Against Me!
So, you guys just got off Warped Tour, right?
Gabel: Yeah. A couple weeks ago. Uh huh.
How was that?
Gabel: Well, it was our second year doing Warped Tour. It’s a long summer. It’s hot. It’s sweaty. It’s loud all the time, it’s kind of obnoxious. It has it’s good and it’s bad parts about it.
How does it compare to before…in the early days, didn’t you guys refuse to play it or..
Gabel: No. You know I think the thing with Warped Tour, and what I would recommend to other bands too, is that if you’re going to play Warped Tour, wait until you have a main stage offer. Like, to be one of the bands that’s out there, playing one of the smaller stages and doing it in a van…and you know, a lot of the bands take it as a perk. They’ll wake up early in the morning, and they’re standing there as kids are coming in, and they’re trying to get them to listen on a pair of headphones to their CD, and they’re trying to sell them CD’s as kids are walking in and stuff like that, and they’re really aggressive... It’s weird. They look at Warped Tour as a way to break their band, or something like that, and we never really had any interest in doing that. But in the sense of it being just another tour to play for another different type of audience, then that’s fine with us. We weren’t looking for Warped Tour to make us stars or give us a career, you know…(laughs)
Did you get a chance to see a lot of bands?
Gabel: It’s like two and a half months long, yeah, you see a lot of bands whether you like it or not.
Who was your favorite band to watch?
Gabel: This past summer? Shit. Um…to be honest I didn’t really like that many of the bands on the tour. There was this band ORESKABAND. It’s an all girl Japanese ska band. They were just really animated and excited about what they were doing, I’m not sure, I’m pretty sure it was their first tour in America. But they were pretty entertaining to watch. It was cool. GBH was on the last week of shows or something like that. But that was cool seeing GBH cause when I was 13 I was listening to GBH. So it’s like Holy crap, those are some old punks. Yeah, but… I don’t know. None of the bands I really liked…
I like how Warped Tour brings back older stuff. The last year I went there was 2006 and they had Buzzcocks, they had Joan Jett…
Yeah, well we were on it. And that was amazing, and that was the thing. In 2006 we were like “I don’t know, is Warped Tour a good thing, it’s probably gonna be weird…” But then we spent all summer hanging out with The Buzzcocks and Joan Jett, and that was fucking awesome! To be able to say “Yeah I totally hung out with Joan Jett” and stuff like that is totally something that I’m happy about. But then this year, the 2008 Warped Tour, we committed to it not knowing who the lineup was, and there wasn’t really that many cool things about it (laughs) as far as other bands on it, which was kind of a drag.
How did you get involved with Harvest of Hope?
Gabel: Our friend Ryan Murphy who works at No Idea Records works with Harvest of Hope, and he kind of turned us onto the charity organization, and met Phil who does it and his brother, and kind of got involved with it. It’s a Gainesville organization.
Oh, it is?
Gabel: Yeah. Well, they operate on a national level, but it’s based in Gainesville.
So, for the last album, you decided to put out a shirt for every single song. How come you decided that?
Gabel: Well, Chris who does our art or whatever was just passionate about making a design for each song off it. I mean it wasn’t meant only to be tshirts, it was just that he did a design for each song, and we made buttons, stickers, tshirts out of them.
When the album came out last summer, did you get a chance to listen to Ben Lee’s cover of it?
Gabel: Yeah!
What did you think of it?
