Strike Anywhere

This interview was plagued with problems from the start. As soon as we arrived at the venue where Strike Anywhere and Cloak/Dagger were playing, my camera dies. To follow that up, things got mixed around and we were erroneously left off of the guest list; which was inconvenient but we’ve dealt with worse. Unfortunately, the proverbial icing on the cake was when, after speaking with Strike Anywhere vocalist Thomas Barnett, we found out that there was no time for the interview due to the band having some electrical problems with their van. So finally, months later, Thomas was gracious enough to answer some of our questions via email, despite his hectic schedule with touring and moving. 

Diatribe: I recently saw you play in Columbus, OH with Cloak/ Dagger and it was an amazing show on all fronts…my first time seeing you actually, despite the fact that I’ve been a fan for years. How was your experience in Columbus?

Thomas: We had a fantastic time during and after the show, hanging out with Columbus punk kids, and feeling your town for a night.

Diatribe:  You just toured with Silverstein and From Autumn to Ashes which seems like an unconventional match up…how did the tour go overall?

Thomas: That tour was strange, to say the least!  We knew it would be different, and challenging as far as the audiences and especially in the secondary and seldom-toured cities we got a chance to go way outside of our comfort zone.   The gentlemen in the aforementioned bands were very friendly and interesting folks, some old friends too from touring in Europe or much earlier in the U.S.  As far as ‘finding our people’ in this more mainstream, Hot Topical, flat-ironed youth context…it was very interesting.  Sometimes we felt like a great number of people in the audiences had never heard melodic hardcore punk music before, or had any idea how to approach us as a band.  In this way, we felt like pioneers in towns such as Lubbock, Colorado Springs, Fresno, McAllen, Texas . . . and many others in a similar vein. It was kind of refreshing and way more intense of an experience playing our set for people who didn’t know how, or didn’t want to, dance to it.  It also wore on us and made us acutely aware of how lucky we are to have an actual community of intelligent, ferocious, inspiring audiences worldwide who embrace this counterculture as more than music and our songs as a part of their lives, not just fleeting distraction and adolescent theater.

Diatribe: Awesome. This past summer you were on tour in Europe, do you ever get any negative reactions from people over there for being an American? I’ve heard horror stories about stuff like that, so I was just curious…

Thomas: We don’t advertise our nationality in any conscious way, ever when traveling abroad.  Also, at least in the cities where we regularly play and have years-deep friends, we have no problem conveying our status as ‘slightly-more-aware – icans. ‘or ‘ our bassist is a Canadian ‘ –s  .   We are happy to engage in real, often contentious yet affectionate conversations with folks from everywhere, and usually do over many fine beverages, and sometimes absinthe.   Recently, as our European Tour last summer took us to our furthest East . . . Romania, Bulgaria, Northern Greece, and Croatia, we got a more mysterious, yet still enthusiastic response from many folks in the punk scenes of these countries . . .we are still trying to ferment our impressions and feel our feelings on this.

Diatribe: I was fortunate enough to catch you guys at a smaller venue. I love seeing shows in smaller places for the more personal experience you get out of it. You guys have played your fair share of large and small venues; what is your preference in regards to that?

Thomas: We love playing anywhere that engaged and passionate people sing along with us, and have a memorable time.  A lot of spaces, large and small, can be gateways to a true countercultural experience, and we try to commit to the show completely whether it’s in front of 20 people, or 2000. We do not, however, play or support the giant media consolidator, Clear Channel, in the U.S. We have boycotted this corrupt and cancerous corporation and we try to play only independent spaces whenever we are in control of our touring operations.

Diatribe: Are any of you still living in Richmond?

Thomas: At this writing, only Garth; our bassist, and Mark Miller, our new guitarist who has smoothly replaced founding member Matt Sherwood reside in Richmond.  As the nine years of Strike Anywhere blazed along, the rest of us followed our friends and partners to various cities for continuing education, employment, and the bittersweet liberation of living in a different place beyond one’s hometown.  Eric Kane (our drummer) lives at present in Chicago, while I live in Los Angeles with my wife and our nine rescued animals while she finishes a law degree and interns at the City Attorney’s Animal Protection Unit as a student prosecutor. Smith has spent nearly five years in Baltimore, commuting down to Richmond to meet the rest of us for the bookends of tours for new songs, practicing, and soaking in the city that gave birth to our band. 

Richmond will always be our primary muse and I'm sure our lives would be unrecognizable without her . . . .

Diatribe: Do you feel that growing up and living in Richmond really stimulated you musically?

