Against Me!

0:01Well, welcome, Tom. Thank you. Thanks for doing this. My pleasure. So you got a brand new record coming out soon? Do. Hopefully, Juni, I think it's the day. Oh, so there is a day because it doesn't say anywhere in the way. Well, there's a tentative date. A tentative date. That's the date we've been told that we're shooting for. We're still like grabbing out bike, all the artwork and everything like that. Cool. Trying to meet deadlines and all that. I heard that way over today. Oh, really? I feel like there was more, I don't know if there was or not, but I feel like there was more of a conscious decision for melody and things like that. Was that? There's a lot more harmonies for sure. Yeah, I think that makes melodies probably pop out a lot more, but definitely, you know, I mean, I've never been afraid of melody and I enjoy writing songs that are catching on the listen to and stick with you. What did Butch Vig do to enhance the process? I mean, you know, really in all honesty, we totally lucked out with him as a producer and he's just, you know, such an awesome person to work with.

0:57And, you know, we did a lot of pre-production leading up to going into the record and I would basically go over to his house in the mornings and we'd work on songs together for a couple hours and we'd go meet up with the rest of the band and work on the songs together as a band for a couple hours. And just did that for like about a month or whatever before actually even hitting the chord, you know, just really were very thorough with every aspect of the songs before putting them down. Where did you record it? Burbank, California at a studio called Eldorado. Cool. And this is before you had your daughter. Yeah. My wife was pregnant during the record making process. Did that change any of your songwriting you think? Not in a way necessarily I guess I can recognize. You know, I'm guessing sure it had some kind of subconscious effect on me for sure, but yeah. Any of these songs coming out live?

1:44Road testing and everything. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's over like this is such a great opportunity for us because it's not really our show. You know, it's Billy Town show, we're Alexis on Fire's show. So we got 35 minutes to go out there and we can kind of play whatever we want because most of the people in the room don't know any of our stuff anyways. It's all new to them. So it's really awesome opportunity to play new songs, which we're excited about doing. What are people responding to more? Do you notice from the stage, can you even see out like what people are responding to more? As far as listening songs like, well, it's on the record. Now you're playing them for people for the first time people are hearing it. And I'm sure you kind of want some feedback. Yeah, I mean, so far the response has been great. I mean, it's awesome to look out there every night when we play white crosses and see people, the hands in the room. Start clapping along as the drums come in. Is that going to be the single? No, it's not actually the first single.

2:30I was a teenage anarchist, which is the second song on the record. Yeah, right. Let's go through a few songs and let's talk about teenage anarchists first. Okay. Tell me about. I'm just going to give you titles to go to talk. I feel like the title kind of explains itself, doesn't it? Next is white crosses. White crosses, yeah. Well, white crosses is the title track from the record. And when I wrote the song, I was actually living in St. Augustine, Florida, which is a small beach town, about 75 miles from Gainesville. And around the corner from the house I was living in, there was a church. And on the church lawn, there's 4,000 white crosses. White crosses are about a foot high off the ground. And it was called the Cemetery of the Innocence. And it was one cross to represent every abortion that happens in America every day. And there's this big billboard with children's faces all over it and everything. And just fucking totally disgusting to have to look at every day.

3:17And I would fantasize about veering my car off the road and driving through the crosses. They're getting out and just kicking every single one of them into the ground. But in that sense too, I thought that it worked well as an album title because it's a little bit open to interpretation. I'm sure you would have never gathered that that's what the song is. No, I thought you didn't like the cemetery for some reason. But no, but this is a lot deeper. Yeah, yeah, so it leaves it open to interpretation. I've had some people say like, oh, is it about the war? Because I think white crosses are usually associated with what? With that in a way. But in a sense, I feel like smashing all those white crosses had I done that. They actually took the cemetery of the Innocence down recently. But had I done that, it would have been a real great cathartic release.

4:03It would have felt awesome. If you've ever smashed a TV with a baseball bat, it feels really good. I have not done that. At least you should try. When you connect in that screen explodes, it's a great feeling. I need an old TV. Well, look for some white crosses. You know, and you fucking smash them. But for me really writing these songs and playing these songs is that same feeling of release. And that same feeling that you just completely obliterated or destroyed something and just so satisfying. So I thought it worked well as an album title in that sense too. Are you playing piano on the record? No, I play piano. Well, when I moved to St. Augustine, I actually started taking piano lessons from this woman in Helen Salet on the island on St. Augustine Beach or whatever. And I'd just go once a week.

