TEAM LAST CALL

For some bands, the worst thing that could happen is for things to go right.
Richmond, VA melodic hardcore band Strike Anywhere experienced that first-hand after November’s presidential election. After a decade spent railing against the administration as one of America’s most outspoken political punk bands, singer Thomas Barnett and company were left standing with a funny little feeling burning in their tummies: satisfaction.
It didn’t last long. Less than six months into post-George Bush America, Strike Anywhere is returning to the studio to record its next set of booksmart bombast, tackling everything from child soldiering in Africa to, as Barnett puts it, “the cost of the colonial legacy all over the world.” Fun! We talked to the dreadlocked vegan and activist in anticipation of the band’s June 13 set at the Champion Ship.

Team Last Call: When we talked last time, we had all kinds of juicy stuff to discuss in the middle of the Bush administration. Now in this different climate, with a bit of hope circulating, what subjects are in your crosshairs?
Thomas Barnett: There’s, of course, songs about the current economic meltdown and the bank bailout and all of that stuff. There’s even a song about the role of punk even when the environment changes into something less negative. I wouldn’t say positive.
We were in our town on election night in the heart of black Richmond, and it was the most stunning, breathtaking, wonderful thing. Spontaneous marches and people hugging each other in the streets by the hundreds – some crazy shit. It’s only going to happen once in our lives, and it happened when we were home at the capitol of the confederacy.

TLC: You almost sound optimistic about where society’s headed.
TB: I think there are slight windows opening up in the consciousness of everyday folks, people that don’t have a bunch of anarchist textbooks laying next to their bed, people who haven’t been 20 years deep in a punk scene or a radical scene or having had the privilege or luck to be in a university progressive community of ideas and debate. Those other millions of Americans who haven’t had any of those opportunities, there is a sense of, “Wow, we are supposed to be the government. We’re supposed to be helping ourselves and defending each other. There are things at stake beyond our particular survival.”
I think even the little bit of deliveries that have happened – Guantanamo being closed, discussions of torture – it’s going to be neat. I think it’s going to start something rising that no one’s going to be able to control, and that’s a very good thing.

TLC: When you’re up on the stage watching kids pummel each other in the pit, do you worry about the message getting across?
TB: Me and my bandmates are punk and hardcore kids, so we know that feeling. We can read people’s faces and understand that people are having their own moment. They’ve taken our songs and they’ve applied it to their lives in a way that surpasses anything that we were ambitiously or not writing about. The show is a fulfillment of that promise that starts with listening to the record in your car or at home or riding your bike somewhere when you really feel comfortable and open to the ideas. You figure out what you need from the song and then you bring that to the show.

TLC: On the other hand, since you guys are so message-oriented, do you think it’s possible for the music to get lost in the shuffle?
TB: It is so idea-based. We’re part of a counterculture that’s about ideas that are not your regular rock and roll song topics. But I think what my bandmates write is visionary and I’m honored to be with them. The whole thing is for us to keep growing and keep pushing it and staying true to what we love – not just playing music that is esoterically, artistically experimental that we’re not even sure we like, but to do things that move us. There’s a thing where hardcore is a dance form of music,too. There’s got to be something that’s not just cerebral and built on a self-reflection of a political righteousness. It’s got to be more about the humility of being a part of that moment. It’s definitely important for it not to become some weird academic, theoretical thing.

TLC: It can be a little intimidating.
TB: That’s the problem with a lot of super-political punk bands. There’s just that sense that they get kind of lost in a very exclusive world. Punk was also invented to stand against typical rock star bullshit and to be very critical and to look at the spectacular nature of commercial entertainment, and to make sure that it wasn’t just fooling us. This is about friendship and an extended global family of artists, radicals, dreamers, maniacs, teachers. There’s a dentist in Edmonton who works on our teeth and then gets in the mosh pit afterwards. It’s like that.

TLC: If you found another way of establishing that connectivity, another platform that lets you communicate better to the people you want to communicate with the most, would you quit the music?
TB: I can’t imagine that. I’m a real shy person. Having the music in this band is the reason why this whole part of my personality exists, I think. I think that it would be difficult for me to just speak like Henry Rollins or something. It’s also just wanting to be a part of something that everyone shares in.
It’s the collective catharsis about this that is bigger than just the ideas, and the song is the platform for debate and opinions and building a world within a world and giving people hope. All of that is intensely important to us. But I think it’s also just the emotional clarity, the communication, the dropping of pretense, the sense of intelligence and ferocity and the optimism that’s a part of a punk show – even with all of the contradictions in punk, all of the stupid violence and sociopathic personalities that are also drawn to it. That’s a huge part of why I’ve ever had the courage to write about the things that the songs are about and to express the ideas.
For me, it’s all about the music. It’s all one experience, and the effects it has on personality and on mentality are fairly transcendent. There’s no way to get to that state just planting a garden in your backyard. That’s not to say that we don’t carry the revolution with us in every mundane moment of our lives, waiting in line at the bank, all that shit. There’s a certain amount of fearlessness and hope that has to do with it being beyond the individual. The annihilation of the ego is what happens. That allows you to get past your fears or insecurities or arrogance. All of that stuff falls away, and that’s why the songs feel the way they do.
*Reprinted from Fly Magazine