Anti-Flag greets the new decade with ‘20/20 Vision’
Anti-Flag recently got the spoof treatment from The Hard Times — The Onion for punk and metal — with the headline “Anti-Flag already releases album about war that started two hours ago.”
The story described the Pittsburgh band, long known for its anti-war anthem “Die for the Government,” reacting to the U.S. killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani by writing 18 songs in 45 minutes and rushing it to the factory for pressing.
“I saw the headline, and it made me laugh,” says A-F frontman Justin Sane. “But they could spoof us pretty easily without joking about war. That part didn’t appeal to me based on current events.” Also, 18 might be just a few too many. Anti-Flag spent the summer coming up with the 11 tracks for “20/20 Vision,” an explosive new 12th album and the follow-up to “American Fall.” It’s the band’s second album released during the Trump era, and the president’s voice is the first one you hear on the record, opening the incendiary track “Hate Conquers All” with an invitation to assault a protester.
“At that time, it was candidate Trump,” Sane says in a phone interview last week from Madrid, where the band was on tour, “encouraging people at his rallies to cause violence toward other people — something we’ve never seen in modern times from another candidate for American president. We wanted to point out how inappropriate and how ugly that was.”
Anyone who follows Anti-Flag knows that the band, longtime advocates for economic justice, military restraint, racial tolerance and environmental responsibility, doesn’t just crank up during Republican administrations. They had plenty to rage about on “The People or the Gun,” “The General Strike” and “American Spring,” three albums released during the Obama administration.
“I had a lot of criticisms of Barack Obama, and I wasn’t really a big fan,” Sane says. “He made the choice not to go after any Wall Street bankers after the biggest financial rip-off in U.S. history. He was called the Deporter in Chief by advocates for undocumented people. He took Bush’s drone strike program and just ran wild with it. He as much as anybody put money into the military industrial complex.”
While those issues persist for Anti-Flag, the Trump era brings new targets, like lashing out at The Proud Boys on “You Make Me Sick” and Mike Pence for mixing religion and politics on “Christian Nationalist.”
“I know a lot of Christians who believe in the ideology and the positive aspects of Christianity and who try to do good work, and love is at the center of their Christian ideology,” the singer says. “In a lot of ways,
I wanted the song to be a statement to other Christians that I know you’re not bad people, would you please hold those other people who call themselves Christian accountable? I believe in all religious communities that’s an important thing to have happen.”
Anti-Flag balances “20/20 Vision” with a few more general rally anthems like the title track and “Unbreakable,” about members’ commitment to keep going (it’s 24 years since their debut). “Unbreakable” was released in December with a video created by the Critics Company, a group of Nigerian teens who rose to fame making short films on their smartphones.
“Here we were, these four punks in Pittsburgh, and we connected with these guys in Nigeria,” Sane says. “That’s the beauty of art. What we could relate to was that they were creating something that didn’t make sense to a lot of people, but they had the same social pressures on them to just, ‘Hey, be normal,’ ‘Go get a job,’ ‘Why are you making these videos on your iPhone?’ They’re the same criticisms that artists get anywhere. It’s the same thing we heard: ‘Why are you guys playing this noisy music? Study harder in school and go get a job at the bank.’ ”
A-F reached out to the Critics Company on Twitter right before the Nigerians caught the attention of director JJ Abrams and went viral. They thought they might drop the Anti-Flag project, “but they stuck with it and said, ‘We want to make a video about our struggles here and how we never quit.’ And that’s exactly what the song is about,” Sane says.
Anti-Flag recorded “20/20 Vision” at the LA studio owned by Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden with producer Matt Good, of Tampa hardcore band From First to Last. The goal was to make a modernsounding punk record to match the urgency of the subject matter.
“I think the guitar tones sound really modern, more than anything,” Sane says, “especially on a song like ‘Hate Conquers All.’ The opening guitar riff is played through an octave pedal, which is something we wouldn’t have done 10 years ago. It comes back to the fact that we’re all fans of music and listen to what other bands are doing. I don’t want to make the same record over and over again.”
(As an aside, early in the interview
Sane, who was born in 1973 as Justin Geever, listed his five favorite bands as The Clash, Rancid, Sex Pistols, Ramones and the Pogues.)
Now that they’ve made “20/20 Vision,” he jokes, “we’ll be on tour for the rest of our lives. That’s what’s going on. We had a little time off for the holidays. Not much. It just feels like we’re constantly living on the road, which becomes pretty comfortable after a while. It just becomes your life.”
They’ll be trekking across Europe, where he says they don’t encounter many Trump fans, through the middle of March and will return home for a show at the Roxian in McKees Rocks on March 28 with the Suicide Machines and more.
If, hypothetically, Anti-Flag were to play one show for a Democratic candidate, who would it be?
“Because of his consistency,” Sane says, “it would be Bernie Sanders.”
But you’re not likely to hear him pushing Sanders to the fans.
“No, it’s just not really what Anti-Flag does. It’s my personal point of view, but people can make up their own minds who to vote for politically.”