The last time I interviewed Strike Anywhere's vocalist Thomas Barnett was two years ago to the day that I conducted this interview (October 30, 2006) on a bench outside The Living Room in Providence, RI. Their release of Dead FM is quite favorable, full of punk anthems, sing alongs and though provoking lyrics that inspire change as well as a great listen.

PL: State something interesting about yourself.
TB: I surround myself with really intelligent people. Not just my bandmates, but my wife and all of my friends in Virginia and Portland, Oregon, where I moved to. I have a dog who is blind, but I snap my fingers and she can hear like a bat. I like astronomy, and I have a telescope and I look at galaxies and constellations and nebula and planets. Thats sort of like a hobby that has nothing to do with punk rock.

PL: You like in Oregon now?
TB: I do. I lived for 30 years in Richmond. Then I moved to Vermont for two. I just kind of follow my wife wherever she gets a degree. She's an academic person. She's got her masters in Environmental Science and Policy in Vermont. Then she went to law school in Portland, OR, so we moved out there, and she's blazing through law school law, doing animal rights law, which is awesome.
PL: Is it tough being in the band with them so far away?
TB: I guess whats interesting, our guitarists Matt and Matt; they actually don't live in Richmond anymore. One lives in Baltimore and one in the far western mountains of North Carolina.
We actually had a better time writing this record because we were kind of far away from each other. We could kind of bring songs to each other, even if we just had an idea we could send it-also technology has had a hand in it, because someone could just throw down a guitar riff into their computer through a shitty mic and send it to me. I can cut it and paste it, edit it and make it part of the song and send it back to someone else. In other types of the songwriting, someone would come out and visit me, and we'd sit on my porch with acoustic guitars and write songs, even the hardcore ones. There were a lot of different ways of writing.
Another one was us hanging out for the whole weekend. We had a weekend out of a month where we'd get together and be focused and arrange the songs on the record, and make it meaningful.
I don't think its been a detriment at all. There are other bands that have members scattered. Some bands have members scattered across oceans, and they still manage to make it happen in these modern times.

PL: When you guys signed to Fat years ago, I was reading a message board saying that that was the label you should have been signed to the whole time. Do you agree with that?
TB: We loved our time with Jade Tree, and I think it was a good transistion. The funny thing is that we had a seven inch on Fat before we were on Jade Tree in 2000. Someone from Fat Wreck Chords had found us. We put our songs on the internet for free, our first demo songs ever; ones that we recorded in a basement. They wanted to put out a seven inch, and we did. Then we went to Jade Tree, and I love the three albums we did with them.
Fat has also grown and changed so much over the years. They always had a few political bands that have been amazing, but I think with the Rock Against Bush and Punk Voter, and the sense of making a movement besides punk as entertainment, that punk is something threatening and revolutionary and eductional. It definitely feels like a very comfortable and good place for us right now, but I actually don't know if it would have made sense if we'd been on it the whole time. I'm happy that people are saying that instead of saying that we shouldn't be on that label and that we're all sell outs.

PL: What can Fat do for you that a label like Jade Tree can't?
TB: I know that Fat has an office in Europe, so there aren't import prices. There's also a huge presence of distrobution, promotion and radio and other things that bands need in other countries. With Jade Tree, its all import. Its like a specialty kind of thing. In Australia, its the same thing. I don't think Fat has a full blown office, but they definitely have press, relationships and people down there that can shepard you through the process of being far from home and not knowing how or why anyone is going to come see your band. They can do that, whereas we first went to Australia and Japan, we kind of carried Jade Tree with us. We introduced them to distributors. Now they have distrobution, but they didn't before. We felt like we grew up with them and they kind of grew with us. The most modern roster of Jade Tree are a lot of our friends' bands, like Cloak/Dagger and New Mexican Disaster Squad. We feel like we'll always have that label with us, but I think that Fat has a little more distinctly political message, and they work with some nonprofits, so now its nice to have some help with that.

