Against Me!

Anyone who has had the pleasure of seeing Against Me! play live knows what the band give out to the audience; unabashed, genuine punk rock which whips the crowd into a frenzy where anybody who is at the show with you is your new best friend. Against Me! create a feeling of solidarity amongst the crowd.

The world in which we live is not a nice place once you look further than your front gate, and nobody at an Against Me! show leaves without knowing about it, so that usually you can overhear conversations where it's as if punters' minds have been cracked open and a new understanding of our world implanted.

On the back of the release of their first major label album 'New Wave', Against Me! are coming back to Australia again. I spoke to Tom Gabel, founder, guitarist and vitriol filled main vocalist for the band. I mentioned to him that when I first listened to 'New Wave', I had no idea that they had a producer of the calibre of Butch Vig at the helm, or even that the band had signed to a major label.

"We were actually the ones who chose and approached him as our first choice," was Gabel's response. "When it came time to figure out who we wanted to record with, our label sent us a list of a few possible ideas of people to approach. Butch was on that list and I was immediately into the idea. We sent him a copy of the songs we had demo'd at that stage, I talked to him on the phone, then he came out and saw us play live, after that he was in. He was the only person we talked with about doing the album."

"I didn't worry at all about him taking away from the abrasive nature of our sound. I believed that he was the person best suited for capturing that sound based on the bands he's worked with in the past - Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, L7, Soul Asylum - for me, these are all real bands. Meaning they were bands who put out records on indie labels, booked their own tours, played house shows. They were bands that didn't need major labels to exist, but nonetheless all ended up signing to one. Butch made records with those bands that protected the essence of who they were, and made them better bands. I wanted him to do the same for us."

The two albums preceding 'New Wave', 'As The Eternal Cowboy' and 'Searching For A Former Clarity', were very different records. 'As The Eternal Cowboy'was just a smash in the face which was over in approximately 23 minutes, whereas 'Searching For A Former Clarity' had much longer, more intricate songs, and Gabel positions the band's latest effort somewhere between these two.

"I think that 'New Wave' is kind of a combination of both those records. The songs on 'New Wave'are songs that are meant to be played live, just like the songs on 'Cowboy'. At the same time, the songs on 'Cowboy' are all incredibly short, where as the songs on 'Searching For A Former Clarity' are long but a lot of them don't work that well live. We took the song lengths from 'Searching' and the energy from 'Cowboy'."

A live DVD that accompanied the CD served as a reminder of the intensity and feeling of raw energy that the band gives out in a live arena. I quizzed Gabel on the topic of just how hard it is for a band like Against Me! to record songs in a studio and still retain the energy and message the song sends out is as loud and clear as when it's played live.

"It's extremely difficult. A studio and a club are just two completely different environments. They couldn't be any more different. When you're playing a show you don't have to try and manufacture the excitement and energy that organically emanates from the band and the crowd working together. Studios by contrast, are sterile, quiet places, where you're putting a lot of intense scrutiny on something that normally is just something you do without thinking."

Sam Vinall

Against Me! play at Fowler's Live on Thurs 1 May with Crime In Stereo.