Anti-Flag

Proving that punk rock and politics can co-exist within mainstream culture, Anti Flag are here to get you thinking... and maybe have a little bit of fun along the way.

Drummer Pat spoke with us about major labels, major shit talkers and opening for the most dangerous band on the planet...

Interview w/ Pat (Drums) of

Anti Flag

By Cameron Chambers 

Hey Pat,

how are you today man? 

Good man, how are you? 

I’m doing well mate.

Where are you guys at the moment? 

We are in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,

so we’re not quite home yet. Tonight’s our last show on this tour

and then we’re going home tomorrow which will be nice! 

Where are you at man? 

Melbourne, Australia.  

Nice! What time is it over

there? 

10:30am man, so it could

be worse. 

Ah yes… it could always be

worse, ha ha. 

You just finished a Canadian

tour with Alexisonfire, Saosin and The Bled. How did it all go? 

The tour went great! Alexisonfire

are huge in Canada so the shows all went really well. There were lots

of people and we rocked them all, ha ha. 

We got a chance to play a few

new songs and people seemed to think they were pretty cool so it was

a success all the way round! 

I've heard a lot of horror

well to such a diverse line up? 

That’s definitely true. The

Canadian audiences are a bit more European than the Americans are. They

are open to ideas such as socialized medicine and freedom of press…

so the Canadians are usually more into what we have to say.  

Anti Flag have been on tour non stop since “For Blood And Empire” was released

individual and as a band? 

Wow. That’s a really interesting

question. 

I try my best, ha ha. 

Ha ha. Well, we’ve been really

lucky and we’ve had some amazing people come into our lives. We’ve

had some people come to our shows and talk before we play. 

Some people… we actually

had Jim McDermott come and speak… he’s a congressman from

the Seattle area. So that was another exciting thing! 

Things like that are exciting

for me. Don’t get me wrong, rock shows are great but the exchange

of ideas and being involved with people who are trying to make things

better was the highlight for me.  

Your second record for RCA, “The Bright Lights Of

a bit about the themes and issues you'll be tackling on this album? 

It’s a little bit different

for us. I’m not sure if you’re aware of much that’s happened in

our lives, but in January of this year number 2’s (bass player Chris) sister was murdered… and that definitely hit us in a profound

way. 

It changed the way we were

thinking about things and it influenced the things we wanted to talk

about on the record. This record is more introspective and more personal

than our other albums. 

We’ve been working on…

we thought well, let’s give it a go and do it differently. We’ve

made good punk records in the past so this time we were looking to add

a bit more texture. We already know how to record bass and drums and

guitars so let’s try something else.  

We got Tony Visconti to produce... he's done stuff for T-Rex and David Bowie, and he added some more texture to the songs. We rented a bunch of orchestral instruments too! It's amazing you know... you give someone $100 and they'll let you fuck up their timpani, ha ha. 

Ha ha.

opportunity to previously? 

For sure! It wasn’t the budget

that had the impact though. It was more a way of thinking for us…

what we can do and what we haven’t done previously… what would be

cool for the song, you know? 

We actually had a children’s

choir come and sing on one of the songs… and by children’s choir

I mean our nieces and nephews which is cool because it didn’t cost

us anything, ha ha. 

We were just like, “what

sounds creepy”? Kids singing is creepy… let’s do that! Ha ha 

You guys justified your

as far as staying out of your affairs and letting you do what you want? 

Amazingly they have! I was

actually just talking to someone about this over dinner… which is

why I forgot to look at my phone, sorry about that. 

Anyway, my friend’s worked

with a bunch of shitty record companies and we’re so lucky because

the ones we’ve worked with over the year have been amazing. RCA

has stayed out of our creative process and they haven’t tried to push

us in any one direction. They’re an amazing label compared to some

of the ones we’ve worked with. 

We’ve worked with Fat who

were amazing and we have our own company… but RCA has been

great up to this point. I’ll be the first to tell you when they’re

acting like bastards though! Ha ha 

It's been almost two years

and better understand your message? 

You know what, you think the

crowds would be less friendly to our ideas but I’d argue that they’re

more accepting of our ideas. It might just be the era of history that

we’re in right now, but when we were a younger band people didn’t

know what we were about and they’d come to a show and want to beat

us up because they didn’t like what we were talking about. 