Thomas: I remember an art school ghetto in Oregon Hill with lots of backyard parties, and crazy fire breathing punks . My first show was a free GWAR event, when I was fifteen , in 1987 when they had no label, no budget, just loincloths , roller skates, foam battle axes, and  disturbing home-made masks. . . A lot of SST Records jazz-punk, White Cross and thrash bands,  rasta-core brought to us by radiation from D.C. and the Human Rights ( H.R.'s more-reggae side project ) Band.  I also remember a thriving skinhead scene of nazis , traditionals, and the occasional brave SHARP.  Me and some brilliant dropout punk friends fixed up, mostly with graffiti, an old two story Reconstruction Era barn on the western edge of town, and started having shows that were often near-riots, these weird parties with rednecks, non racist skins, punk kids, furtive goths ( these would be 80’s goths ! ) trying to get along and build something, just to tear it down.  It was really a brave new world as far as D.I.Y. was concerned, and the band that tied it all together was Four Walls Falling, Jade Tree's first LP; and a righteous and musically untouchable political hardcore band. This was my ' dual consciousness' turning point from exclusively being into underage drinking, trespassing, and running from police and skinheads.  It taught me that there was something to engage in, to build and articulate further than just leather jacket paint, and homemade tattoos.

In the spring of 1988, Fugazi came to town, playing at the reggae club, New Horizons, with Guy as a roadie and occasional backup singer.  This was thrilling and revolutionary to my punk experience, no doubt, but the final hinges came off the doors when, that Summer, I saw the Bad Brains with Corrosion of Conformity in Virginia Beach.

By the time Avail moved to Richmond in 1991, a second generation of positive hardcore bands and creative punk kids were gaining confidence, and the scene was starting to get a new character, changing from the dark, impressionistic Mid-Eighties.  On New Year's Eve 1990 , in a house on Cherry Street, I met Beau and Tim Barry,  I think they were pissing in random beer cans, and watching gleefully while wasted, pompous frat people would drink.  I liked them instantly. They established the first Avail House, and added just the right amount of numbers and intellect to push the scene to its tipping point; we then organized and happily kicked out the remaining Nazi skins, started Inquisition , and a dozen other bands, all with character and a singular sense of mission, and the third generation of Richmond Punk came into its own.

Musically, I suppose we have a pedigree that breaks down somewhat like this : Richmond is our Mother, DC our Father, London is our Grandmother,  two Uncles being NY Hardcore as the dark, aggressive one and California Punk as our carefree and rich funny one.  I know this sounds silly, but I honestly can't tell you too much about what I think we sound like, also, I am not sure it’s important.  Richmond hardcore groups like White Cross, Four Walls Falling, Unseen Force, Young Pioneers, Avail, Count Me Out and others are definitely sonic influences and peers, but the people of the city, all of their tragedies and triumphs, on every hidden scale and whispered poem, are the real reasons why any of these bands exist, and why I think punk is particularly relevant to our hometown.

Richmond always has hidden stories to tell.  The monolithic and amoral Tobacco Industry, the frustratingly complacent mainstream press, often absurd politics and media that pass for culture in Richmond is only a brittle shell with many cracks.  All you gotta do is push sometimes and it breaks. There has been a lovely, long legacy of mad artists, activists and people of conscience operating alongside the aristocratic corruption, and class exclusion that passes for the poisoned discourse of our city's bright lights. In the shadows of these is where her heart is : the footsteps of Gabriel Prosser, Elizabeth Van Lew , heretics, dreamers, insurrectionists,  people of vision and soul.

Late night skateboarding in the ghostly emptiness of the financial district, running down cobblestone streets from Police, marching on Dr. King's birthday with the Coalition for The Living Wage, rescuing abused and abandoned animals in Church Hill,  planting community gardens, playing basement shows, swimming the dirty river, and thirty years of finding inspiration for a lifetime that travels light, and nourishes wherever you go - that's what Richmond has given me and my friends -  and I suspect, a lot of folks I haven't met yet.

Dead FM not only has our most specifically historic Richmond songs ( chronicling moments of its classical rebel history , as well as anecdotes about  growing up in the late eighties Punk scene ) but also maybe one of our most Richmond sounding ( “Speak To Our Empty Pockets” ) songs we've finally finished writing.

Diatribe: At the show I attended you mentioned the current trend of celebrities and their political beliefs. What is your opinion on celebrities touting their beliefs in the media; do you feel they have a responsibility to do so based on their ‘status’ in society, or is it just one sided political propaganda?