PL: Why do you think punk rock appeals to mostly younger crowds?
TB: Thats the thing about Europe, too. They have people at shows that are over 30 and beyond. You definitely see more older people out there. I think its changing now too, because we're seeing older people on this tour; people in their late 20s and 30s. People that are straight up friends of all the bands, which is great, instead of seeing kids that could actually be our children if we had children at a very young age. It is different because you need to experience changes. Sometimes, when you're real young, you just need to look crazy and express your outcast self and piss off your parents and dance real hard and have that kind of time. As you get older, its like our responsibility connect ideas that sustain revolutionary culture outside of just what the shows mean, but also have the shows being meaningful and not just another kind of rock music. Thats not what we're in it for, and thats not what it means to us, and we hope thats not what we present. I think that having it be about community and a real democratic sense of these songs are yours, this space is yours, this is ours. I think thats what can carry this beyond just a youth culture. We think about it and talk about it all the time. We are still in this because we've been in bands, and we'd be useless otherwise. We feel that this is the best place for us to be. Its the best kind of impact in the world that we could have right now. I think, punk is really important to us, as is having a space where people can feel safe and can be themselves, especially in a society that is getting more strict and being more prejudiced. Its really cool that we can have a counter culture that at least tries to talk about gay kids, feeling like they have a space, and kids that have a lot of different ideas and feel really lonely and likes outcasts, instead of turning to drugs. Just having something thats both really public and emotional, which this is, but also something that allows you to be introspective. Thats why I think it appeals to adolescents, because the hormones are raging and all that shit. People need the psychological aspect of this, but as they get older, they fill it up with ideas: social ideas, political ideas, alternative histories, things that were swept under the educational carpet. Thats what happened to me, I got into it for the emotional and freedom of it, and the value it had to my identity (and the danger, I guess). But then, as you get in your 20s, you realize that this world is fucked and this seems to be the only sort of media that seems to be true. Thats kind of what we feel that we are continuing. Us and a bunch of other bands. After the emotions simmer down a little bit, your intellect kicks in, and your participation sort of changes. You'll bring a table to a show with books, and you'll try to turn other youth on to other ideas.

PL: Do you think punk being in the mainstream will ever go away?
TB: It kind of seems like its bleeding out a little bit now. I think there will always be punk songs and fashions that get turned into some new product for people, but taking that superficial part of it will never actually hurt the underground, and it will never give punk a presence in the mainstream. There is too much critical honesty and soul in it for it to be bottled up in a one dimensional corporate product. I think of it like a wave. The Clash came out, and then it went underground for most of the 80s, and then you had that spike in 93 and then another spike in the 2000s, and I think its just gonna be like that. Whenever the people that want to feed people culture and pretend that something has been discovered, when in fact it has always been there; its just been retooled and exploited for a second. Punk will kind of appear as this new thing. Its actually kind of good for the underground, because kids that would have never known what this show was about or able to find the local message board or if they'd even like a show, can have this gateway drug: some Hot Topic, some really pop culture friendly corporate band, and maybe that band will be cool enough to have a couple stickers on their bass or be wearing a T shirt. Its weird because I'm sure a lot of major label punk bands know that they need to give back, and I'm sure that they're doing that by turning kids on in a subliminal way to the deeper culture.
What I'd really like to have happen is some ladder of communication with bands that took whatever risk to be on a major, and whatever they gained and whatever they lost and share it all the way down to the basement punk bands. The bands that would be even too radical to play a show like this, so you could draw other people into this, to have new blood.

PL: Whats one trend in music you'd like to see disappear?
TB: The really offensively superficial emo pop metal whatever genre that is taking over even good bands, and the sense of white males screaming relationships and killing their ex girlfriends, and being the most spoiled, retarded, artless, arrogant babies in the history of music. It is the weakest-there are some bands that fit the genre that are poetic and intense and mean it, so I'm not trying to indict all of them, but a great amount of these bands are the most superficial, fashion conscious, weak and unempowering music I've ever heard in my life.

