Jen and Justin get Political while chatting about Anti Flag’s upcoming Australian Tour.

Photo credit Megan Thompson.

I interviewed Pat just before American Spring was released. I really like how you guys have the essays with the lyrics as there is so much I can ask you! Not long now till you head to Australia with Pennywise. How many times have you been to Australia now?
Probably six or seven or even ten and eleven! I am not sure to be honest. (Laughing) a lot of times though I love Australia it is a great country.

We look forward to having you! How was American Spring received by the UK and Europe audiences on your tour?

It has been amazing! I don’t think we have had a reception of record like this since For Blood and Empire, so it has been received really really well and in a lot of ways I find it interesting that record is very topical what is happening in the world right now.
It certainly is!
Especially when you look at the xenophobia, when you look at what is happening in Europe with the refugee crisis and when you look at the Black Like Matter Movement and with gay marriage and what is happening with wealth and inequality. We live in a new era of civil rights and all of these issues are tied together and they all relate to one another.
Yes they do.
Somehow with some cosmic force or whether is just one of the passions of the issues, all these things encompass on now you release.I think a lot of people relate to what is happening in the world and then we released our record is and was received really well because it touches on all of those issues.

 Your song Sky is Falling was written based on the testimony of 13 year old Zubair Rehman who was injured in a Drone Strike and his grandmother killed, and this is a very powerful song. I can’t imagine living in a place that I don’t feel safe.You guys seem to be able to put yourselves into other people’s shoes easily and write meaningful lyrics about their situations, how on earth do you do that?

You know that is something interesting I have been doing my whole life be attending that I was living life in someone else’s shoes. Ever since I was a young kid I was doing that maybe it was something that have meant that I have an overactive imagination. (laughing) that something that always been able to do, maybe it came from my parents, as my parents were civil rights activists, they were people that always encouraged us to be empathetic towards other people and really think about how other people feel want to be really aware of the way you treat other people and somehow always been able to do that and all the songs I have written for Anti Flag are things that have not happened to me even songs and stories about kids getting into trouble. Ever since I started writing songs and then running songs about people’s lives and things that have never done, I feel like it’s a real gift and when you can really put yourself in someone else’s shoes it really gives you an insight of what details the stories that are important to help you create details easily I guess. It is interesting that you ask about that as I often think about how the hell that I had this idea! (Laughing) Sometimes I feel like I’m channelling somebody you know!
Yes that was what was going through my mind when I was running the question.

In light of what is happening right now in Germany with them opening their borders to for Syrian refugees, last night Tony Abbott announced that if we took refugees Christians will come here first. I am ashamed of our government that cannot see the humanitarian crisis in Syria right now. Since I wrote this interview the government announced that we will take 12,000 people. Are you aware of the pathetic effort the Australian government is making? They are planning more airstrikes.
Well I am very aware of the pathetic effort that all governments are making good especially the Australian government. Germany is such a shining light to the rest of the world to follow, if everyone around the world and every country welcomed the refugees with open arms the way they have in Germany where refugees are coming off buses to cheering crowds, to get medical attention, people giving toys to kids and people are taking refugees into their homes. These people going to be so grateful that they are going to end up being such productive members of society.
They sure are!

