The Trouble With Normal Interview
We met Boone from TTWN when we played in Columbia MO in January. He asked if we’d be willing to do an interview for his zine and, of course, we said yes. When we got the list of questions we did a round-table brain dump the next time we were in the van. So here it is -- an honest-to-gosh photocopied zine interview.
Names, instruments played and album that most influenced how you play music now?
Russell Emerson Hall: Guitar/voice. Does that mean up until now, or currently, or in this band? Things we're thinking about as we're putting things together now? ... Inle by Fall of Efrafa.
M. Guy Ficcioto: Bass/trumpet/shouts: Hoover. Lurid Traversal of Route 7.
Jonathan Brown: Drums. Billy Cobham. Simplicity of Expression/Depth of Thought.
How and when did Tyranny Is Tyranny get together?
REH: Jason and I started writing songs during our previous band’s (The United Sons Of Toil) hiatus in late 2011. Jason played drums in USoT and wanted to get back to guitar; we both wanted to do something simpler and more direct, focusing on repetition and dynamics. We recruited Jason’s high school friend and former bandmate, Ben, to play drums and then booked a show in April of 2012 without yet having a bass player. Long-time USoT fan, M. Guy, enthusiastically shouldered bass duties a month before the show. After quickly recording our first record, Ben bowed out and was replaced by JB in April of 2013. In April of 2015, Jason left the collective and we soldiered on as a three-piece.
Tyranny is Tyranny’s music walks the gray are between noise rock and hardcore punk. Did this occur naturally or was it planned?
REH: Hardcore doesn't really apply at all. It's more noise rock and post rock. Where we're at now is very unplanned. The beginning of the band had an agenda, because Jason (original guitarist) and I wanted to do something different. Now that we don't have marching orders, we're not standing in opposition to some other band, so everything now is unplanned.
M: We're just trying to write new and interesting things that we like.
REH: And we’re certainly more influenced by things that we're listening to currently. Though that old AmRep noiserock keeps seeping up through the cracks.
How does your latest album The Rise of Disaster Capitalism differ from your previous work, if it does at all?
REH: The biggest difference is we have a different drummer.
M: We recorded basic tracks in a real studio instead of our practice space.
REH: It was live together in a room, instead of track by track. And trumpet makes its first appearance!
JB: I feel like there's more... depth to the songs on the second record, which is probably natural. I think this third record is going to have even more depth than the second.
REH: I think we explored more variations on a theme as opposed to repetition.
M: Yeah, we're slowly edging more towards composed-through pieces instead of simple repetition.
What inspired the song “She Who Struggles” off of the latest record?
REH: That song was inspired by Assata Shakur. In the late 60s, under J. Edgar “Speed” Hoover’s covert action program, COINTELPRO, the FBI began to target The Black Panther Party, called by Hoover "the most dangerous threat to the internal security of the country.” One of the objectives was to promote and foment street violence between the Black Panthers and other radical groups as well as gangs. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, the government destabilized and discredited groups challenging oppression. The harassment, attempted assassination, imprisonment, and subsequent exile of Black Panther Assata Shakur was a direct result of COINTELPRO efforts. If co-option and distraction cannot accomplish the goals of neutralizing dissent and maintaining the racist and classist status quo, there are other methods.
Activist and writer Naomi Klein recently mentioned your latest album on social media. What was your reaction to that?
REH: My reaction was, it's about time, because I'd been hounding her for months trying to get her to mention it. And then she dashed off a Facebook post with typos.
M: Our album was heavily influenced by her book Shock Doctrine and we just wanted her to be aware.
REH: We wanted to acknowledge her, but also hopefully get the stuff out there to a wider audience.
A couple of your songs have the appearance of a trumpet. What made you decide to add that in the mix?
M: Yes, I would say my playing is a lot like the "appearance" of a trumpet. (Laughter.)
REH: That's actually a good question. How did you decide to grab the trumpet?
M: Yeah, it was kind of an experiment. The first song was “Victory,” and the long quiet intro didn't feel like it needed any bass. It just felt really orchestral.
REH: It’s not unprecedented though. We're fans of bands like Hoover, Sweep the Leg Johnny, Abilene, and Bagarre Generale that have integrated horns into heavier music. Post-rock is full of with non-rock instruments, bands like GY!BE. It seemed natural once you started -- "oh yeah, that makes sense."
And now a light frivolous question. Do you feel revolution is possible given the increasing corporate consolidation of the society around us?
REH: Revolution wouldn't be needed without all that, right. However, I don't see revolution happening in the near future. People are given just enough to be able to bear up under the oppression but aren't deprived enough to actually take action. But I guess we ARE seeing that in certain places like the Flint water crisis, where people are being denied and there's a huge outcry.
JB: I think revolutions only take place when conditions are so bad that the vast majority react.
REH: But there's a careful orchestration keeping people in this stasis. Everyone has a cell phone, everyone has a TV, everyone has food (more or less)... so they have the illusion of not being oppressed.