Thomas: I think I was more or less attempting to address the spectacle of celebrity that surrounds our politicians…there is an awful lot of dumbing down and superficial perspective that is sold to us with casual malice. I wonder what cynicisms are embedded in the search for scandal and stumble that the present media imbues with hyperbole and manufactured shock value. No doubt these are the darkest sarcasms and exploitations of the public trust in the fourth estate.

Diatribe: Cool, I definitely see a lot of celebrities seemingly trying to sell a product rather than educate. Recently bands like Against Me! and Anti-Flag have stepped up to the majors and are garnering a little more attention from the mainstream media and their beliefs are now in the limelight. I know for a fact that a lot of people in the punk scene are calling foul on this but do you think there could be a chance for these bands to make a positive impact on kids who might not have been in the position to hear these bands and their ideals until now? What are your thoughts on this subject?

Thomas: We are friends with both Against Me! And Anti Flag, and I think we all for the most part appreciate and understand their choices and present pathways .  They seem to be making some progress in connecting ideas and action with mainstream, major label success, and I wish them every strength in continuing to make a difference. 

For us, we are real suspicious of the major label lottery, and like the sense of independence, creative partnership, and space we get from working with labels like Fat Wreck Chords and Jade Tree.  There has been a ratcheting up of political intensity with Fat that appeals to us, and the sense that this punk thing is still ' more than music ' to many. I think we would have to protect ourselves a great deal from parasitic, unsustainable situations with a Major, and the sacrifice of independence and operational ethics seems like it would be too much for us to justify.  I am hopeful that our good friends, whom you've referenced above, will be able to subvert the obvious theoretical and market-based traps that we all know corporate- and many Independent labels as well, let's not forget- music entities are capable of laying, and get their messages out into the hearts of new audiences , those folks who haven't had the window to jump into the underground yet.  The ' gateway drug ' theory of political punk bands using the system against itself.  We should ask Chumbawamba , Rage Against The Machine, The Clash, how this worked out for them. Maybe sharing experiences and tactical information in a vertical way throughout the internal conflicts within punk could help bands understand and avoid problems of exploitation.  An International Protest Musicians Union, perhaps . . .

Diatribe: Strike Anywhere is obviously synonymous in a lot of circles as a band that is very involved in activism. Do you have any advice for people who are interested in activism and want to get more involved in their community?

Thomas: Follow your curiosity, research the rebel histories of your hometown, and stay open to the radical community in its many forms. A quick search of your hometown’s Indymedia.org will start this fire in most cases.  Hell, I found out about a protest against the Minutemen happening in Richmond on a day after a tour when I was just visiting friends and family, waiting for a flight.  It was great to roll down to the Capitol and represent for Immigrant rights in the face of the ridiculous theater of misguided nationalism and dangerous reading of Colonial America. The Minutemen are so whack. 

Diatribe: Dead FM is your first full length album on Fat Wreck Chords, how has it been going with the new label?

Thomas: We initially worked with Fat Wreck Chords on a seven inch single-of-the-month called Bread or Revolution. It came out in 2001. We stayed in touch with them, visiting whenever we passed through California, hanging around for a few days each year, and building a family of two coasts with both they and Jade Tree. We were honored and happy to be a part of the Jade Tree catalog, and still consider them dear friends. We're proud to have our three LPs with them, and stay in touch as often as we can.  We have much respect for our friends at that label. 

Now we will put out a full length with Fat Wreck Chords and continue to visit them when we pass through San Francisco on our tours.  The people at Fat have been enthusiastic, charming, and leave us alone to do our thing in the same community that we have always operated in.

Fat Wreck seems to be a little more active with creative political projects, and they also have greater distribution in Europe and Asia. We enjoyed the ratcheting up of their political intensity, and the issue-based projects that they are dedicated to. It seems like a fine partnership, but we hold fast to our continuity and don't buy into the 'different label - different scene ' anachronism that some folks may still fool themselves with.  Jade Tree continue to release great hardcore records (i.e. Fucked Up, Paint It Black, Cloak/Dagger, New Mexican Disaster Squad ) , and their taste for the cutting edge artist is legendary.  We have great respect for both entities.

Diatribe: The new album has a more concise melodic feel than on previous albums while still retaining that old energetic and explosive sound…was it a conscious decision to make Dead FM have a little more of an ‘accessible’ and catchy sound?

