny that what you say about them kind of against me being an instance of bringing the kind of singer-songwrite situation and punk rock together because I think you're right but that wasn't quite the appeal for me personally because the whole thing for me was I I grew up my parents don't really believe in modern music so I was self-educated I was an auto did act in music and that meant that I knew everything about metal and then Punk and then grunge and then hardcore um and didn't know anything at all I mean I knew I knew absolutely everything I I knew the song that Bob Dylan wrote propaganda songs by the Minutemen before I'd ever heard a song by Bob Dylan do you know what I mean like I knew everything but I could tell could have told you everything about the chromags before I'd heard a single song by Johnny Cash or indeed The Beatles for that matter um so hey was that so you know but I the one kind of like cut Wild Card uh was that my older sister got me and stuff like the levelers I don't know if you're familiar with them they're a kind of British folk man from the early 90s kind of in the vein of like The Pogues and stuff like that um and then there was also um I was I was and indeed still I'm a huge Captain cross fan so there was a bit of kind of songwriter remix in my in in very sparing amounts but so yeah my friend gave me this record and was like this is gonna [ __ ] you up man um and uh do you think real quick do you think he was giving that to many people saying this is gonna [ __ ] you up or do you think he saw like a certain proclivity in you that was like Frank this is gonna [ __ ] you up uh I think there was a fair few people he was giving it to but I think he knew that it would land with me especially I guess um and I remember I was completely obsessed by crime as forgiven by and then I I didn't I don't think I got around to those acoustic ones in my first kind of pass if you like Reinventing sort of came along um I do remember kind of like I mean if we're now having this conversation about my overall relationship with against me I felt like at the time I felt like Reinventing I got a bit more full band than I wanted it to be do you know what I mean like crime was so stripped back just kind of like toy drums or something and and and like acoustic guitar or clean electric guitar or whatever it was and shouting [Music] and there was kind of like suddenly there was like there was like two guitars and a bass player and all this kind of thing and I remember in again you know in a slightly kind of when you're a teenager trying to Define Yourself by sort of not enjoying things that other people are enjoying being a bit too cool uh in places but I mean I mean [ __ ] whatever who cares man like we make we make fun of fun of people for being Gatekeepers and hipsters and all this stuff and I think that's a good like check and balance but it's cool to like a thing before people know about it oh yeah you know I do think I think I think as long as you understand it in the context of as I say like it being a part of adolescent self-definition which it definitely was for me if you see what I mean you define Who You Are by kind of drawing lines in the sand or by pushing up against other lines and and all that kind of thing I think it's a legitimate thing for kind of people in their teens and 20s to do 40s less so um uh but anyway so like so um but so yes I I was completely obsessed with crime I was kind of and then I remember I saw them play South by Southwest I think in about 2005 probably or four possibly even and um and again it was just it was kind of like it felt like it was kind of like a a street Punk show rather than a folk Punk show and I remembered sort of not being that stoked about it and then so this is where I get full fat contrarian about everything is that um actually I kind of fell back in love with them as a Band on new wave that was the record that kind of brought me back around to them as a band and I'm aware of course of the entire kind of history you might even say folklore of against me uh in that era and the whole thing of the we're never going home and and arguments about label structure and all that kind of thing which even at the time as a kid who was recently tuned into that argument struck me as pretty over the top in that particular instance I love that I you know how delightful it is for me to hear from you who makes campfire punk rock and goes on to make bands make make big big band albums that can be played loudly is that you got mad when reinvent Axel Rose had a full band of bass players yeah yeah I loved it I love it I mean I just I I guess I get in some ways I sort of slightly took my off the ball with against me if you if you know what I mean by that like um I wasn't sort of fully up to speed and then I just remember kind of like there was a big kerfuffle around New Wave kind of you know they signed a big deal I mean I mean that in the positive sense like there was a buzz there was a lot of people talking about them all of a sudden it was like oh I know that band yeah I know that band and I kind of went and said down and listen to it again and just kind of went oh [ __ ] this is like amazing I mean I do think so with the caveat that like if we could direct all of the energy that people have expended on trying to define punk rock towards something like curing cancer the world would be in a better place nevertheless if you have to try and define punk rock to me it's the line from the song new waiver it says we can be the bands that we want to hear it's like there you go that's it job done everyone go home
[Music] done [Music] like it's just it's you know and and it's like I just that song still makes me want to like kind of [ __ ] jump through doors even meaning like punch through walls and stuff and um and and I [ __ ] love that record and and I think at that point I kind of went back and reinvested in uh Reinventing a bit more and um uh you know the things that I'd slightly overlooked in the interview yeah you said something a little bit earlier about like them being like a couple grades ahead of you in school or whatever yeah yeah and you also said something about um some of the sort of kerfuffle being striking you even as a little bit over the top in the time and with that band I think it was about as heavily charged as it could possibly be does it you did a thing that was all right I played in I don't know what what kind of music you call Million Dead is that screamo or or adjacent or something yeah yeah I mean people call US post hardcore at the time and we got annoyed about the word