Gabel: I was kind of blown away by it. I mean it was something that, we found out at the same time every else did. It wasn’t like he wrote us and was like “Is it cool if I do this” or anything. I just got a call one day and it was like “Hey did you know that Ben Lee covered your whole entire record? It’s online.” I expected it to just be like, his singing into a boombox or something like that, not an actual production-type recording and was totally blown away by it. It’s interesting hearing someone else interpret your songs like that. It wasn’t like he tried made them sound exactly like ours off of the record he kind of has got a spin on them which was kind of really cool. One of the neat things though, we ended up meeting Ben who came out and interviewed us for Magnet Magazine, so we hung out with him for a little while. It’s funny cause we were in Australia a couple months ago on tour and Ben being from Australia is a lot bigger in Australia. We played, I forget where we were, I think it was maybe Canberra or Adelaide or something like that, and we played a show to like 200 people. Awesome show, good time, went back to our hotel after the show, and turned on the TV and Ben Lee was on TV playing some huge show in Australia. We were like “I bet he’s gonna cover New Wave” and the next song he played was New Wave. It was so weird being like “Holy crap – We just played for 200 kids at this dive bar down the street, and here’s Ben Lee on like national TV in Australia covering one of our songs.
So like his cover of your songs is more popular in Australia…
Gabel: …then we are! (laughs) It was a weird like “What the fuck?”
That’s cool. You’re on the road most of the year, right?
Gabel: Mmhmm.
So, when you’re on the road do you record stuff on like GarageBand or do you wait until you’re properly in the studio to record?
Gabel: Well I have a 24-track digital recorder thing. It’s a Capcam I think. I usually use that to mess around and nail out songs and stuff like that.
Do you have any other outlets? ...because you love writing, right?
Gabel: Yeah yeah totally. I mean I keep a journal constantly. I’ve been doing music reviews for Relix magazine. Really I’m just interested in doing any kind of writing at the end, be that music, lyrics, whatever.
That’s awesome
Gabel: Thanks.
What do you pull the inspirations for your songs from?
Gabel: Um, you know, whatever’s going on around you. Everyday life or sometimes you try to take a subject that you find interesting and try to write about that subject and sometimes you just sit there and put your pen to paper without thought to see what comes out. Kind of freeflow.
Are there any bands out there where you’re like “These guys are awesome” and they inspire you to write?
Gabel: Yeah. I feel like, all the time. I have a really healthy appetite for music. I feel like it’s important to check out everything that’s coming out. Outlet by whatever artist. I like to read music press magazines and see what new releases there are. I like to check out the releases I’m reading about. I have since I was like 8 years old, you know, sitting there reading Hit Parader magazine. I’ll listen to anything regardless of genre, or whether or not I have any preconceived notions against the artist putting it out or whatever, and whenever I discover something new that’s like “Holy crap, that’s really good”, that kind of inspires you to like, “I want to do something better now.” I mean recently I got into the record by Crystal Castles. I think it’s an awesome record. We got to see them play, we played with them in Tokyo, and they were incredible. And then, that new Conor Oberst record. His solo record I guess. I got that one recently so I’ve been listening to that a lot. I got into that MIA record that came out last year, I’m probably a little late..
Um…Kala?
Gabel: Yeah yeah. I think that’s an awesome record. Just to name a few.
Are you guys doing anything for the election? I mean, I know you guys are more into engaging kids than anything.
Gabel: We did a PSA or whatever for Rock the Vote. That was one thing that was a couple months ago. You know, trying to encourage kids to get out there to register to vote. And then I recently, in between this tour and Warped Tour, recorded a solo EP thing, like 7 songs in LA. Some of the songs topically are revolving around the election. That’s gonna come out in October.
Did you get that done? It’s totally finished?
Gabel: Totally finished. Everything.
What name are you going to release it under?
Gabel: I’m going to release it under my name.
What was it like going into the studio again? I mean, on your own…
Gabel: It was a really great positive experience. I mean, I’ve been writing obviously since New Wave was finished or whatever. I took like a little break from writing songs. But started really seriously writing January 1st, and I’ve just been writing songs while we’ve been on the road. Being on the road so much we really hadn’t had time as a band to sit down and go over the songs. I felt like, as I said, some of the songs being about the election were kind of timely and I wanted to get them out. We were getting gunned with Warped Tour, and right now all my stuff’s in storage and I don’t really have a place to live, so it was like Well Screw it. I could go out to LA and I could get a hotel and live in LA for like two weeks in between tours. And if Billy and Butch are cool with it maybe record an EP or something like that for these songs. And they were into it. So, it was awesome. When I was talking to Billy and Butch about it, I was like I just want to go in there and Fuck it. I don’t want it to be a pressure type thing. I just want to go in there and play these songs and record them. You know, and play music. Cause that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re a musician. (laughs) And it was exactly that. It was just going into the studio everyday, doing whatever idea I had at the time and seeing if it was good or not and following it.