Thomas: Thanks for your compliments. I reckon we didn't intentionally, collectively decide to become more accessible, or catchy, or go the other way, trying to replicate our previous records. We have too much of a need for progression, even within our music culture. In fact, some of the songs are pretty old school - aggressive, but I think this magnetism towards singalong choruses and harmony is what will grow naturally over time to any songwriting groups or individuals who work together for years.  I'm thinking now that the melodic nature of Dead FM - notwithstanding the guttural breakdown battle cries, my aging vocal chords, and other shouted bits- may have to do with our time of three years writing the songs in quieter, acoustic and spare vocal and guitar settings.  A lot of porch sessions while off tour, and back room writing while touring occurred.  I think we all wanted to expand the number of voices on the recording, since there is a lot of singing from Matt (Smith) and Matt (Sherwood) live, as the songs get played more and change from the records.  The record is also a great deal faster than Exit English, as those songs are played sometimes twice as fast live as on that recording.  So, some change occurs just through time, and trying to break writing habits. We also want each song to feel like something, unique and particular to the ideas in the words and melodies.

 Also, we noticed after the fact, that the record has more 'bounce'.  Also, it is probably overall faster than Exit English, but also has our furthest flirtations with shout along choruses, older punk sounds, and storytelling in the lyrics.  The songs are less epic and the arrangements feel cleaner and more to the point.  In short, I am not sure how different it is than our older LPs, its just a document of these past three years, and a further evolution of our rhythms, chord progressions, great bass lines, and punk protest poems tucked into more autobiographical writing. I think each song has a lot of character, and the record feels more like a party than any we've made before. This hardcore punk art form is great at taking desperation and making it danceable.

Sometimes the songs seem to write themselves.  That and my band mates are geniuses.  Also, we try not to fall into too many self-indulgences aesthetically, especially on the new record, we feel like a song should sound as close to how it feels live, in your head.  I am also lucky to be haunted by rhythms and melodies in my daily life that don't leave me alone unless I write them down, or record them in some primitive way. And finally, although its cliché, it bears repeating that  ' It's not my revolution if I can't dance to it '. Nothing will kill these ideas faster than by making them lofty and self righteous, arrogant and academic, middle class and boring.  Our traction on a better, fairer future would slip so easily to the delight of every conservative, corrupted Christian culture warrior if we forget about good times, group catharsis, and keeping  punk rock sexy and sweaty whenever possible.

Diatribe: I really appreciate that you guys take on an intelligent and thought provoking approach to lyrics. Do you feel that your songs have a definitive meaning or do you feel they could be interpreted differently by the listener? I know this question is probably impossible to know, I just wanted your opinion on it.

Thomas: Even the songs that are written with distinctly personal stories in mind, I think, have a need to be taken beyond their original intent and become transformed by the listener.  The catharsis and true ‘beyond just a song’  purpose of this art form has always been characterized by the audience absorbing the themes, images, and narratives of the two minute hardcore punk song and spitting back their own interpretations, personal psychologies, and community symbolism.  My intentions, both conscious and subconscious, always frame the writing, performance and recording of a new song as only a beginning of what it can carry into the community, the casual listener, and the audience of intimate strangers who often know more about the issues that we sing about than we do.

Diatribe: Ok, this is a question I ask nearly every band I interview- How would you describe Strike Anywhere’s music to someone that’s never heard it?

Thomas: Hmmmm.... a good question.  I guess something like ' melodic hardcore and sing a long punk ' has worked for a while.  We play aggressive, anthemic punk music that demands shouting/singing along, smiles, anger, and honesty.   We seem to subconsciously and consciously mine the tradition of tight, punchy, fast hardcore, without any metal, maybe something like a happy southern child of The Bad Brains and The Clash.

Diatribe: That’s fucking awesome. I usually can’t make it through an interview without asking at least one off the wall question. So, I wanted to ask you what you think of mullets?

Thomas: I think there is room for a personalized, deliberate mullet in the post millennial era. The most unfortunate quality of a mullet is its lack of self-awareness, implying a tragic and weird vanity on the part of its owner. If this psychological and cultural dissonance were removed from the legacy of this much maligned hairstyle; it could rejoin a respected place at the table of human coiffure and aesthetics that it hasn’t enjoyed since the time of Braveheart.

One of my favorite most recent mullets is the shaved on top, dreadlocks on the neck ‘political mullet’ that seems to make practical sense when fighting cops, or trying to wear any sort of hat that is not a giant Rasta tam. . . not sure I have the head for it, but I salute it all the same.

Diatribe: That is the best answer to a dumb question that I’ve ever seen. My original intent was to interview you at the show, but time constraints made it impossible. I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to do this…hopefully it wasn’t too painful.

Thomas: No. Not painful at all, although it was life changing to actually sit down and figure out whether I had anything to say about mullets!  Thanks again for your interest and patience in receiving this. See you next time in Columbus!