4:48I went in there and I was like, look, I'm technically a professional musician but I've never played piano before so it would just start me off. I've never touched an instrument before in my life. So again, I'd go over there once a week and learn my songs. And go to some recitals with all her other, like, and her roles. Yeah, no, seriously, no joke. We had these things called play togethers where we'd all play a song for each other. And she actually, one day, she was like, you should bring your guitar in and play with some of your music. So I did and it's like me at her house and she's an elderly woman and definitely not maybe a punk rock fan. And all these other kids and I'm just like, all right, I'll go for it. And I'm just like staring at me wide-eyed. But yeah, so I wrote the piano parts but no, it's not me playing.

5:33You should have shown a video with that. That would have been cool. Maybe, maybe something like that. What's the acoustic song that I could? Ake with me, Ake with me. Ake with me. It's the first acoustic song I've heard from you in a while. Yeah, well, you know. I think that all the songs start on acoustic guitar. Yeah, you write on acoustic guitar? Totally. I mean, for me, a song is a good song if it can be stripped down and played just you in a guitar. It can then be built up to whatever, you know. But it has to have that, that be able to stand on its own just as in a guitar song. But we actually ended up doing a lot of acoustic versions of the songs. Went in and recorded some while we were in Gainesville. So those would be making their way out there. I'm sure three downloads are besides this or something like that. But we're doing a limited edition seven inch for record store day. Do they do record store day in Canada? Not really.

6:18There's a movement for it's not really. Well, it seems like it's gaining momentum in the States. But so we're doing a limited edition seven inch of the first single. I was a teenage anarchist. Oh, that's cool. And on the B side is an acoustic version of it. Nice. Well, we're in Canada. You're doing like a full Canadian tour. Yeah, we're going to play. You're seeing the prairies like no one should see the prairies. Yesterday we had an off day and we walked around the mall in Grand Prairie. Oh, yeah. It was. Oh, yeah. What do you think of our fine land? I love it, man. I mean, the shows up here are incredible in this tour. I mean, the vibe backstage and hanging out with all the other bands has been fantastic. So, I mean, for some reason or another crowds have always just been receptive to us stuff here. So it's always a pleasure touring up here. I do wish sometimes that we didn't have to do it in like January, February, March.

7:05Yeah. Maybe we could come for a nice June, July tour. But, you know. It's not much warmer though. I mean, well, you're from Florida. It's very different. Yeah, yeah, we got that thin Florida blood. We're in a jammer. Dude, that's a pretty cool thing to have on tour. I've never seen this. I don't know if this happens often, but like, you guys just hang out before and just place off on some of it. Well, I mean, it's Billy Collins. But I was told everyone comes in. Yeah, yeah, no. It's open for all the bands to come in and everyone jams on it. And then after the show it's broken down and this is like the party hang room. So it's really, I mean, it's awesome that they do that because they really have a communal vibe. Yeah. You know, because you're always on tour, even though most bands aren't weird about it, you always feel weird about like opening up someone's else's dressing room and going in there and being like, Hey, what's up dudes? You know, you don't want to bug everybody.

7:52So knowing that there's a space that everyone can go do if you do want to hang out, it's really cool. You stand on stage right. Why? I don't understand stage center now. You move. Why? Why not? Well, why not at the beginning? Why? It's something so different that you answered too often. For me, really, a lot of it when we first started playing, playing, it was just me in a drummer. So I would stand kind of facing him so I could be facing the crowd and have my ear towards him because a lot of times you know you're playing on PAs that can't really hear the kick. You can't really hear the scenario. You have to have a visual connection with the drummer to know what's going on. So that kind of was the case for a long time, but now as we're kind of growing and expanding, you know, we've been bringing in another player on tour with us too. And just to keep kind of things balanced looking on stage, I don't know, it's a detail

8:39that I pay attention to that I'm sure most other people don't. Well, it's your band, your from-man. Exactly. And you don't have the crappy PAs on this giant arena tour. Exactly. Or you have a jammer with its own PA in it. Well, the PA here in this jam room is better than most PAs that we used to play on back in the day. Let's keep going through songs. Spanish Moss, it has that like who-ish intro. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely for sure. That song I wrote again in St. Augustine and it's really just kind of about getting away, you know, and feeling like, I don't know, feeling like that, you know, I feel like everyone deserves a place for themselves, a place that they feel like it could be home to them, they can be happy and they can feel comfortable.

