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(Drums) bopped around their hometown much to the dismay of skinheads while recruiting a following who proudly wore torn-up upside-down flags as patches. In 1997 after releasing a handful of singles, opening for their idols the UK Subs, the Exploited and the Circle Jerks and a brief tour of the East Coast-which lead to the departure of Andy Flag- Die For Your Government was released. 20, 000 copies, four bassists and four North American tours later, Anti-Flag gained their reputation of recapturing the old school ethics of punk: fast, loud, obnoxious, and anti-everything that ends with an "ism." Now a four piece, they released A New Kind of Army in 1999 on Go Kart records, hoping not only to push their beliefs to a wider audience, but more importantly, just to play out around the world while flipping two fingers in the air to everyone they're against. ~ Mike DaRonco, All-Music Guide
Jump ahead to 1993. After playing in a number of forgettable bands Pat and I drove across the country to fuck around on the west coast for awhile. Pat went back to Pittsburgh a week or two after our arrival in San Francisco and I hung out there for about eight months to check out the scenery. Once back in Pittsburgh we were more determined than ever to start a serious band. All we needed was a good bass player. That's where Andy Flag entered the picture. I had met him a year or two earlier at church. Both of us had been forced to attend church by our moms and Andy was the only other punky kid in the youth group, so naturally, we automatically attracted to each other. As it turned out Andy played bass and he, Pat, and I, got together and played a number of times. But then Pat and I left for the west coast which gave us no chance to really get anything going. So when I got back from San Francisco we called him up and asked him to join the new band we were forming. He accepted. We practiced our asses off
during the remainder of February and part of March and within a few weeks
we were scheduled to play a live radio show on WRCT in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately
for us, we still didn't have a name! While
With that in mind, even though we had already used the name Anti-Flag we felt like it was a name that could still say a lot about the current state of the punk rock community and the world as a whole. Our thinking was that people wouldn't so easily be able to treat our band as entertainment, but instead it would be a vehicle that would force them to think. THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO AGREE WITH US! We just wanted to make a point that we weren't there ONLY to entertain, we had something to say, there was a fundamental belief behind the band. So, the night of our show at WRCT we walked through the doors as Anti-Flag. (Fuckin' right!) Why did we put the hyphen in the middle of "anti" and "flag"? I'd like to be able to tell you that it's a symbol of defiance, we were snubbing the use of proper English to show our hatred for modern society, etc., etc... Unfortunately, the truth is, we were all just too dumb to know the correct use of a hyphen. Moving right along Where Did Anti-Flag Go From There? For about three years after
forming Anti-Flag played local gigs and did our best to play as many out
of town shows as possible which was hard because we didn't have a van,
we didn't know anyone outside of Pittsburgh, and we didn't
Eventually, we had our shit
together enough to book a full U.S. tour which we did in the summer of
'95. Luckily for us Andy Flag's grand father had generously given him a
nearly brand new 1995 van a few days before the tour and we traveled in
style! Unfortunately, during that tour it became painfully obvious that
Andy and I didn't get along too well when stuck in close proximity of each
other for long periods of time. We fought most of the tour(mostly about
After Andy Flag quit, Pat
Thetic and I sat down and talked about what we thought went wrong. We decided
that things had to lighten up a lot. We also decided that things would
never again get so out of hand on tour that there would be a fight or argument.
I'm glad to report that since that conversation we've done 4 full U.S.
tours, 3 full Canadian tours, and a number of East Coast tours with out
a single argument. Disagreements? Yes. But nothing that wasn't
From that point we had to find a new bass player. For a short time our friend Sean from The Bad Genes filled in.Then on our Summer `96 Tour with Vancouver's d.b.s. our friend Justin from Connecticut filled in. Right before New Years 1997 we met Chris Head and he filled in for a show we played on New Years Eve in Pittsburgh. Then he filled inagain for the "Die for the Government" cd release show in early 1997. Chris automatically fit right into Anti-Flag like a missing piece of a puzzle. Right off the bat we loved playing with him and having him around. We knew we had to reserve a spot in the line up for him but unfortunately Chris Head(who we affectionately sometimes call "Gimmie") was not actually a bass player, he was a guitarist. For that reason we didn't want to keep him on bass but we didn't want to let him go either. In the end, we decided to have him play 2nd guitar and find someone else to play bass. That's where Jamie Cock entered the picture. Pat Thetic and I had met Jamie Cock(who we call Cock) on our Summer `95 Tour while playing in her home town of Toronto, Canada. She was really fucking cool and wanted to play bass for us really badly. We were leaving for tour with the U.K. Subs in a month and didn't have anyone new lined up to play bass so we were like, "What the fuck!", and that was that! She was now in Anti-Flag. Thanks to the Kids(and anyone young at heart) February of 1998 marked Anti-Flag's
5 year anniversary. We've been all over North America and experienced a
lot but one thing is always a constant, the kids. No matter where we go
the kids are always great! Aside from trying to
All the best and lot's of love- Justin Sane P.S. Pat Thetic says, "Autographs separate. Stay together!" and he's fucking right!
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