Anti-Flag - Pat Thetic Interview

Had a pleasant conversation with Pat Thetic of Anti-Flag - Be sure to read Buzz Magazine next month for more Anti-Flag news!

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Anger. Violence. Revolution. All adjectives that could invariably be applied to punk rock legends Anti-Flag. Not words that can describe their reasonably chipper and easy-going drummer, Pat Thetic, however.

“Hi,” he greets me cheerily. “How are you today?” I reply that I’m very well. Cool and calm, Pat tells me where he is. “I’m sitting on my back porch in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I just got home from Sweden yesterday. I slept all day and now I’m ready to chat.” At this point, I was fired up for a great conversation too.

The People or the Gun, the title of Anti-Flag’s ninth studio record will, as Pat says, “rock your ass off.” Recording in their home state of Pennsylvania was a figurative and literal return to their beginnings, as Pat explains.

“Well, we hadn’t recorded in Pittsburgh for a long time,” he continues. “We set up a studio in our practice room and it was good because we haven’t recorded that way since the first four or five records that we’ve done without a producer; just us and some rented recording equipment. There wasn’t any other band in the house or a warehouse…it was very refreshing having the four of us writing music and recording music dirtily and aggressively and just making it happen.”

“I think we captured something really special on this record that we haven’t been capturing on some of the other records.”

As a punk band, they are one of the few bands that steadfastly rock out against the establishment, consistently speaking out against injustice, misuse of power and highlighting, sometimes controversially, issues they feel go unaddressed by others – they even pledged to donate a portion of the record sales of The People or the Gun to Amnesty International, the human rights advocacy group. With the U.S. Presidential Election looming and a world economy in turmoil, the band resolved to, as Pat tells us, to “record quickly.”

“There was a lot going on in our world and we wanted to comment on it. The world was sort of collapsing and we wanted to say something about it.

“We bring up issues in our music and we want people to be aware of them; but it doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to stay angry about them. I want people to think about these issues. I want there to be other points of view [besides the mainstream media] and that’s why we create this music; so we can have another point of view – another set of ideas that are being thrown out there when people are hearing about militarism and the government bailing out bankers.”

Anti-Flag’s activism is built on the same straightforward premise; that giving people ideas about what is happening around them through music can bring change to the world, although their first goal is simply to “be a rock band” as Pat breaks it down for us.

“If you’re not doing something creative or interesting musically, no-one’s going to care. Now that we’re a rock band, what can we do that’s more interesting than just play rock shows. How can [Anti-Flag] get our ideas into the world where we feel these ideas aren’t present? Our activism and being a rock band isn’t a separate thing.

"I mean, for example when we went to Canada this year – a lot of kids in Canada don’t have coats. The kids that come to our rock shows have extra coats. Then let’s try to get the kids who have extra coats to give them to the kids who don’t have any. Then it’s not a rock show, it’s a rock show that’s building a community and building something better than just a rock show; that’s sort of how the process goes.”

Pat says they had a lot of challenges with being signed to a major label before moving on to independent punk label SideOneDummy which also includes Flogging Molly and the Casualties on their roster. However the switch was more to do with the perception others had more than their desire to shy away from the mainstream music industry.

“Being signed to a major label made us more resilient and even angrier,” Pat explains to us simply. “If we had mainstream success from the outside, it would probably be detrimental.”

“If you gave the four of us as an entity a bullhorn that big? You wouldn’t be able to get us to go to sleep because we’d be trying to figure out ways to push people’s buttons and make them uncomfortable. It would just make us unsuccessful again and put us back into the world we know.”

Jokingly, I liken their hypothetical situation to that of the late author and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson when asked what the first thing he would do if he was elected President – “Resign!”

Pat laughs it off. “Yeah, sort of like that. But we wouldn’t intentionally resign. Through our actions, we would make ourselves resign…because we’d have to. (laughs)”

Anti-Flag are eager to return to Australian shores, but it just a matter of finding time in their busy schedule.

“We have a tour schedule set up until January 2010,” Pat laments with a strain in his voice, “It would probably be soon after that. It would be the spring of … ‘Ten.’ What are we going to call that? 2010.”

I tell Pat he could call it the ‘Tour in Ten.’

“That’s a great name for it! ‘Tour in Ten!’ (laughs) “Now when we call it that you can point at us and say, ‘That was my idea! Damn them, damn them to hell!’”

Joking aside, Pat and the band can’t wait to return.

“We love to play Australia. We love the Australian people and playing shows there are always a lot of fun. It’s definitely on our list to get there soon.”