9:24I don't really necessarily feel like I have that, you know, and I feel like I kind of had that for a second in St. Augustine, but it wasn't something that could last for a long time, which was kind of a drag. You going to stay in Florida? Yeah. I actually am living in Los Angeles right now. So, yeah. So you switched coasts? Yes, I did. Well, when we were recording, my wife was pregnant and we didn't know when the baby was coming exactly and we didn't know when we were going to be finished with the record. Well, we knew when the baby was coming kind of respectively, but we didn't know when the album was going to be finished and usually when we're out there recording, we stay in this place called the Oakwoods, which is like a glorified hotel and it's mostly like child actors and porn stars or drug dealers or whatever that are living in the places. So I didn't really think that was the environment that you should bring a newborn baby into. So probably not. Yeah, we rented an apartment up there.

10:09Cool. It must be different for you to be on tour this time. To be aware. Yeah, for sure. Well, and also we had like a little bit of a break there. You know, we really didn't tour for about a year or so. You know, just kind of needed to decompress. Cool. High pressure low. High pressure low is actually the last song written for the record and I wrote it, I drove just by myself from St. Augustine to LA to start a pre-production recording process or whatever and just kind of lost myself for four or five days out there. And that's the song that came out with. Cool. How different is driving it yourself as opposed to being on tour and doing it? Is it more freeing? Definitely. Yeah, yeah. Are there any songs now that you're playing live shows with the new record and the new stuff?

10:54Are there any songs that you think you're not going to play anymore from New Wave maybe? Oh, from older stuff? Yeah. Well, I mean songs disappear in the set list over the years kind of thing. Well, it's tough, man. I mean, before heading out on this tour, especially because we're playing with George, a new drummer, we basically had to go back and relearn everything. I mean, we spent the first three or four months with George in the band not having ever played a single older song, only focusing on a song. So then there came the point where it was like, okay, we're going to have to play some shows. I guess we got to go through and learn the old songs with you. And really, for us, we had to, in a lot of ways, go back and relearn what we were doing because there were definitely moments where it was like, wait, you're playing that? Well, I'm playing this and that doesn't go together, so we'd have to kind of rework stuff. And, you know, we have probably a catalog of, I don't know, 60, 70 songs.

11:44You know, you're right amount on the dry erase board and you're like, we can't realistically keep all of these songs in shape to where we could just bust them out at any moment. I wish we were at that good of a band, you know? I don't think anyone is. Yeah, yeah. So it would be like, okay, we'll pick 25, 30 songs to focus on for this tour and have those in our arsenal. So there's, yeah, I don't know, it's weird. I mean, there's some songs that for whatever reason stick with you through the years and are always fun to play. Like what? What's an old one that's like one of your favorites? It'll always be a show. I've been playing the song, Walking is Still Honest, since I was like 17 years old. I'm 29 now. And you still love it as much as the day you're on it? Uh-huh. I've been playing that since I was like 17, 18 years old. It's just a good title for a song.

12:31Thanks. They also make you fat. Yes, they do. And St. Pranny's Day is coming up and speaking of, do the set list change? Are you a band that changes your set list day to day? Or do you try and keep the same? I feel like there's certain songs that naturally it's like these are more of open or songs. These are always going to be closer songs. These are good mid set songs, you know? So some songs never kind of leave their place in the set list in that area. We definitely try and mix things up and switch out songs for different songs and try and play something slightly different every night at least. Now that Thrash is a hit, do you feel like you have to play it every night? I feel excited to play it. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean, especially at these shows, when that kick drum and snare come in and it's fucking massive sounding and you look out and people are just stoked. It's an awesome song to play up here, man.

13:16Let's get on. How about it? Does it, having the hit single and now people know who you are. I mean, not that people didn't know who you were before, but I remember reading a quote from you like you were playing to 10 people back in the day. Does it make you nervous to put a new record and try and recreate the success? Not for anybody else's reasons. Not because this is expectations. This is your own expectations. You always want to feel like you're getting better, you're still doing something that I guess it's more so like, you know, I'm a fan of music. I go out and I buy the other people's records. And even though I don't know those people, I consider them my peers. They're musicians. They're creating records currently. And so you hope, and even though they might not actually listen, you hope that those other music, and you hope that the people that you're blown away by or maybe blown away by the work you're doing too.

14:02So that's the only time there's ever any real pressure like that. As far as like, what fans think and everything like that, I feel like you really, you got to be true to yourself and do what feels good to you. And hopefully other people connect with that. But if you're trying to pander to people and cater to an audience, then it's just going to be horrible guaranteed. Well, I think they're going to do the record. I know I did the same. Thanks, man. And one last question. What was the first record that you got? Do you remember it? What got you into music? Well, the first set I bought was Def Leppard hysteria. The first CD I got was Tom Petty Fullman Fever. And the first vinyl I got was the Misfits Died Dye My Darling. Good ones. Thanks. And I'm glad you have them all up top of your head and didn't have them wasted no time. Great. Tom, thank you. Appreciate it.