Anti-Flag Speaks Out On The AZ Shootings

posted in: Artist Features • Features

Read Justin’s full answer to our question regarding the Arizona shooting to learn about the band’s reaction to the incident.

OS: What was your reaction when you first heard that Anti-Flag’s name was in the media regarding the Arizona shooting tragedy?

JS: My initial reaction, of course, was to get all the information, because I just didn’t really have it. When I finally saw what was said, it’s alleged by a former classmate of his who hasn’t seen him since 2007 that he was into Anti-Flag. And the quote is like, He was into bands like The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and Anti-Flag; I haven’t seen him since 2007. So a lot of things came to my mind. Obviously, anybody who is aware of the band Anti-Flag and what Anti-Flag stands for understands that Anti-Flag is a band that stands for total nonviolence. So right there, it certainly doesn’t cause me to think that Anti-Flag had some kind of negative impact on this person that caused them to do something like that. And I think that the media get caught up in the minutia of every little detail when something like this happens. I think that there’s a much bigger picture to look at beyond, Did he do it because he listened to Manson, or John Lennon, or something a politician said, or because of Anti-Flag? I think that when you look at the overall picture of our society, what you see is a very, very violent culture. We have a culture where for a large part of our foreign policy, the solution is based in a military solution. And we just had Martin Luther King Day, Martin Luther King gave a speech in New York City that was one of the very first speeches ever given by a very well-known public figure relating to the Vietnam War. And one of the things that he talks about is the fact that we have to, as a nation, be honest with ourselves when we look at the way we conduct ourselves around the world. And we’ve got to look at how much blood is on our hands, how much conflict we are responsible for, and we’ve got to look at why we’re doing this. And then we’ve got to change it. If we don’t change it, our nation’s just going to continue to suffer for that. We might become more monetarily wealthy, but we’re never going to have a peaceful culture. I just find it incredible that he was saying that back in the 1960s. Here we are, it’s the new millennium, and we’ve got the same problem. We’ve got troops in… I believe it’s 122 countries. And so I look at that, and I say that there is a message that’s inherently picked up in that by young people as they’re growing up in this country. That’s something that just spreads through the fabric of our country. So of course we’re going to be a violent country! And that’s why we write the kind of songs that we write, and we shed a light on the problems that we see in our country. I think that this is a great country. I think it’s an amazing country. But I also see the harm that this country has done to a lot of other places and to some people. Unless we acknowledge those things, we can’t reach our potential of being an incredible place. So this is a long-winded answer to your question, but I think there’s some truth to it. Coming back to the issue at hand, in Arizona, I will just say this: the thing that is at the forefront of our minds is the people who were either killed or injured and their families. Our bass-player’s sister was murdered a number of years ago, and we actually released a benefit EP called A Benefit for Victims of Violent Crime. So in that respect, we have a pretty good understanding of what it’s like to lose someone in a very violent act. And we also understand that it’s important to give those families breathing room and time to grieve before you jump in really specifically and really deeply into the kind of issues that I was just summarizing. And in that respect, when we wrote our press release we kept that in mind. It was important for us to be respectful to those people who were grieving. And again, it is kind of incredible. You realize that you’ve released an EP and it’s called A Benefit for Victims of Violent Crime, and you find people writing articles calling you a violent punk band. And that’s when you realize that what’s really sad is that there will be people who will take this tragedy “ when the victims aren’t even in the ground “ take it and use it as a political football to show that their side is the right side. I think that’s a really sad symptom in our country that hopefully will go away someday. To wrap it up, I think that this is an individual who may have listened to Anti-Flag at one time. I don’t know. I don’t think that music is the number one thing on his mind right now, though. And I think that if he did listen to Anti-Flag, maybe he got something positive out of Anti-Flag at that point in his life. But 2007 is a long time ago, and people change a lot. It’s really hard to know exactly what influenced him. I think more than anything, he’s an incredibly mentally unstable person. I think that’s mostly what we’re looking at.