post but well let's run with that now okay and so you so you swing like like you make this Frank Turner record that's a full this is a guy with a guitar now right that's a that's a change it is I mean sorry a couple a couple years go by and it's only two three years between then and when you're making like sleep is for the week and love Iron songs and the and these like you seem like the thing that took against me like 10 years of misery and pain you just did a version of that then maybe a little bit less unburdened by like I'm a I'm a full-on like Street Punk Anarchist and stuff yeah but I don't know do you feel like maybe they you followed a a wave they I don't know possibly I mean I would say that like what I would say and I might be kidding myself about this but in terms of against me's impact on an influence on me as a musician uh I think that came a little later like uh you know I started really sort of dialing into Laura as a songwriter around the kind of and I'm thinking about it and I I loved crime and it was sort of in the background but when I sort of started first doing some other stuff I wasn't really thinking about that record all that much to be honest when I first started doing some other stuff I wanted I was thinking about Neil Young to the exclusion of almost everything else and ended up doing kind of a louder more aggressive version of that because I don't know how it didn't know how to play guitar or anything quietly at the time but like I wasn't trying to be folk punk in 2005 I was just trying to be Neil Young this didn't go very well I I I've since developed my relationship with folk punk in in certain ways but I know that like when I wrote down those names from that article the thing I think I because I think in theory I want these two things together you know like these two things feel like my like musical identities or things that have grabbed me the most but it's like I would think like why does it have to sound why do you have to try to sound like you sing annoyingly why is this part of this identity and Frank Turner didn't feel that way to me and believe me I love AJ I came around too but at the moment I was like at the moment at the very first time I was like oh I'm gonna go back to that Frank Turner Myspace page and listen before songs again thank you I mean I will say hilariously enough one of the things that I adore about AJ who are genuinely one of my all-time favorite lenses that I feel like actually Sean is the punk rock Neil Young both in terms of his his Musical and lyrical Vision but also his voice is pretty similar to Neil Young's voice and around that way in a way that mine never was but so so I mean I guess so yeah I wasn't trying to be folk Punk necessarily I was trying to be kind of sing a songwriter slash country almost in my early Incarnation but it's just that I didn't really have any musical education outside of punk rock so it sort of came out how it came out that's obviously kind of changed and developed over time and I actually had a really fun thing on the record that I just finished where there's a song in it where I'm like this is a self-consciously folk Punk song and it's the first one I've ever done where I'd actually allow that to be the case whilst I'm right in the [ __ ] thing um but I think against me the other thing that they did and is that they they were much more engaged in the kind of yeah anarco crust peace Punk kind of thing um when they started out than than I ever was or at least as when they started out against me I mean I spent a fair amount of time kind of hanging around kind of like black block and squatting and stuff like that when I was younger and when I was listening to climate forgiven by but you know I'm not off the top of my head sure of how old um they were when like Reinventing came out but by time I was doing my early seller stuff I was in my kind of I was the mid to late 20s do you know what I mean so like uh you know in many ways like um demographically or like age-wise the comparison would be between Reinventing in the stuff I was doing in Million Dead which was a bit more self-consciously Anarchist in its way um my early set of stuff was kind of uh philosophically governed by a lot of cynicism actually do you know what I mean I was in the middle of being [ __ ] off about everything um but you know so the whole debate about against me and about the fact that you know they had the Thai slashed and people showing up at shows and turning the back and it was kind of like what happened to jawbreaker on steroids and all this sort of thing and as I say at the time there was appointment was like oh [ __ ] really like particularly people getting that worked up about signing to a fat wreck or whatever and it was just crazy like it's like you know there's more world out there you know what I mean it seems so parochial to me I guess and I feel like Laura Sanderson her book like there was slightly a degree to which they had danced with the devil like they did write that [ __ ] song saying that they weren't gonna play proper venues and whatever and sort of made a documentary about it like there's certain stuff that is yeah do you know what I mean so they they slightly dug a hole and then fell into it but [ __ ] me I mean like you know who hasn't [ __ ] up you know I mean and one of the things about the what I do for a living and have been fortunate enough to do for them for a long time and them as well is that you you [ __ ] up in public you know what I mean and like and now people the internet never forgets and all the rest of it and it's just like you know I look back I did an awful lot of growing up in the public eye and this no one has no one else has to give a [ __ ] about any of this but just on a perfect on a personal level it's just like ah you know there are so many things I would now handle with Grace and and intelligence and all the rest of it that I didn't at the time and it's because you're a [ __ ] 27 or something and then the entire world's asking you questions uh and indeed I think in both of our cases social media has just been invented you know what I mean so I do think there's a major thing for against me and to a lesser extent for me about if you look at when social media kind of became a thing I think that there are um you talked about the Myspace page thing I mean you know that was the the dawn of all of that kind of thing and I think that um that's not unimportant to the conversation is it against me sort of became a band and became a phenomenon became successful and then became at various points regarded as as um traitors or whatever