Watch Fabled World here

Because instead of treating people like a plague or a problem, you treat people with respect and admiration and when you give them the kind of help and kindness that they need because they have gone through a real horrible experience that is when people really appreciate you. So what is going to end up happening is these people are going to be real productive members of German society. They are going to contribute so much to the society. They are going to be the most loyal people to the German Society and the best, people to having your society. Then we have these leaders in other places that will shun these people and treat them terrible that treating them so bad, you know when you treat people like shit people get pissed off! Then may have nothing to be appreciative especially people that are vulnerable. So it is just amazing to me that there is this xenophobia and bigotry is leaders are using, they are hiding behind the moral high ground of their religion especially Christians, I love how that supposedly follow the teachings of Christ who says to love everyone. You know what I mean? (Laughing) They are meant to be loving the enemy but instead are coming from a place of hate. That usually fear I think to help influence their power in what we see happening in Hungary is disgraceful and the UK and Australia, Canada, countries that have prime ministers and government bodies did not want any assistance or very little help, they being shamed into offering help and the help they are offering is very inadequate, 12,000 is a drop in the bucket and we talking about a country that has millions of people.
Yes we have the money and we had the space here.
Sure the government’s choice of whether to spend money on people, or taking as much money and resources as possible and pushing towards a few number of elite billionaires, that is really what it has come down to in the world.
Australia has just announced that they going to be doing more airstrikes on Syria. That is going make things worse.
Yeah Exactly.
You can tell I am not really happy with our government!
Well I’m not really happy with our government (laughing)
Well then what you think of Donald Trump running for President?
While there is a lot of different ways of looking at Donald Trump, he exposes the facts that we are a culture and society that has sank to the lowest possible common denominator. What he has really done is blown the doors off the fact that the media that in a democracy which is meant to be a watchdog of the powerful and serve the people and deliver information that is impertinent to the important people, the media is failing miserably at its job, all they are interested in is profit and it is profit driven and is something that does not serve the public interest at all. I mean Donald Trump is on the media all the time because he says outrageous things and bigoted or ignorant things as drives ratings so we are becoming like the movie Idiocrasy. Like that is dead on, that is what we are becoming. In regards to celebrities the only reason that they would become celebrities and well-known is that the media will cover them because they are well known in the past, they are not covering them because they have good ideas or they are doing anything to help anyone and I think that the Trump phenomenon has really by the doors off that fact. To me he has exposed the media although not intending to he has exposed the media just be corporate and showing the true colors of the Republican Party that is marinated in bigotry and narrow-mindedness so it will be interesting to see what is going on as a result of Donald Trump.
We heard that Kayne West is going to run in 2020, which has being pretty much all over our news over the last week.
where we had Arnold Schwarzenegger run for governor in California and he won the election in the short run election, I mean he actually had no platform, he said things like and I am not directly quoting him but I am summing up which is pretty close…. he said things like (just in speaking like Arnold Schwarzenegger….) I’m going to make the environment better…. by making it cleaner. We are going to make schools better by making our children smarter. (I got the giggles at this stage and so did Justin) Seriously these are the kind of things that he was saying. But people voted for the guy because he is well known and he was a two-term governor of California and to me when I saw that happen I thought to myself here we go any idiot who is well known is going to be able to win political office. I am actually surprised that it has taken this long for people like Trump and now Kayne West to say that they are going to run for President. I think in our media driven culture we have this media that is the lowest common nominator and I think that there is a great opportunity for those kind of people to win.
True.
We have very few journalists left in America not that are on the mainstream, they are entertainers, like CNN in America, I don’t know what it’s like in the Australia but CNN in America the hosts of all the different news programs or so-called news programs have a game show now, they have a fucking game show now. This is supposed to be a serious journalist channel. Past journalists would be so horrified to see what is on the news today. They would think that these people are a bunch of phonies and yes they are! (both laughing)

Brandenburg gate music video is so powerful. First time I watched it I was cringing waiting for the blast then the twist happened. Awesome music video. Can we expect more videos like that for other songs?

Well videos like that costs money! Record labels don’t like to spend money. We don’t have a lot about and I wish we could to have the resources to make more videos like that. We have some of the ideas and if we can pull together the money we will.
I did think that the lyrics video for Sky is Falling made an impact due to the clouds and the bold words. (Watch that here)

Awesome that is great to hear, I agree I really like that idea it was really stark and that was sort of the idea behind it.
I think Brandenburg Gate is my fav of the album, in your essays you say this is a Love song for Socialism. When I first heard that I thought wow Socialism but then when I read the essay relating to the song it all made sense. Eight hour day etc. This is a message that needs to be spread, so people have a better understanding of what Socialism actually is, Can you explain to us how the message for this song came about?
Yeah well I think it’s your medical system in Australia, it is government pensions for people who have retired and worked their whole lives. There are many programs and the most successful programs in America are other ones that came from Socialism for example the Veterans Association gives medical care to our veterans from the Armed Forces, our Social Security program which is a fund for people who have retired or no longer able to work.These are programs that are essential and vital and it is really interesting that a lot of people look over the fact that these are life-saving programs that a lot of people don’t think about in reality these programs came from Socialism. I’m not a person that believes in one form of government but I think it is important to pool all the ideas from all the different areas. I think there is so much about socialism that is important and that is left behind are not recognized. I would personally move our governments in the way of Socialism and that is one of the ideas that we are trying to put forward to people and the song is really about the fact that anything is possible. In the Cold War the Brandenburg gate was somewhere that people couldn’t reach because was right in the middle of the Berlin Wall, it was in no man’s land between the East and the West and people thought that the Berlin Wall would never come down, and one day the Berlin Wall did come down. To us the Brandenburg gate is a symbol that the impossible is possible to happen.

I really should go now! Thank you so much for your time, I have enjoyed having a Political chat with you.
I hope to see you when we are down in Australia!
Yeah me too. Look forward to it.
Cya!

interview by Jen Rees