What do you guys think of the burgeoning dance-punk thing that you've been grouped with?

Jacob: There's some of those bands that we all really like, Outhud's a really amazing band. That record is fantastic. And !!! is a fucking awesome band live.

Dan: And the Rapture I think too.

Was somebody in the Rapture?

Jacob: I was. A good friend of mine, from when he was in high school, is their bass player so I was in that band for a short period of time. But, there's bands that we personally or collectively like and bands who we don't like. I don't know, I think the reason that we sort of left, is that I don't really feel that much of a connection with that stuff. We like some post-punk, we like a fair amount of stuff that was sort like originally influential on the current post-punk bands, like whether they're strictly post-punk influenced. I feel like it's sort of easy to tell which bands are listening to post-punk records and are playing post-punk and which bands are listening to some post-punk maybe but also other stuff whether it's dub or free jazz, just bringing things other than just one style of music to the plate. Like I feel that's sort of one thing where we bring some post-punk but we bring a lot of other things also. It's sort of like the focus of what we're doing isn't on making danceable music per se, or making post-punk music, it's just on making music that combines things that we like. Some of our songs happen to be dancier than others-some songs happen to be dancy but a lot of others aren't. It's not really a focus of our band at all.

It really sounds more influenced by like Minor Threat than say like, PiL or something.

Jacob: Yeah, I mean I think they're both bands that we really like, but yeah I think just a lot of things interest us and we try to combine them all. We definitely didn't just set out to be like, "Well, let's sound like The Fall or let's sound like Gang of Four." I think that's really uninteresting. I think that's what-in my mind-that's what the current dance-punk or post-punk bands, that's really what separates them in my mind. Bands that appeal to me are usually bands that don't strictly sound like a specific band or a specific two or three bands. They maybe have elements of this, but they also have a lot of other elements going on.

Hugh: What was interesting about the first wave, that's what they were doing. They were punk kids who were into a lot of other stuff, that's what made their stuff interesting. But then just copying what they came up with…

Daniel: I mean, yeah if you're just copying what they did there's sort of a parameter of what is post-punk and it's just where you fall in that. I'm not commenting on any specific band but you can't-if you just listen to post-punk and just only draw from post-punk, you can't break all that much new ground. You're just like drawing off what's already been done. It's not amusing but we do chuckle when we get compared to them, but I don't think any of us are insanely worried about it. Sometimes certain kinds of music get focused on over the course of different years and I don't think it's a good or bad thing, I think it's sort of like what happens. Some bands do something interesting and then a lot of people get into it because of that. You know, a couple years ago people where real into rock or whatever, and like I think it just happens. It's not a good or a bad thing. I don't know if that's even relevant though.


What is "Speaking in Tongues" about?

Hugh: It's about just rhetoric and the way people use political rhetoric, sort of strong words. Overuse of strong words, in not necessarily appropriate connotation.

The Axis of Evil?

Hugh: It's not even that, it's as much about hardline leftwing political activists as it is about anyone else. People who toss around words like 'oppressive' and 'capitalism.' I mean that was sort of the initial irritation that I found. But I think it's equally true to narrow it strictly to the political scope, I found that's just the same way that people on the political right use words like 'immoral' or 'irresponsible.'

Jacob: Sloganeering instead of intelligent discourse, at least to me, is sort of what the idea is. Anybody can come up with some fucking slogan that doesn't mean anything, that's very much like a shock thing. It's sort of disappointing that that is the accepted thing. Even in punk rock-where people claim to be intelligently discussing things-where it's just like two or three word slogans as opposed to something that's actually substance.

Hugh: Right, like an informed, intelligent argument or discussion. I mean that's such a thing about punk rock, you know, this sort of idea about radical politics. But radical politics tend to only mean one thing to the people who espouse them, as opposed to an actually critical challenging of ideas.

A good slogan for a chorus?

Hugh: yeah, yeah.

Daniel: And the sort of pun of the song, I guess, is that my vocals are unintelligible and nonsense. So it becomes like garbled and then in the end, there's sort of a theme that ties it all together. And then we printed "Oh my god Ah!" because … that was just tossed in there before we even had the meaning of the song, as a reference to this band Painkiller. I mean I have words that I think of and then I mispronounce sounds and make them sound different just so that I have a path in my head to follow. Some of the vocals are backwards on that song.

Hugh: There's a real word in that though.

Daniel: Oh that's right, backwards 'pumpkin head.' I don't know, it's just like garbled and then we just printed it like that because we said it in unison and you could understand it.

So no reference to the Talking Heads album?

Everyone: No, no.

Mike: Which is my favorite Talking Heads album and I have a tattoo about that last song on that record. [Everyone else groans]

How important is it for a band to address political issues in turbulent times like this?