all of this was completely um uh intensified by this brand new form of Technology social media yeah you know it was back when something happened on Twitter where people were like wow what's happening on Twitter whereas now he says Something's Happened on Twitter and everyone goes honestly who [ __ ] cares yeah exactly at least that's my experience you know um people took it all much more seriously about that thank you yeah no I think you're right I mean I think your experience you could tell me if if I'm putting this wrong but like their experience was that documentary and songs that mentioned it and and Reinventing Axel Rose has two songs with Anarchy the word Anarchy in it and all of in the in their titles all of this you I feel like you're talking about you're speaking about politics and personal experience and everything like that but you're almost internally scrutinizing the Nuance of like all sides and how much of a trap it is to right like there's no there's no correct answer right there's no appropriate amount of success to have or whatever I mean yeah I would I would say at this juncture that like I've never been I hope I've never been uh rash enough to kind of to be normative in in my it would be overly normative politics I'm realizing as I said that a tree that's just flat out untrue I definitely have been at certain points but like you know I don't regard myself as confident enough to really tell anybody else what to do or how to live and all the rest of it and I don't mean to cast a spell to anybody else by saying that because um you know for example I know Billy Bracken he he is he is often normative in his political statements and he is smart enough to be that and good and all power to him and all the rest but like it's something that has always on some level made me slightly uncomfortable and as I should have mentioned like my kind of stridently kind of banging the table and telling people what to think phase was more million dead and my time I started you know love Iron song the song is a song about being completely disillusioned with punk rock as a concept and with Anarchist Politics as a concept well it was bad enough to feed
to [ __ ] and that the values and ideals for which many had fought and died had been killed off in the Committees and left to die by the wayside but it was worse when we turned to the kids on the left Alone Again by some poor excuse for protest yeah my idiot [ __ ] hippies in 50 different factions who are locked inside some kind of 60s battle reenactment but I hung up my banner in disgust and I head for the door
open once we were young and we were Crossing up to care there was definitely be moments in my career where I've sort of been slightly bemused with the with the joy with which kind of card carrying anarchists have sung along with that song and it's not that I'm having a go at them in any way but it's just a bit like yeah this seems kind of weird like listen listen [ __ ] um uh you know I guess what I would say the last chorus of that song has always been dripping with sarcasm to me and I realized after many years on of touring it that it isn't sarcastic to some other people and then in many ways maybe that's awesome maybe that's beautiful actually but it's just quite weird it's weird for me um but yeah so I mean against me did that but I mean I I think that they you know they they successfully so another thing you know the big thing around New Wave is that they had signed with a major label having spent Avalon saying they weren't going to sign to a mage label I didn't spend time saying that but I remember when I I did a license deal to a major label in 2012 and like basically no I'm really noticed I remember being kind of like braced for the inevitable backlash and I had all my kind of like rhetoric kind of lined up for the [ __ ] you're doing this and like no one really cared uh the last the last guest I had on was Dan Ozzy who wrote sellout and which I've finished reading just the other day did you cool yeah he's Dan's a beautiful guy he's a lovely lovely man lovely guy lovely book and I mean I think that's a little bit sort of the thing of the book is that this this idea of this being some fundamental thing it kind of I mean against me is the last chapter in that book it doesn't mean anyone ever no one ever scrutinized the idea of selling out or compromising yourself after that but the whole landscape changed I think you're a different man of person too but that's yeah that's fascinating yeah right totally but I mean I think that and I I would think I was I was thinking of dance but when I was saying that I mean I feel like by time like I say I was less Hostage to Fortune from previous things that I'd said or whatever but like it felt and it's a lot of it has to do with the impact of the technology on the music industry and all the rest of it but like by time I was uh really licensing to a mage label in like 2013 like that fight was over do you know what I mean it had been and gone and and it's like you know I feel a bit like it's like we lost dude or whatever like [ __ ] get on with your life and and I think that there was a kind of General recognition of that and like it's funny because I my sort of um generational thing I mean I have a fugazi poster on the wall behind me and like um I I know Ian a little bit and I always feel guilty when I hang out with him just just in general you know and that's and I should have stressed that that's not on him in any way like he's a perfectly lovely non-judgmental person but I just sit that feeling bad about my life choices but um but again it was like you know those were conversations that I feel like the conversations about things like major labels were different in 1991 to what they are in 2023. um and I think it would be weird to be surprised by that um but against me I feel like yeah they caught kind of the last kind of the last blast of that fight in a way do you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah uh it'd be funny if new if like they like if like next week like the Super Bowl comes up and some like spritzer like alcoholic drink or whatever from from some company puts New Wave on a commercial or something and again it's like a million bucks from it yeah yeah it's idling but then I mean there's a funny answer that the other thing is a good example of it because you know when I was a kid it was like if you were a band you had a song an advert you were the worst seller of all time and I think that nowadays people don't feel like that because I think everyone understands there's no [ __ ] money come from