Now it seems that the people

at our shows have seen an ad for the band, or read an interview or their

friends have told them what we’re about… they get it before they

walk in. They may still be pissed when we talk about this issue or that

issue, but they know what they’re getting before they come to the

show. 

The

“Centre For Victims Of Violence And Crime”? 

Yeah man, it’s gone great!

I don’t know how much has been raised because I’ve been on tour

so I haven’t been watching it… but when I get home I’ll look at

the books. Ha ha 

It’s been great though. Everyone

we’ve talked to has been so supportive. Fortunately issues like this

don’t have to a lot of people but a lot of people have had some kind

of tragedy in their lives, so this is a way of talking about these things.  

It wasn’t necessarily about

anyone else… it was a way for us to deal with the situation. In those

situations you’re completely helpless so it let us say what we needed

to. It makes us happy and we’re excited about making music and releasing

records.  

Labels and bands who are

in this area? 

No, ha ha. 

I don’t actually. I think

that bands work their arses off all the time and there’s so many bands

that we know who are struggling to make enough to pay their rent and

eat. I think it’s expected of punk bands to be charitable and do everything

for free and for a benefit, and it’s unfair. 

At the same time, we’re lucky

enough to be in a position that I know I can eat tomorrow so I can use

my… whatever it is I do, my work or my passion, to help other people! 

It’s not fair to say that

because you’re a punk band you have to give your money to someone

else. I’ve often though about this and I think we should do a punk

show to benefit punk bands, ha ha. 

In a couple of weeks you

because you have so many days off. Do you guys know much about the festival? 

I don’t know much about it

but I know people have called it the big day off, ha ha. So yeah, I

hear there’s a lot of days off so hopefully we can do something fun

and cool. I haven’t really been thinking about it though to be honest. 

Is there anything to do in

Melbourne? 

You should probably just

drink a lot and go surfing, ha ha 

Well, I’m un-athletic and

don’t drink so that weeds that out, ha ha. 

Last time we went to a wildlife

park and saw some kangaroos… although most bands probably do that

right? 

Pretty much, ha ha. 

Ha ha. It was fun and amazing

but probably tragic for the kangaroos. You have no idea how uninterested

the kangaroo looked with me trying to feed it. It was just like “stay

away you jackass”. I’m sorry Mr Kangaroo, ha ha. 

Are there any other bands

on the bill that you're keen to check out? 

I know Billy Bragg is

doing some shows. We were lucky enough to drink with him a year and

a half ago and he’s a hero of ours and we love his music.  

Obviously Rage Against The

Machine will be there and Tom will be playing with his NightWatchmen stuff too.  

I think the days will be pretty

packed between our rocking and seeing our other bands.  

Apart from the festival

in all things political that has ensured you're playing together? 

It’s friendship man. We’ve

been friends with Tom for a number of years now and he’s been

supportive of our bands. We obviously have some shared social views

of the world but we’re definitely friends with them as well. 

Tom came out and did some shows

with The Night Watchmen a few years ago with us, so I think they

like us as a band and Tom likes us as people.  

I think it's safe to say

over? 

We’ll just tell them to fuck

off, ha ha. We don’t care! 

I’ve been told I wasn’t

cool my whole life so it has no impact on me. One thing we’ve learnt,

and I’m not trying to blow my own horn here, but very people, regardless

of whether or not they think my band sucks and they don’t care about

the music, can just ignore us.  

I’ll just play drums and

scream at them for fifteen or twenty minutes.  

You guys will also have

your own club shows. Do you still have a say in the support acts?

Um, we do actually, but to

be honest, I was not involved with that decision this time round. Number

2 usually figures that out. 

We’re working on another

tour right now and deciding who’s going to be on the opening slots

so yes, we do, but I just can’t remember right now.  

That's all we have time

for mate, is there anything else you'd like to say? 

Just that we’re going to

playing a couple of shows in Australia and that even if you don’t

believe in our band or what we have to say, come to the show and it’s

still a good time! 

We have a lot of ideas but

it’s a lot of fun too! 

Hopefully people will come

to the shows, ha ha. 

I’m sure they will…Thanks

for your time.