PL: Are you guys a full time band?
TB: We are as of this touring cycle. We always work jobs in between tours, and I think this two years that we just started in September-we do four weeks on and ten home, and thats our plan. Some of us will work some of those breaks. Its hard, its really hard-even if you have a job that lets you come back, its always at the loading dock or at the cash register. You never have any chance of career advancement. of course, we would rather be doing this, but coming home and reconnecting with our communities, our cities, our loved ones, our pets seems really important. Also, we wouldn't have the right kind of lives to legitimately be in a band like this. We couldn't start writing songs about the road exclusively. That would be real boring and strange. We have such a Groundhog Day about this that doesn't have to do with reality. Getting back home, even for a second and painting a room or hanging drywall or volunteering or hanging out with friends, all that stuff is real important for our minds and creative health. I guess we all still need to work when we can between tours. At the same time, we are touring indefinitely in the schedule that I mentioned moments ago.
PL: Is being a full time band harder than having a regular job?
TB: I think in some ways it is because you are constantly being exposed and oversocialized. Its awesome, but you never really have any time alone, and I think everyone needs that. And even the time alone is kind of contrived. Its weird. We love this life, and part of it is hanging out, just straght up talking to people, connecting with them, talking about what is going on in communities, singing along, so when you're home you feel weird because you aren't covered in people's sweat or hearing them screaming. Going to work and coming home-I did that for the past year and a half; I worked full time at an organic produce market. I'd wake up at 5 in the morning and unload trucks. A lot of that shit is fun, though. Just having that predictable schedule so you can talk to your spouse or girlfriend. A lot of people like that. A lot of bands don't have stable relationships that last. Thats the only thing thats hard, because you're putting someone else through this too. The person back at home missing you. Thats a tough thing that everyone has to deal with. I think in some ways this life is harder. We are self sufficient financially, but only that. We're not making as much as if we were public school teachers in our home town, which would be a worthy job, actually, after this punk rock thing ends. We don't have health insurance as a group, we don't have any of those protective devices that people in their early 30s should have. We don't have a retirement plan. All of those things-especially if you have someone else in your life, it gets a little dreary to figure out whats gonna happen in the next 15 or 20 years. That, or there's dangerous things that happen: we get held up by Italian police and robbed, incarcerated in Japen, the van that we travel in blows tires all the time on the interstate. Its amazing that we haven't gotten into a real wreck. I guess there's a lot to worry about and be stressed about. You always have to be on your feet and brainstorm different solutions. Even if its just getting to a club in a city is just wild. When you're at home, you know where you live and you know all that stuff, but trying to cut into a whole new environment is kind of a challenge. Its also fun.

PL: Whats one thing that worries you about today's youth?
TB: I think that there's a big sense of powerlessness, and people are accepting of whats being given to them as far as entertainment culture, career choices and identities. I think that there is a huge fallout of materialism and fear in the culture and press thats been defining reality for the past five or six years, and thats really psychologically bad. Its not just bad because our country is at war, which is illegal and immoral and people everyday are just trying to forget that this is happening. I think thats the thing that is going to have the greatest affect. When I was 13 or 14, there was the Cold War, and there was the threat of the bomb constantly being talked about by Reagan on TV and by George Bush the first. It was all about the Cold War and mutually assured destruction. I think that now we have something even worse than that, having this epic concept of terror being this thing that we have to fight, which is so intellectually bankrupt and dangerous to the actual security and peace of our country. I think thats a huge factor in why youth seem more frightened and alienated, and not question what is happening around them. They don't feel that they have the power to question or change this reality.