Sounds like a really positive thing.
Gabel: Yeah, it was really…it was energizing. After having been on the road now for like 2 years almost in support of New Wave, recording the songs was like “This is fun.” You know, like “I want to write more songs, and I want to go out to record the songs” and keep going.
You said you kind of don’t have a place to live. I was just thinking, I don’t know what it’s like in Gainesville or anything, but what kind of hurricane damage are you getting down there?
Gabel: Well, Gainesville being in the centre of the state, when hurricanes come, even if they go directly over Gainesville, because it’s surrounded by land there’s no storm surge ever and it kind of slows down the hurricane a little bit. You really end up getting a lot of tornado damage, with what happens. But I’m not sure. I mean there were all those hurricanes that kinda went through Florida a couple weeks ago or whatever, and my mom lives in Naples which is south Florida, and there was minimal damage there, nothing really serious, and I think there was just really heavy rain in Gainesville, but nothing that bad.
Okay. I just know cause I read on Vinnie’s blog from Less Than Jake where he’s just like “fuck, another hurricane…” That was the year of Katrina, where there was 5 that year. I would have no idea what it would be like.
Gabel: Yeah, it’s crazy. You kind of get almost like numb to it, in a weird way. Where you’re like “Eh, another hurricane’s coming.” Unless it’s like really big and headed directly for you, you don’t really freak out about it. I bought my mom hurricane shutters though for Christmas 2 years ago, so she doesn’t really have to worry about that. (laughs)
My cousin actually just got back from Cuba like last week and she was freaking out…
Gabel: They get hit all the time. What’s amazing too is that they get hit all the time and in the US you never hear a word about it, because of the embargo and everything. Like, how fucked is that? Come on, they’re 90 miles away. You’re not going to talk about them just cause there’s a trade embargo. (laughs)
That’s hilarious. (laughs) So, you guys are touring with Ted Leo in the fall.
Gabel: Yeah!
Are you headlining?
Gabel: Yeah, we are. It’s us Ted Leo, and then Future of the Left who are from Wales. We toured with Future of the Left last October in Europe. Those are really fun guys to tour with. Good band.
So do you guys have any goals coming up? Like, I know you always say “more touring, then another record at the end of touring” or whatever, but is there anybody you’re excited to work with or do you have any…
Gabel: Well, we’re going to do another full length. Our last dates this year are scheduled for December, we’re doing a tour of France, and the last date is December 11th. After that we’re gonna break for Christmas, New Year’s, and stuff like that. Then come the new year we’ll start writing, and hopefully record in the springtime or something like that, and work with Butch again. I’m excited about that.
Yeah?
Gabel: Yeah. Really excited about it. Yeah, I mean the goal is just kind of to have fun doing what you’re doing and keep on doing it.
Do find it important, I mean, especially with you guys, you have such a close connection with your fans. Do you find it important to keep that connection?
Gabel: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think that I should have to sacrifice myself as a person or become a slave to that in any way. I feel like it’s important to have a close connection with fans, but I feel like at the same time that then if you’re going to make that effort, or if I’m going to make that effort, and if people are going to make an effort then it has to be on a normal human being type level. That there can’t be a weird like, ‘They’re the fan and I’m the artist’ type of thing and that’s the way it should be treated. It should be like You’re a person and I’m a person, and if you’re going to talk to me, then you’re gonna talk to me like you would any other person, and if you’re gonna be a dick to me, I’m gonna be a dick right back at you and you can’t put me on a different pedestal than someone else and I won’t do the same to you. I feel like that’s the tradeoff.
Interview conducted by: Jostlen McLean
Check out a review of the show here!