anywhere else in the music industry these days do you know what I mean it's like um yeah you know and there's a certainly on a personal level if I see a banging it's not an advert there's partly the things good for you you guys can be able to pay rent for a year and that doesn't suck anything you did have you ever had a song on an advert I've not no I've had I've had my songs on the background of like um soap operas on British television which I have mixed feelings about but [ __ ] it like I mean you know the pigment amazing um does so you talked about like by 2012 no one cared and against me is not just it's not just that major label thing that gets people revolting like they get mad when Reinventing Axel Rose has a band they get mad when fat records happens there's sort of all this right did you you you did you had that in 2012 and I say this as a person who I'll just like pre-load this question like when you made a thing with an acoustic guitar and then the next one felt a little bit more and different and then the next one felt a little more diff more and different I'm suddenly the protective person that's like ah [ __ ] Frank Turner what what this is and and but the thing is so basically were there a bunch of me's out there doing that that needed to find out in retrospect that oh wait I like this but in the moment we're protective or something like did you feel anything like that that was a little bit but I mean it was tempered by a couple of things it was temporal the fact that like there is a full band on my first EP there's this kind of weird sort of like fake memory that a lot of people have that like my first releases were completely solo and I just won do you know what I mean they were so arguably more just in fact they were more just solo songs on there but like the first track on my first EP has a full band on it do you know what I mean in fact it starts with the Hammond Organ and a drum kit so like yeah it's just like you know uh so that was one thing and then um uh also because it's just that basically like I was fortunate in my career and I'm not quite sure how this compares to against me but in my career like everything happened very very gradually for me you know what I mean there wasn't like I know people in bands who've had the light switch moment when they go in six months from playing their 200 people playing 2 000 people or indeed 20 000 people and I think that that's very hard to navigate and all the rest of it and for me it was just like with each passing record there are a few more people involved and for a lot of people a lot of people think that my fourth record is kind of my best record or whatever uh by which point kind of like those kind of arguments were sort of moot because the sleeping Souls was an ongoing thing and it had become clear that there was this sort of pattern of doing some songs full band and Samsung so and all the rest of it and indeed touring in that way so there was a tiny bit of it but not much you know uh uh not not in the way that ever really bothered me that much about it but yeah I mean against me definitely think my God the Yeah the more I think about it they got the shitty end of the stick on all of those things like endlessly do you know what I mean it seems pretty brutal I think it's it's like it's it's really kind of impossible to Fathom like 1999 to New Wave or whatever and then just think that there's this whole entire thing that is transgender dysphoria blues and Laura Jane Grace and everything that follows that that's that's many lives that's just a lot of actually but then so so this I see but that's a really good way of putting it because I think one of the things I Now understand better as an adult and possibly I mean I was going to say as a as a songwriter um but like as an artist um but I mean it's like you know artists should change and there is this kind of Temptation and this is this is common across all genres of music that certain types of people and I have been one of them with certain bands you discover a thing it impacts your life and you want it to be that forever and you don't want it to change you don't want to grow and like there are certain artists that sort of get a pass on that you know David Bowie or Radiohead or you know whatever example you want to pull out of that kind of you know what I mean there's kind of certain artists who their their changing nature becomes part of the right the USP whatever you want to call it but like yeah and I think that's that's individual from from listener to listener but you know a lot of people want a thing to stay the same as it was when they found it and one of the things that on a personal level which I find quite funny is there are certain people like man you know I wish you could I wish go back to you know his roots with love our own song but then there are people be like would you go back to roots with tape deck cards yeah yeah album and it's just like but that's when they came on board you know what I mean so it's just like and I like to think and I'm probably kidding myself gigantically but I've now reached a point I'm making my 10th record and things are going well enough for me to continue with my career and all the rest of it and I think people have accepted that I am attempting to explore new avenues as I go by I'm not AC DC you know what I mean or Pennywise or whatever and I say that with love for both bands right but like I think that bands should change artists writers should change there's something inherently conservative about the idea that they shouldn't and it's just [ __ ] boring ultimately and like I'm so glad that against me is a completely and Laura as a writer is just completely different to what they were when they started out do you know what I mean I think that's fantastic that's how it should be is there anything more [ __ ] tedious than somebody who repeats themselves over the space of album after album after album absolutely with you on that I think it's in the moment that people are like I don't want this to change this is a thing for me nicely well and I think you know if I could go back in time and sort of give the members against me a hug in kind of the early 2000s when they were suffering all this kind of thing one of the things I would say is I think at this Junction that they are pretty kind of legendary and part of the reason they're legendary is because of everything that they lived through you know um and you know one of the things that I've learned in my own career and I've had my ups and downs and moments being shouted out on the internet and all the rest of it is