The Wake

Despite touring perpetually throughout their musical career, Against Me! still managed to release a critically acclaimed punk album last year, one that was nominated for several album of the year awards. New Wave, the band’s sixth release in their decade long career, has inspired a slew of new tour dates across the country, including a show at the Target Center with The Foo Fighters on February 27th. The Wake’s own Deniz Rudin caught up with Warren Oakes, Against Me!’s drummer, for an interview:

Warren Oakes: Hello?

The Wake: Hey, I’m glad I caught you.

O: Yeah, I’m actually in the middle of bowling right now, how’s it going?

W: It’s going good, how much time do I have to talk to you?

O: Whatever you need, I’ve got time to chat between bowls if you don’t mind.

W: Yeah, no problem. What records are you into right now, like what are you listening to?

O: Uh, let’s see. Right now I’m on a bit of an instrumental music kick, so I’ve been going back into the vaults and listening to a lot of Do Make Say Think, Godspeed You!, Black Emperor, Tristeza, Six Parts Seven. Those four have been on pretty heavy rotation. I’m also into some Minneapolis bands, actually, like Plastic Constellations. And Awesome Snakes, of course.

W: So you guys are touring pretty much all the time, right?

O: Yeah, last year we played nearly 200 shows, and with travel days and days off on tour it ended up being about 250 days away from home, and we were mixing our record some of that time. The actual time at home totally off was minimal, a lot of the time at home we’re practicing, or writing, or rehearsing, working on transitions between songs and stuff like that. It’s definitely a full-time job.

W: One of my friends brought home a copy of Spin magazine and I was flipping through the album of the year list and it was everything I expected to see right up to the #1, and then it’s you guys with a full-page spread. It was just bizarre.

O: Yeah, that was kinda bizarre for me too. It’s definitely flattering, because it’s not just one person’s opinion but a lot of people at the magazine who are listening to a lot of different things and really engaged in music and really considering everything that came out. A lot of people would write it off but I take it as a compliment, for sure.

W: Your song “Piss and Vinegar” makes fun of bullshit pop bands, and has a line about publicity photos, how do you feel about the Spin spread where there’s a full-page photo of you guys all hanging out in the woods.

O: There’s certain things that we can control and certain things that we can’t. We’re pretty conscious of our own aesthetic, and we don’t want to be presented in a way that we think is cheesy. You don’t want somebody to make you look like a chump, and so we try to assert as much control as possible over what kind of photo shoots we do and how they come out, and have as much approval over as much of that as possible, but in the end, you take pictures with somebody for a couple hours and they’re gonna take the picture they want. There’s been dozens and dozens of times where we’ve been in a situation where we’ve been told, like, “Stand against this brick wall and you look over there and you pretend like you’re looking over there” and we’re just like, “No, we’re not doing this.” We’ve pulled the plug on tons and tons of situations like that where we could just feel that we were gonna get cheesed up. It’s constant maintenance. It’s given me a newfound respect for bands like the White Stripes that invent a whole costume and fake story about themselves just so they can totally control how they’re presented. Even if it’s in a totally manufactured way it’s better than just letting somebody else make those decisions for you.

W: So it’s like a pitfall of your success, the PR stuff. What you have to deal with in return for being popular.

O: Well, I think you encounter that on any level. I’ve done interviews with tiny ‘zines and when I got a copy they ended up saying bizarre things about the band that I didn’t expect, and comparing us to bands we don’t like, and I couldn’t help feeling that they missed the point altogether. I think that it happens at any level. Sometimes when you’re talking to people you feel like they totally get it and it’s resonating, and sometimes you feel like, “Wow, they didn’t get it at all.”

W: A lot of the songs on New Wave seem to be about stasis, about being ineffective, and it’s admirable in a weird way that those things can be made into such catchy songs, but is there a point to it that I’m missing?

O: I appreciate that Tom’s been really careful about lyrics. There’s a big risk, especially as a band which a lot of young people listen to, that you can come across like you have all the answers, and you’re telling people what’s right. There’s certain bands that we’ve toured with that have come across like, “Okay here’s a political issue, here’s what’s wrong with the situation, and here’s the right way to respond to it.” They come out with this manifesto, like they’re presenting the answers to you. That’s something that has always rubbed us the wrong way. I’m much more interested in hearing a question posed in a new way that makes you go, “Hmm, that’s a interesting concept.” People have always said to us, “You’re a political band, you’ve gotta get involved in this organization and you’ve gotta get behind that cause,” but we don’t endorse anything besides the music that we make.

W: I agree completely. I was just thinking about your older lyrics compared to your new ones and they’re strikingly similar in that respect if not thematically. Although I have to admit that I’m not a fan of your new stuff.

O: I hear it all the time. People say, “Your old stuff’s better, I like it more, I connected with it in this way,” and I think that there was an intersection of a time and a place when a lot of people were really ready for what we were doing exactly when we were doing it, and it connected with a lot of people in that really intense way, and I think for those people to expect us to be with them step for step as they evolve individually, and for us to evolve as a band on a parallel track with them and continue to connect with them in that intense way every step along the way is unrealistic…We haven’t been living a parallel life to a lot of the people who have been listening to our band…A lot of people are like, “Wow, I used to really get where they were coming from and now I don’t,” because they’re not in bands that tour 10 months out of the year, and a lot of the songs are coming from that place. I think that a lot of the lyrics are trying to find that universal common ground where you don’t have to be in a band to appreciate it, but at the same time it would be dishonest for us to talk about things that we aren’t living.

W: I think it’s always really depressing when bands just stay the same, album after album, and I really respect that you’re moving in new directions, whatever they may be.

O: Why thank you.

[long pause punctuated by bowling pins]

W: Well that’s all I have to ask you unless you have anything extra to add.

O: Well, how’s the weather right now in Minneapolis?

W: It is really fucking cold. It’s zero degrees, wind chill of -15, and when you go outside it’s like, “Oh, it’s really pleasant out!”

O: I’ll actually be there pretty soon, so I’ll be suffering with you.

W: Where are you playing at?

O: Oh, um, I’m not sure when we’re coming there on tour, but actually Minneapolis is my home away from home, I spend a lot of my downtime there.

W: I’ve always had a great time every time I’ve seen you at the Triple Rock.

O: Yeah, it’s a good place, good people, for sure. I love it.

W: Have you been doing well at bowling?

O: Not too well. I got a 109.

W: Well, you can blame me for this game.

O: Alright I will.

W: Alright.

O: Take care. Stay warm.

W: I’ll do my best.

O: Bye.