Anti-Flag – 25-10-2010

Interview with: Pat
By: Nina Mende

Along with the charity show we also did another interview with Anti-Flag. Of course did we talk about the charity show, all the charity events Anti-Flag did during their short tour and some other stuff that came along with it. It was not a very long interview but still included a lot of valuable information. So here I was again chatting with Pat, the drummer of Anti-Flag.

First of all I was of course curious about the show. 150 people is not an average sized Anti-Flag show but a very small one for a band like that. You could basically shake everyone’s hand at the show and actually chat up with all the kids that were coming out tonight. Pat said that he most likely will do so as well. The reason for keeping it that small was simply that the band wanted to do something different from what they were usually doing. This was also the main theme of the entire tour. Every day the band did something they or their fans usually don’t get to do, like for example going to a vegan restaurant with a bunch of fans, but more about that later. So here we were, chatting about tonight’s Emmaus show in Trier. With 150 people and a fitting venue – it was more than packed with the 150 people around – it indeed was a very small show. Sold out within less than 48 hours I of course asked why they didn’t decide to do the concert in a bigger venue. Pat explained to me that using this venue was due to some connections and the spirit this show would have, would get lost in a bigger venue. This show was basically a “back to basics” show, family-sized Like electrons the audience would move around and heat up the room, create energy that in bigger venues gets lost easily not only by the barricade between audience and stage. Being close to your fans and fellow-music lovers, literally being able to smell each one’s sweat. Punk Rock as it used to be! Perfect. Still totally excited about the idea and actually being part of such an unique event I asked if there was anything special – besides the show itself – about to happen tonight. Pat laughed and told me Justin, the singer, was having a cold and unable to sing tonight. Chris would sing most of the songs instead. Now that was special indeed.

And of course, let’s not forget this show with 150 people only and Chris singing instead of Justin was a Charity show after all. All the money raised on this event would go to charity, to Emmaus to be precise. Emmaus helps homeless and drug victims to recover, find a home and be rehabilitated. Emmaus is an international organization. More information can be found on www.emmaus-france.org. Tonight’s collaboration with Emmaus was through their record label Sideonedummy. The band welcomed the idea of having a charity show instead of a day off, so here it happened.

But tonight was not the only night Anti-Flag was doing something for charity. Every day during the tour they did something for charity or simply the community. Either they were playing soccer with fans, made vegan waffles or Pat took a bunch of fans out to a vegetarian restaurant, introducing them to a healthy and less harmful lifestyle. Pat himself is vegan. He explained to me that it takes a whole more energy to raise an animal than to have plants grow, so living vegetarian or even vegan does a lot less harm to the world. Eating animals is basically toxic to the environment. And besides, harming or even killing animals sucks anyway. Nobody likes to be killed, and if, Pat said jokingly, he would probably eat that one, if it’s somebody’s choice to die, you might as well eat him. He likes to take kids to a vegetarian restaurant, chatting with them about music, being a music and so on and of course introducing them to vegetarian food, showing them how easy it is to live like that and that the vegetarian or vegan food “even” tastes good. Now, since he was a vegan, I started wondering if it wasn’t hard touring as a vegan. He explained that actually it is easier to live a touring life as a vegan than survive the regular travelling as a vegan since on tour you always have locals around that can get you vegan food or at least somebody who knows somebody who can help… Further do many countries mark their food with labels saying “vegan” or “vegetarian” on it as well. And of course if you know words like “eggs” and “milk” in different languages you can easily help yourself and continue living a vegan lifestyle even while travelling. Also did he make clear that he doesn’t die when eating meat, he just preferred not too. But instead of starving to death he would also eat meat if there was nothing else to eat. But the less meat you eat the more you help the environment. And, unlike some other vegans, he doesn’t mind other people eating meat. He thinks people are more important than what they eat. Pat would still talk to me after knowing that I eat meat. My BBQ was saved!

How all the community service happened? Pat was telling me that for example in Berlin they had to go to the Vans store, so they also asked Peta to come make vegan waffles for the kids. So basically for every promotional thing Anti-Flag did, they also wanted to do something activist/charity related.

Due to all the charity talk I came up with the idea or rather question if the band had ever thought about releasing an album and donating the earnings. Pat said that they have released 7inches before and donated parts of that. The thing with albums is not only the cost of recording it in the first place but also one major thing: Hardly anybody buys physical albums anymore. But Anti-Flag also sold t-shirts amongst other things and gave them to charity. At this point we drifted off chatting about Music For Relief which was started by Linkin Park. Pat had never heard of it before but told me that they did similar stuff during Warped Tour. Also he told me about some welling organization they have been supporting recently. Anti-Flag was digging for wells in some poorer neighborhoods in the United States. The organization called “Useless” was trying to make Americans aware of the water issues since not only Americans but them as well, take water for granted and tend to waste a lot of the precious element. (www.useless.org). The organization shows how little money it takes to build a well but how big a difference water supply can make. How big an impact such a little amount of money can have is simply impressive.

We didn’t only talk about activism though. Pat also told me about the plans of recording a new album which will hopefully be released in spring 2011 which brings them back on tour during the festival summer and on a longer club tour in the fall. So here was one thing to look forward in Fall 2011 already!

It was an awesomely interesting interview with Pat of Anti-Flag. Thank you so much for your time. Can’t wait for the next time.

PS: Pat loves Goldfish! 😉

Links:
Anti-Flag Official