that like time passes to what I mean and like if you're still standing up at the end of it you Garner a certain degree of respect and I just think that like there is there's a kind of Aura there's a mythology around against me and again maybe I'm kidding myself maybe there's loads of people there who grow up just hating against me still because they signed a fat record and they're listening to this and you're one of those people reach out to me and let's let's talk it through yeah but I just think ultimately I think that people look back now I think that again maybe I'm just saying all the [ __ ] because I'm in my 40s but it's a bit kind of like you know I'm not saying that it's not unimportant the kind of politics around the kind of corporate structure around record labels and all the rest of it but ultimately all of that's a [ __ ] Sideshow from the music you know and now you can sit back and listen to 20 plus years of against me's cattle log and go what a [ __ ] great band they made a lot of great songs and they they moved forward they said different things they they explored new territory you know um white crosses is [ __ ] Sensational record um uh transgender dysphoria believes was just completely like a new Benchmark uh both for them and I think for the scene more broadly you know all of this is so much more important than arguments about like corporate structure and where the who's playing the a r guy's salary and you know did so and so have points I mean who [ __ ] cares
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[Music] in your experience with like when you're coming up and all that did you spend much time in Gainesville do you have any much exposure to the city of Gainesville and I'm trying to I'll just say this like I'm trying to force draw some line between uh Tom Petty and against me in some way that I don't oh yeah sure I will block you on that Quest I think that that's entirely appropriate uh I mean you could start with just the simple fact that you're talking about two great songwriters and not every band is songwriter based in that way do you know what I mean like that's not true of every band but I think it is in the case of Laura Jane and Tom Petty I mean how much they have in common Beyond being someone as nonography I will leave you to explore at your leisure but um I know Gainesville a little I I remember as a kid I used to get the no idea records um mail order catalog mailed to me in England and like I mean I don't want to blow my own trumpet too much but I think there was probably a grandchild of about eight people who did that in the 90s you know and that's cool yeah uh and you know me and my friend we used to kind of pool our resources and like mail order stuff like small band break I hate myself 12 hour turn uh Hot Water Music that kind of thing you know back in the days when you had to read a paragraph to describe a record before you paid money for it because there was no other way of listening to it at the time and uh sometimes you'd get the coolest record you ever got in your life and sometimes you'd end up with some [ __ ] oof yikes um uh you know uh and this I mean we live it's I was gonna say we live in a try before you buy culture you just don't buy
um but anyway so I mean Gainesville was certainly kind of like a a slightly kind of like almost Fantastical place in my mind do you know what I mean it was this Mystic gland of Southern Florida and kind of punk rock and I remember I remember kind of against me feeling like the last great Gainesville band in a way uh in the early 2000s and then I also I mean I mean I remember the first time I ever went to Gainesville um uh I was I did the first in and and seven I think it was um I did a bunch of touring with fake problems who obviously are you talking to Chris Barron for this uh I should I haven't reached out yet but um yeah you should drop him a line because he'll have a lot of interesting things to say about definitely saw fake problems with against me on on a show or two right I mean well the I I very randomly got um asked to I got an email in about 2007 asking if an American label based in Naples Florida could release my first EP on vinyl in Florida kind of thing I was like [ __ ] yeah nobody else cared so um and then it turned out it was good friends records which was Casey Lee and and he hit me up and he said do you want to do some touring to promote This Record I've just spent a bunch of money pressing so I went and did a kind of like house tour of Florida with with fake problems in 2007 and it was totally totally deranged uh in wonderful way it's one of my kind of like pristine um punk rock touring memories um but you you know one of the things for me about that was that they were they were kind of they were in against me adjacent band which made me excited when I first sort of encountered them you mentioned those shows like I read I read your book and just I just love the thing where you have documented every show you've played there's a running list of every show you've played yeah it must have been very handy when you went to write that book too oh yeah I mean 100 and actually I mean the reason that I started doing the show counting thing is my the drummer in Million Dead started doing it and I thought he was out of his mind and then actually even before the band broke up I was really stoked he'd done it because you know it's difficult to remember every show on a tour I know not even I'm not saying remember the details on them but just remember where did you play on that tour and it's like uh uh hold on you know and to have it written down cool um but it's also in the early days I taught my own so like I mean I wanted to have some sort of record of what I've done because there's not even someone I can call up and just be like hey what did we do because there was no one else there yeah I don't know life is all just a big scattered mess of things and it's nice to have things like that and I actually feel that way with like recorded music right like you're against me has this you have this I mean you you describe like the Neil Young thing or David Bowie in his own way whatever you kind of seem to me like you're like oh I'm Gonna Make This Record that's gonna be sort of this way this time and I'm gonna make one that's uh tapping into like the hardcore music I played in the past I'm making one that's explicitly contemplating the idea of positivity in a time that's kind of [ __ ] up and boom or my heart a record about a heartbreak or something can you talk about what your what what you went in and did these last two weeks oh yeah