M: Not so much careful orchestration... It's that our systems for political decision lead us into bad equilibriums.
REH: Yeah, it's not people sitting in a smoke-filled back rooms. The system is finely engineered to keep people at the brink -- as docile and distracted as possible without pushing them over the edge.
M: I've come to believe that revolution is not a solution. Incremental change is the real solution, but it's fucking hard. Can you think of a revolution that went well?
JB: In the long term? In the short term, maybe. Ukraine's Orange Revolution, in the short term at least.
REH: A lot of the South American revolutions were good until America stuck its nose in and decided that all the leftist reforms that were helping people meant that corporations weren’t making money now. Define revolution. Are we talking armed struggle? Look at Iceland during the 2008 crisis. They fucking jailed bankers. If you're talking about revolution as sweeping systematic changes, those kinds of things can be more effective than incremental changes. And they were able to come back out of that crisis quicker than most countries
JB: It's the discipline of the citizenry that would dictate whether it's successful or not. Patience, discipline, and usually what happens in revolutions is --
JB: Yeah. But even when they're not corrupt, the true change takes generations, but people don't want to wait that long. People want it now, but most of the time it can't be now. Take a country like Nigeria, that has resources enough to start over. But nobody wants to start over, per se, but they want everything changed TODAY, and that's impossible. But the public generally doesn't understand that.
REH: Systems that have been developed organically are difficult to change into something better overnight.
For those people who may not know, what exactly is the three-point program to destroy Wisconsin?
REH: we wrote that song for Unintimidated compilation to protest the dismantling of the Wisconsin Idea by Scott Walker. The three point program is: privatization, deregulation, and cuts to social programs. These are the cornerstones of the neoliberal capitalist agenda.
JB: Would you add in stigmatization? Separation into groups?
REH: That's definitely true... but the three things I'm referring to are the things that Naomi Klein referred to as tactics neo-liberals use when they swoop in to take advantage. Those are the three methods needed to put a country in shock, essentially, so they can exploit it. But yes, dividing people amongst themselves so they end up fighting against their own interests is a time-honored tactic.
M: The Authoritarians is essential reading about this topic.
Why exactly is the American dream a lie?
M: This goes back to the separation and stigma. Because everyone hates poor people, even poor people... and everyone thinks they can be Donald Trump.
JB: What was the term? Temporarily displaced millionaires? All Americans think they can be rich, as if they're a millionaire-in-waiting.
REH: Exactly. So they vote against their own interests, supporting an interest they think they may possibly have someday.
Sticking with your first release what is the song “Down The K Hole” about?
REH: K-hole is a term used to describe the dissociative state brought on the drug Ketamine. Users experience sensations of floating and euphoria while losing sense of time and their own identities. The similarities with cultural distractions are not to be minimized. Religion is just one tactic used to distract the masses. Sports, celebrity, cheap consumer goods, throwaway entertainment, patriotic wars, and scandal hype are used similarly.
If Tyranny Is Tyranny got an offer to appear on television, would you take it?
REH: Well... That depends on the context, right? I'm trying to envision a scenario where that would actually happen. Like a Late Night with Jimmy Fallon thing or something? I would do that.
M: Would we ever sell our music to a company for a commercial?
REH: No. Well, depends on what the commercial was for. What if it was for a PSA we agreed with? Is there a socially responsible company I would feel comfortable endorsing? I can't imagine that I would.
M: But at a certain price point, would we sell out? A million?
REH: Everyone has their price?
JB: But even if you did it, you could take that money and put it towards a good cause.
REH: I mean, playing on television is like playing any other gig. We just want people to hear our music and consider our ideas.
Strangest experience on tour?
REH: My mind immediately flashes to the full size pizza oven, threatening to burn down the hotel. Some guys from out of town were at a show and said that we could crash in their hotel room. When we got there, they were totally wasted and attempting to cook a frozen pizza in an enormous oven that they’d brought with them. We tried to stay awake because we thought they would engulf the room in flames. Every once in awhile, the drunkest guy would wake up and ask who we were and why we were in their room…
Then there was the time when we stayed with a friend in Dubuque. Our drummer had driven separately to the first show, so he left his car there and we all went on to the rest of the shows in the van. When we got back to pick up his car, the address our friend gave us for his house was incorrect. We finally got in touch via text and he confirmed the (incorrect) address and then stopped responding to texts. We drove around Dubuque trying to look for his house until we finally got back in touch. Turns out he was so high that he gave us the address to his mother’s house (not just when we left, but when we asked him to verify). There’s probably a message in there somewhere...
I’ll wrap this up. Any plans for the future?
REH: We're working on our new album, continuing to blitz the midwest on a regular basis. Considering doing a split with someone.
JB: Switch. (From Ice Cube's America's Most Wanted...)
REH: Voting Democrat is not enough.
M: Get informed. Certainty hides monstrous mistakes.
REH: I think we might have the title for the new album...
areudirty
germansingergirl
titsay
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
gracieabrams