Daniel: I think that it's awesome when bands do but I think that music is … to a certain degree all political times are turbulent times, you know? There's always something worth addressing happening somewhere in the world that bands can talk about. And usually something happening within your own country that bands can talk about. But I don't think that music, to be legit, has to be some political forum. Music is self-expression and more then being like-I mean we talk about politics but I think all of us primarily listen for more then political or moral ideas being discussed. It's just sort of this expression of ... not necessarily self because that excludes religious music or something like that, but like some sort of expression.

Mike: I think that the whole Love Cry thing, that Daniel talks about, applies here.

Daniel: The thing that he mentioned was in the past January, Jacob and Dan and I went up to Baltimore to see this guy Milford Graves play. He's this sort of free jazz … he's a drummer and he does this-although there's somebody else playing with him-it's pretty much a solo percussion set. And he played on Albert Ayler's record, Love Cry, and around this time I was having this sort of … not the biggest, but I was thinking a lot about complex expression and it's sort of like … punk rock versus jazz and poetry, it's fairly ambiguous. I was thinking about like what makes music meaningful and interesting and … like art I guess. I think seeing him and thinking about that idea of sort of music being a love cry, that's very powerful. I don't think that's the only thing, the only potential music has at all. I guess not like one thing or the other, it just struck me that what I saw him doing and what a lot of bands that I saw, just across the board bands or musician that really blew me away was like this expression of something very profound. There music was in some respects a love cry I guess.

Jacob: Yeah, I mean his performance; he's playing drums it's not like he's singing about something but it so obviously just comes from a place that's not just like, "Well I play drums, sometimes." It's very much just like … him.

Daniel: And that is sort of what I would like to do musically. There's no one way to do it or not to do it but I think it's just a really amazing idea that music can express something that like beyond music I guess.

Do you think political music dates itself at all, and is that a problem?

Jacob: Certain things do and certain things don't. We've also had discussions about this in terms of musical styles, like reunions or whatever, and I think it goes for political music also, like dating yourself isn't a bad thing. Not everything, but a lot of things, work very well in context, and out of context. It doesn't mean they're better or worse 20 years down the road, but if they lack a context-if they're specifically speaking about something and they lack a context for what they're speaking about-it can make it less meaningful.

Mike: For instance, if you got a number of DC bands from the 1980s talking about Ronald Reagan, I mean it's probably not going to mean very much to somebody who's listening to those bands now.

That's pretty transferable right now.

Mike: It's transferable but I mean extend that like another 20 years.

Jacob: It depends how it's stated though because I went through this big phase a few months ago when all that shit was first going on in Iraq again, where I was getting a few Minutemen songs stuck in my head all the time. Because it's like, yeah they were talking about Ronald Reagan and shit but they were like-it was in the context because I know that's what they're fucking talking about because they're talking about World War III and that is what a lot of people thought was going to happen. So that's an example of something that transcends. But obviously bands that were singing about Ronald Reagan-a lot of people who were born way later then that who are involved with us now-don't necessarily understand the context. Which is fine.

Mike: What I was going to say about that, of course obviously that stuff is transferable. There's an overall message and then there's a specific message and the specific message serves as sort of a history lesson, like this is what was happening then. And then that lesson itself is transferable. Dated music isn't necessarily a bad thing, because like we were talking about context and I mean it's important to be knowledgeable about what's going on currently, it's important to be knowledgeable about what's happened around you. History fucking rules, like read a fucking book. I mean I'm one to talk but still…

Hugh: I mean it is interesting though. There are bands that if you listen to-I mean if you go back to Crass, who's a really prominent political anarcho-punk band, there's a lot of stuff that they talk about that's very specific to politics and society in the early 80s. What I find really interesting, it's sort of similar, if you know what they're talking about, if you have the context historically, I think it's obviously very much of that time. But if you know the context of what was going on then or at that time then the same can be said of political Reggae records of the 70s in Jamaica, if you kind of know some of the history it's like the political message remains meaningful as a historical statement about something that you maybe have learned about. Or maybe the music itself will cause you to learn about those things.

Daniel: Any worthwhile statement, any well thought out political statement, like what you were saying whether or not the specifics remain, it's going to be relevant. People still quote like fucking St. Augustine or like whatever, you know. The point is that if you say something intelligent, it's intelligent. You can even talk about Ronald Reagan and Ronald Reagan is not in office anymore but it doesn't matter cause you still said something smart. And that does not date itself.

Mike: Anything else in that magic head of yours?

I think I'm running out, think I'm about done. Alright, Thanks guys.

Hugh: Thank you guys so much for coming.