I mean um well I mean the first things you say is that like you're right um sometimes that kind of like um thematicism is like emergent rather than planned if you see what I mean like I mean it differs I mean no man's land I set that down to write a history record and I did um sometimes it's like and the way he does this is kind of at what point the album title shows up more often than not you know what I mean yeah so like England keep my bones like with the album time was the very last thing that showed up for that record and and it was there was a there's a degree in terms of track listing and picking which songs on the record there's a degree of kind of curation of an idea at that point but having said all that I mean the next the record that I've just finished is um very nearly finished it's kind of uh I'm just really I just think it's kind of hilariously unlikely that I'm 41 and making my 10th record have just finished the marriage label deal and I'm still [ __ ] doing what I do and there's a degree there's a kind of insurrectionary kind of thumbing of the nose in my how I think about where I stand at this point in my life and I feel like that's kind of come across in the music it's kind of uh I have a new drummer in my band and this is the first time he's recorded with us and it's to me it sounds like a bunch of people having fun it's kind of a punk record it's kind of a record about being in in your early 40s and still making pop records we overly self-referential but growing old disgracefully is certainly a part of the part of the mix now really so like I say just listening back to the kind of rough mixers it just feels like a bunch of people enjoying themselves which is not true of all the records I've made I love that I'm I'm 41 and through this deal and now I'm going to write my first explicitly folk Punk song yeah do you know what I mean there was something slightly like [ __ ] everybody about that do you know what I mean in a way that I quite like and and yeah you know I I'm really proud of fghc but looking back on that my most recent album that's been out is like that feels kind of like a transitional record for me that was that was a record where I was kind of allowing myself to just sort of go hey maybe I'm gonna make punk rock music without any adjectives do you know what I mean yeah yeah like that would be okay but that's also there's a pretty [ __ ] angry record and um there's some there's some uh the [ __ ] else there's some rage underneath thing but it's broadly speaking it sounds like people enjoying themselves I've made a fun album Jesus something I thought of earlier that just like I listened to this podcast about the you know the Lisa Loeb song Stay the the yeah and it was it was interesting I found her to be she wasn't being interviewed they were talking about it was like the 60 songs that explained in the 90s uh podcast and it was a about how she very very deliberately at the very beginning when people were calling her a folk musician which sound especially before that song she sounded like a folk musician and she was like deliberate about pushing back and being called a singer-songwriter in this weird like Advanced move of like the next album is not going to sound like the and you know it's sort of regardless of success or whatever it was this I never even really thought about the differentiation of that I just thought like but anyway singer-songwriter it's like I'm gonna do this on this record I'm gonna do this on this record you're not just yeah oh totally well I mean so I find that very interesting by the way I didn't know that but at least um and and and it's smart because like I there were days when I cursed myself because if the only word that people get more annoying in their arguments about it than Punk is probably folk um it's like you end up with both of them hanging around your neck and it's like why have I done this to myself Jesus Christ and I always remember um my friend Scott Hutchison frighten rabbit who's no longer alas but we he was not from the punk World in any way and he used to just kind of look asking so the arguments that I would either be part of or be a be sort of intellectually involved in about everything that we're talking about with against me or whatever and it was just completely foreign to him he'd be like why does anyone [ __ ] care at all and nobody cared at all about frightened rabbit's label situation because everyone just went while they're a band and we like their music and that's the end of that conversation and it is you know for better and for worse it is a peculiarity of certain scenes and not others to care about all this [ __ ] at all that's kind of what I mean about the parochialism thing about people losing their mind about against me starting to Fat rack of all labels do you know what I mean it's just about like you know there's like other bands there's other music there's other labels there's other people who could who just it's so kind of um small-minded in many ways do you know what I mean and but then on the flip side of course I understand it's people being defensive are the thing that's really important to them that gives their life shape and meaning and I don't ever want to be disparaging in that because many times when my life punk rock has given me that safe space that meaning that defense whatever it might be so I don't want to be overly um dismissive about these things anyway but so so um you know in my early days I sort of I was using the word folk to describe what I do slightly kind of ideologically slightly kind of disciplining myself in my old band I had this kind of I still have a theory that like folk music that rock and roll is modern folk music actually if you look at what the sociology of Folk Music in the 19th and particularly 18th century the only thing that comes close to that in the modern world is um is rock and roll yeah well pop music more broadly popular music I mean it's you get in danger of defining yourself out of making a point somewhere in here but like you know um uh the the you know the folk music has been now is this kind of slight museum piece for some people and I'm like that's the whole [ __ ] point is it wasn't that in the 18th century you know what I mean it was the songs people sang in a field to me what's the focus on the folk songs about the song you can walk into a bar and sing the first line of and everybody else joins in so Bohemian Rhapsody is a folks on actually you know what I mean like um anyway so instead of having all these kind of arguments with people and pissing those people off in the Trad folk scene by doing this because because you know we had nothing else to do with my time but the singer songwriting thing I mean I it's always been a a two-word expression that slightly makes my skin crawl yeah just because it makes me think of [ __ ] um Jack Johnson basically and like I hope Jack Johnson lives a happy and fulfilled life but I'm not a fan of his music um and uh you know there's something slightly kind of like mushy about the word singer-songwriter to me yeah focusing it seems somehow a bit kind of like harder edged I suppose but maybe that's a generational thing because I suppose in the early 90s for Lisa love it was completely the other way around uh I mean she she's probably coming from the perspective of I mean I guess she's thinking about to some degree but the the frightened rabbit side is just like this is how I this is how this is