PL: Whats a little known fact about Virginia?
TB: There were these places called Freeman's Towns before the Reconstruction where it was silently understood and tolerated, and actually encouraged that freed slaves would build a town together. They had names like Ziontown and Crossroads. They are part of the landscape of rural Virginia, and after the Reconstruction, all of the horrible things that happened in the South, especially the streets and towns that were burned and they were used as scapegoats for the loss of the war and everything that was going on. A lot of them are still existing, and its cool that you can trace the footprints of freed blacks in the South before the Civil War and the civilization that they were trying to build. Its a really hopeful thing.
There was also a time in Richmond in 1864 that both armies kept the food away from the people, and burned the city just to keep the other people out and to keep the other ones starving. German and Irish immigrants, Southern Abolishionists, other anti war people, freed blacks, enslaved Africans and the women in the city had a riot. They broke the locks off the store house and took the food, and did their best to fight off both armies. It was pretty intense and there was all this history of secret civil disobedience is really inspiring. Instead of us having to think of our ancestors as racist hicks, we actually get to hear the real truths about them, and that there was a lot of people of intelligence and spirit, and blacks and whites were working together.
Another thing that happened was, I guess in the southern Appalachians like South Carolina and Georgia, there were these Highlander Folk Schools. It was this amazing training ground for the Civil Rights Movement. They taught people literacy so people could vote, so we can get them to uplift their condition. It was where Dr. King went and learned a lot about this. It was really an amazing place. It was a place where radical rights and lefts learned together, and so learning went on. The FBI head who tried to frame Dr. King as a Communist, they had this billboard in the South about Dr. King being at a Communist training school, but it was these Highlander Folk Schools, which was another big alternative educational movement in the poor south, which taught black people how to read and about direct democracy and education and the power of community. Those are some things that we can be proud about, instead of being ashamed because we're from the South. There's a lot to be ashamed about; there's a lot for everyone to be ashamed about.
PL: The guy who founded Brown University was a slave trader.
TB: People are compelled by academic conditions to do horrendous amoral things to keep with the status quo, and we're still in that now, but with other ideas. There are other issues that make me feel like we are brutal, demonic people, and we'll feel that way 50 years from now when we look back at these times. You can't get wrapped up in the self indulgence of guilt too much. You've just got to keep enjoying it and be able to laugh at the mistakes. Thats kind of what I think punk rock is too; its folk music for the urban wasteland. Thats why its so loud and incomprehensible. Its a positive reflection of that negativity; I hope.

PL: Name one album, besides your own, you think all kids should have in their collection.
TB: I would probably have to say Bad Brains, the Attitude sessions and the ROIR tapes, because that was such an awesome record, and it encapsulates the start of it all. They invented American hardcore, and the roots of everything that we can all live up to and understand has to do with the passion and intensity and the spirit of that band. Definitely, we have to give it up to that band, especially in Richmond, the DC radiation just came down I-95.

PL: Whats your favorite track off of Dead FM and why?
TB: It changes constantly, but I'd have to go with "Sedition," just because its a lot of fun to play every night and its really cathartic for me because I get to sing about this thing that used to be a big secret in my family. It gets more intense every night, and I kind of have to pull back from the moment. In San Fransisco, this Japanese kid and I were singing along to the last bit ("Hiroshima was started in Tennessee/Let it end with me"), and it was real intense. We were both just screaming at each other, and it was really powerful. And then my friend Rufio, who plays in A Global Threat, is half Japanese, and his grandparents were from Hiroshima, but they left before the war started and came over. If they hadn't come over, they, along with the rest of Rufio's paternal great aunts and uncles and cousins would have also perished. The bloodline would have ended. Thats the bomb that my grandfather didn't know that he was helping to build as a union steamfitter. The fact that that song has already connected me that much to people within the first eight weeks of its public life, its almost a little frightening of whats going to happen next. But I'm excited, and I'm really happy, and my family-I had a talk a lot with my father about even writing the song, because this shit is real personal and intense, but he's real proud of it, and so am I. Its only a two minute hardcore song with a breakdown, so its nothing complex.
PL: I first read about it in Alternative Press, and that was one of the best articles they've ever written.
TB: They researched some of that shit. I'm really happy with that. I'm not sure if they've already done this or not, but they're pitching the story to "This American Life," a syndacated public radio program, and they're gonna see if they're interested. Then that song and the story will have another format to be in, on NPR, which is wild.
PL: Its an amazing thing that no one would have known about.
TB: Yeah. I think, for me too, I would have failed if the song were just about me. I don't want to skew whatever and sound like another guy with a cleft lip thats upset. Its more like: industrial accidents happen to people all the time, and I'm lucky enough to have this punk rock thing to talk about it. You can be able to make these connections with what could have been. So many people from the Ukraine-any place where there is a chemical plant spilling toxic shit into the air like the cancer alleys in Louisiana. There's all these things happening to the poor worldwide because of the irresponsible immoral imperitives of industry, and the war machine. All that stuff is still happening, and this is just one story to bring it to life.

Interview by: RF

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