Jason Aalon Butler from FEVER 333 outlines the change we need following George Floyd’s death.

We called Jason Aalon Butler to talk about Fever 333’s demonstration gig following the death of George Floyd. His words were so powerful, we decided to print them in full

“Ithought I would be happier on this day, when I felt like the most amount of the world was coming to terms with the mistreatment of black, brown, immigrant people. I thought I would be happier, because I thought there’d be this sort of realisation and a turn for the better, but in fact I was very sad. Because I think what it was doing was uprooting a lot of trauma for me, and then [I was] experiencing it within the environment around me – my family, my sister, my father were sharing stories about what had happened. Right after it happened, my sister was called ‘a black bitch’ by some white person, where she works, in her community, where typically she doesn’t experience that as glaringly. I think it sort of amplified a lot of people’s bigotry and racist tendencies, because they were feeling confronted and attacked, because they were having something taken from them, which was their power via racism. And it was just a lot, you know?

“It is still burdensome and cumbersome, but I see what’s happening, and I’m thankful for what is happening. I’m not thankful for the instance by which we had to catalyse this happening. I don’t want to see black people dying in the streets,

I don’t want people to realise that we have been dying for generations, and that we’ve been subjugated, relegated and mistreated for generations, but with another instance of mistreatment. I want people to fucking open up their eyes and their minds and sit back for a minute and listen to what we’ve been saying for fucking ever.

“Why is this happening now? I think that my generation, the millennial generation, as well as the top end of Gen Z, I think that we’re just fucking tired. And I think that we’re better equipped intellectually, I think we’re better equipped physically, I think we are better at utilising technology to spread information in order to mobilise and galvanise and organise. You know how chaos works in these different theories, right? Chaos will happen, and then coincidently some things will collide, and they will create something new. And I think we’ve been fucking dealing with chaos, in all senses of the word.

“Because of all these things, the ostensible nature of the mistreatment,

“MY GENERATION ARE FUCKING TIRED” JASON AALON BUTLER

of the pain, of the suffering of people that are non-white, is so glaringly clear, that not even these people that benefit from the idea of being white can say this is no longer true. When it becomes so clear to everyone both in power and outside of it, I think that that’s when something like this happens, and we’re seeing it right now, and I think it’s about fucking time.

I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole fucking life.

“In the music industry, I think true, structural reform within labels has to happen. I think that first understanding that they have been plundering and benefitting off of the adversity of black people and people of colour for a generation. I think that they have been painting black culture and POC culture in white face and putting out a bunch of Elvises in the name of monetisation of something that is not theirs for forever.

“The music industry needs to start offering their platform to more black people on a consistent level, not being afraid of losing one demographic when they represent another, which is afraid of losing their less adversityriddled demographic when they put on an adversity-riddled artist, due to their culture, environment and circumstance. Don’t be afraid to put that person at the front, when you use that person to sell your fucking product, do you know what I’m saying? Don’t just put it out there as a puppet or as a prop, to say that you support black people or that you see or that you understand black people, in a way that you only understand the money you make, but you don’t understand the culture, and you don’t care about the culture. You care about the fucking dollars and the units that are moved when you say, ‘Cardi B has a new album coming out,’ when you say Drake or Jay-z’s got an album coming out. Let’s even go here, when you say fucking Fever 333 has an album coming out. When you say, ‘Chuck Berry’s died, we’re gonna re-release his music.’

“You’ve just been taking from us, you’ve just been making money off of us again. And that in this day and age, contextually speaking, is a form of slavery. We don’t benefit. We might get the money, but where’s all the education we missed out on in the first place? We might get money on the front end, but what happens to all the money on the back end, that you guys make billions off of?

“I wanna see more black artists on your covers, straight up. I wanna see more black coverage in your magazine, straight up. I want you to understand this, as a magazine. People are so afraid to see black faces, because they feel as though that is a misrepresentation of metal and rock music, but in reality we started this motherfucker. And then we had it appropriated, hijacked, co-opted and taken from us, and then dressed in different ways, because at the time, the industry couldn’t make money off black faces like that. And it couldn’t admit that it was taking from black culture like that. But now we are in an age where it is so fucking glaringly true, that music is taking from black people so much, that

I think that the only way it can be offset – all the damage, and the plunder, and the thievery of black and POC culture in music, is you have to start offering representation.

“I think the music industry needs to put programmes in place to enhance the awareness of black people in this scene, and then also to offer aid financially to black people and people of colour. Because there are so many people, that not only are doing it now, but that can do it again, that can catalyse something new, because this is something that is so born of rebellion. Being black, being a person of colour, being trans, being queer, being bi, being gay, being lesbian in the world? Its very existence is punk rock, is alternative, is progressive. So this is a music that claims to be progressive, claims to be alternative, but it is not showing up and it is not offering any sort of aid to these people.

“Fever 333 is going to the exact same place it’s been going the whole time, only this time we have a few more people that will actually start to allow themselves to understand what it is we’re talking about. We’re going to continue on utilising this art as activism, we’re going to continue on with our own programmes, where we’re offering the money that we make back into the communities we feel have been disenfranchised.

So a lot of our finances will continue to go into the Walking In My Shoes

“I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT MY WHOLE LIFE” JASON AALON BUTLER

Foundation, which is a charity that’s a contingent piece of this band.

“We’ll be writing music, as well as putting together a full-length album, which I’ve been doing for about a year now. And really just trying to open up new spaces for people that really felt like they didn’t belong in this space, of not only punk rock or hip hop crossover, but just this sense of artistic activism. I want to really, really open up a space for people to feel comfortable, to have the conversation, and to feel empowered, so they can take actions within their own local communities, or even within themselves, so that all this shit can rise. As opposed to just focusing on what I need in this moment financially, or what I need to make my band looks the coolest, or what I need to make sure

my band sells the most albums. I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to go on record and say this right now: I’m not here for that.

“I see more people being willing to take the risk within their own field, whether it be their job, or their art, or even conversations with their family. I see people taking these risks and saying what needs to be said, and acting in a way that needs to be done, in order to help people that have been disadvantaged for so long. And that to me is a sense of hope. And

I want to believe it’s going to go beyond the hashtag.

“I want people to understand that when people say ‘black lives matter’, it does not mean that everyone else doesn’t. That’s something I keep seeing – people getting so touched on this ‘all lives matter’ bullshit. We never said they don’t. We never said they don’t. And it’s so nuanced and so granular, it goes so much deeper than people yelling ‘black lives matter’. And I just need everybody to understand what this means, in this moment. It means, we want to have a seat at the societal table where we don’t fear for our lives, and where we don’t watch everybody else eating all of the food and leaving us the crumbs at best. We just want a world where society, where policy, where laws throughout the world are looked at, and analysed and reconstructed in a way that benefit more than just a very small, elite group of people in the world. We wanna be considered with y’all.”