whatever this this is one of the nice things about releasing music under your own name is that you do slightly reach a point where it's like what are you gonna [ __ ] do about it man it's on my passport like you know oh no he released a thrash album well it's still my name you know what I mean um a drum and bass remix album it's clear it's like glaringly obvious now as we talk but like with the folk thing like against me adding drums on any Axle Rose and a bassist and then signing fat record and signing a major label let's that's our that's uh early 2000s um folk Punk kids I mean that's Bob Dylan did was called was folk music that was folk music oh yeah he did his thing like why there's no reason that it should be like ubiquitous knowledge to people who barely even know about music that like Bob Dylan going electric was a controversy that like sentences is like a well-known understood thing whether you know that it's probably and it's probably like erroneously passed through history with all kinds of inaccuracy yeah stuff but then the the funny thing about it though is that actually that to me in retrospect as a grown-up that's almost the moment when Bob Dylan starts to get really interesting it's the best it's the best that's that's what I mean I mean I I think that about about I had I talked on another podcast recently about like oh I liked some like folky bluegrass band and they went and I felt that way about them but it's like what I would I want to hear would I want to hear a songwriter I like just make their little folky Bluegrass things forever I wouldn't have wanted that I would have peeled off anyway from that I don't I don't know you don't you don't know that basically Highway 61 Revisited is challenging you in a way that then is going to give you more even if at first you're like what the [ __ ] dude this isn't what we do yeah complete well I mean I guess this somewhere in here there's a divide uh which which I think it's important to present in a non-validly judgment kind of way between people who want to be challenged by their art and people who don't there's actually nothing wrong with not wanting to be challenged by the art that you like uh partly because all art is subjective and anyone telling somebody else what they should or shouldn't be into is fundamentally ridiculous um but also you know it's people take different things from art and that's fine you don't get to tell anybody else what they are or are not allowed to like and and that statement in itself has quite a lot to do with the whole against me argument you know what I mean it's like you know stop doing music wrong and it's like you can't say that to an artist or at least not when them maintain it's a great debate it's like which is more integral to do what the fans quote unquote want or to do what you want to do and I think there's one answer to that question personally um you know and if if what against me were pursuing was their own artistic uh Direction then they should have told everyone to go [ __ ] themselves and do whatever they want and that's what I think that they did last night
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obviously I think some people you know the counter argument is they pursued all those things because they were interested in commercial success or whatever but then but then here's the thing like the the very idea which is that the heart of punk rock which I accepted like mother's milk and until my kind of mid-30s is the idea that there's some necessary disconnect between commercial success and artistic worth doesn't hold any water actually you know what I mean if something's really good it might be because it says something profound if it doesn't profound then lots of people might be interested in that profundity do you know what I mean uh and and and and I think one of the things I'm slightly rambling here but one of the things I find really funny is that sort of the secret kind of ghostly guiding figure of the kind of 2000s folk Punk thing has actually sort of been Bruce Springsteen who is a man who is insanely successful and has always been on a major label do you know what I mean you know or therefore like what the [ __ ] man but like you know it's if something chasing commercial success or chasing a larger audience is not shouldn't be an inherently um morally disreputable thing to do because art is a form of communication
um and it may be that what you're trying to communicate has a very very Niche appeal and a parochial and conservative Bill and it may be that it doesn't and both of those things are against the confidence [Music]
[Music] thank you
I'm talking to you right now and I appreciate this opportunity but I had I like I'm not like uh so I was at a show I think it was maybe like Murder by Death maybe Gaslight Anthem I don't remember who this this was but you were opening this show acoustic in San Francisco and I went to this show and I remember it distinctly it was me the loved ones murdered by death Gaslight Anthem for sure yep that's it and so so I'm there and at this time you were I don't think I don't think the record with Dan's song was out yet but but you were playing it so I didn't even know the song yet but I'm there none of my friends showed up I lived in San Francisco I went to this none of my friends were there and I'm there I have a backpack on and I'm drinking a Guinness and you ask if anyone wants to play a harmonica as you did at that time right and I don't I don't know how to how to put this because this is gonna have like a little end part after this but like you know like like energy in a moment in a room I'm like this [ __ ] is gonna point at to me right now I can tell and I just like raised my hand got pointed out went up and did it so come on harmonica's in the right key whatever you do it you just do this one yeah so like six months later you come back with a full band and do that thing again and I'm not kidding I'm like why why can I just feel in the moment like I'm gonna get pointed at again for this and I raise my hold on did you get up again and do it for the second time so I got pointed you pointed at me again I was like I'm not I'm like energy Juju or whatever I'm not like wired that way necessarily but I was just sort of like and so I got called up and then I I went up there and then I was like can I say something in the microphone real quick I could tell you're like all right bro yeah sure whatever like go for it and then yeah so then my friend came up and did it instead because I had already done I remember that I absolutely remember that I remember because you were the first it was the first time ever that somebody had got called up twice as it were and and it was which has been a thing that I'd been sort of scared that was gonna happen at some point yeah the thing about it to me was the weird feeling of like you know if you like enter I enter a raffle whatever you're like yeah whatever that's gone and I don't yeah yeah sure it was just some weird feeling of like I'm gonna get called on for this I already know it I know it for a fact whatever well it's nice it's nice to reconnect I'm gonna close out yeah close that Loop because we we just to say we've jammed together together okay and it was great you over the years have toured with against me some right or played chosen yeah yeah no we've we've taught together um I I invited them out on tour in uh 2011 on a UK tour they open for me I I mean they would do the special guests you know what I mean um and I was super stoked about it it was one of those it was an interesting moment though because it was sort of like my kind of mainstream star if you for one of a less loaded descriptor was kind of rising in the UK at that time and um I remember they basically scared the piss out of my audience um in a way that I thought was amazing yeah but like my booking agent was a bit like ah because like I remember that they they kind of they had a 45 minute set and they didn't they did they walked on like good evening played like 18 songs or something stupid and then went thanks very much and walked off again I didn't talk but it stop and it was just totally punk as [ __ ] and you know I grew up watching videos of who's kadoo do that kind of [ __ ] and I thought it was cool as [ __ ] but I remember like one of the guys in my band but most of the guys in my band aren't don't have any sort of background in punk rock and they were to kind of like they didn't really know if against me were and they were they were like what the [ __ ] is these guys doing they don't say hi they don't talk to anyone and I'm like isn't it amazing um uh but um I mean I just made a mistake they were perfectly sociable backstage that I think was the last tour before Laura came out actually finally announced that with us I do remember she was growing her hair out on the tour um but you know we made friends and like um Jay Weinberg was in the band at that point as well um who I saw just the other day uh when we played the show with Bruce Springsteen lots of connections but yeah we talked with them then and then against me played at um lost evenings three in Austin in 2019 uh which was uh awesome really stuck to happen so yeah we've shared the stage a bunch of years and then Laura and I have done a bunch of shows together
streets let's be 1905 but not 90 19 17. Let's Be Heroes let's be martyrs let's be radical thinkers who never have to have to steal their dreams let's divide up the world into the Damned and the same right look like for game and straighten up backs and we won't be afraid
of the day [Music]
love to catch
okay all right Hi how are you all right yeah
hello hi it's so nice to see you again it's nice to see you how are you where are you guys in Northern California no we are in in Washington Northern Washington on some islands up there oh [ __ ] eight nice yes it's very amazing so if you ever want to come up you have a place to stay that's very kind of you to say thank you very much oh yeah beans and toast stayed with us uh really yeah in in well when we were living in in California but yes well Jay has slept on my floor uh and indeed spare room and sofa and all the rest of it more times than I care to remember but that's very cool that's very cool uh hopefully I'll be up around you guys way again before too long yay all right we'll take care nice to meet you hey for real this was a pleasure have a good good uh next interview thanks for talking again to me hey thanks man yeah all the best man take care take care bye
so I had this experience when I made the second season of this show which was about Bright Eyes where Tim Casher of cursive agreed to be on the first episode and I was just elated it's just like a cool kind nice thing to do that he just didn't have to do and I feel kind of that way about this Frank Turner one he said yes I'll come on and talk about against me no need to do that he did that on a two-week break to record a record I'm deeply thankful for it go find him online go catch a show on the never-ending tour of everywhere and uh yeah you can find me on social media at routine layup and there's also a patreon for this show there's currently video clips from that Frank Turner interview that are on there right now in future episodes I'll put the bulk of the interview here on this channel but there will be some special extra pieces on the patreon uh that's patreon.com after the Deluge you can go there not only for those extra little things but just if you want to support the creation of this show which I try to put a ton of love and care and work into it's just one five dollar tier and by subscribing you also get a Zine kind of a print companion to this series a little thing you can hold in your hands after it's all done get mailed to your house at the end of the season again that's patreon.com after the Deluge uh tell a friend about this show if they like against me I'm Justin Cox and next up we got Reinventing Axel Rose baby so make sure you're subscribed [Music]
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if you enjoyed that clip you should check out the after the Deluge podcast wherever you listen to podcasts uh we have full episodes there as well as right here on this YouTube channel so hit the Subscribe button and maybe check out whatever's being suggested to you right here thanks so much.