Against Me!
Photo by Reddevil1
Against Me! Front man Tom Gabel has been living out of a hotel in Gainsville, Florida for the past six months. “I don’t even have all my stuff or anything it’s all in storage,” he says of the situation. It’s been even longer since he’s done interviews. “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve done about five interviews at this point and I haven’t done any interviews in a little while and I feel like I got really bad at them in the period of time that I haven’t done any. You got to bear with me on this!” he apologies as our interview begins.
Your latest album is called, Searching For A Former Clarity, a lot of people say they have these moments of clarity that really change their lives, can you tell me of an times in your life where you’ve had that?
When I was fourteen years old I got arrested by the police and they beat me up a little bit. I would definitely site that as one of those moments of clarity. I was sitting in jail and I had one of those moments. I was like ‘This is where everything changes’. That was definitely a big moment for me. On our third tour we got hit by a semi-truck when we were coming back and we rolled three times and ended up upside down on the highway. When we were getting out of the van and everyone was alive and we were standing on the side of the road hugging each other for joy – that was a moment of clarity (laughs) I don’t know any other right now off the top of my head.
What’s something that you think is important in life?
Hmmmm… I guess for sure your family is important and you can extend that definition of family to include some friends. I think that’s probably the most important thing to me.
How about music?
Music is definitely important to me but it’s one of those things that is just because it’s important to me it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s important to everybody else. Music is definitely probably the most important thing for me besides family.
I read an article about Against Me! A little while ago that said Against Me! Was a bit of a party band and then last year you decided to give up drinking?
I gave up drinking for nine months, then I had a couple of drinks and then I decided that I wasn’t going to drink in January either but then I was probably going to have a couple of drinks in Australia. We were definitely a party band. It was funny because we put out this DVD that was basically an attempt to convince everybody we were the biggest partying band in the world and then once by the time the DVD was out and everyone had seen it and they were coming up to us at shows and trying to buy us shots we were all like ‘Oh no we can’t possibly, we don’t drink anymore’. That wasn’t real easy.
Was there anything that helped you to come to that decision?
Yeah I mean it was just getting to a point where we had been on tour for a long period of time and we had been drunk for a long period of time. We were just physically run down and we were just like ‘Holy Shit!’ We obviously wanted to continue being a band and ’cause we really enjoyed doing this but it was going to keep killing us if we continued like this. We thought ‘Maybe we should reexamine the way we’re doing this?’ It’s hard to have a normal life when you spend your time on the road. You should still make an attempt though to do certain normal things. You should still eat a balanced diet and exercise once in a while and treat yourself well – if not even more so because you’re traveling all the time so you need to have a string immune system. It was really just a lifestyle change and maybe realising that moderation is the best way to go.
What’s your favourite thing about Searching….?
I don’t know? I was really just happy with the way it sounded sonically, for me. I liked the guitar tones (laughs) The drums sound kick ass!
I found it to be quite different to your last album.
It’s two years after we made Eternal Cowboy so you’d want to hope, or at least I would that we’re not the same band and that we’ve made something different. That we acknowledge the fact that we’ve grown as people. I really happy with it. It’s one of those questions though that I want to avoid all those cliches that people would answer a question like that with.
Did you find your fans grew with you?
I feel like it was the same way with every single record that we’ve ever put out. Some people are with you and are like ‘Yeah that kicks ass!’ and other people are like ‘I like the old record a lot better’. Then the next time we put out a record the same thing happens.
Was there anything you did intentionally different?
Somethings like with the writing process definitely. I feel like that with As The Eternal Cowboy that a lot of the songs were crafted in a way. There was lots of revisions, especially lyrically. This time I had an attitude of ‘Whatever comes out that’s how it’s going to be and we’re just moving right along – we’re not even stopping’. We didn’t even record all the songs we wrote. We ended up with a lot more songs at the time we were met to record the record then when we went to record As The Eternal Cowboy… It was just about moving on, moving on to the next thing. It felt really good in a way. I don’t know if I always want to necessarily always write a record in that way but for that period of time it was perfect.
Did you learn anything personally about yourself while making Searching…?
It was kind of going sober for that period of time and really focusing on it. It definitely made me realise how much of a priority making music is and being in this band is for me and how much I want to do this with my life. Before partying was definitely a priority too. And maybe so much not to a good point. I just ruled that out and got a lot of things in my life into order and built it around playing music and doing this.
Was there anything in particular that inspired the album?
There was a lot of things and for after looking at the record I can point to different songs and go ‘That came from that period in my life and that came from that place and blah blah blah’. It’s almost like a journal for me in a way. It documents a year or so of my life. Some of the songs are about dealing with substance abuse, some of the songs are about political events and situations that are happening, some of the songs are just about different feelings that were sparked by random things over the years as well.
Do you think that an artist has a responsibility to speak out on political or social issues?
I definitely do. I think that an artists function in society is to be a representative of that society and certain views that might not be heard. It’s your purpose to document that and to talk about those things for maybe other people that don’t have artistic ability or people that can’t.
For you then, what do you personally get from creating music?
It’s a completely satisfying experience. There’s many angles to that. It’s very cathartic writing the songs, it’s a real release playing shows and doing something like making a record where you put all this time into it and then you have this finished thing in your hands – it’s your record that you made – it’s really just gratifying. Having people come up to you or write to you and tell you that they really enjoyed your record or that they had a great time at your show is a really satisfying feeling.
Against Me! are from Florida, have you lived there your whole life?
No I moved to Florida when I was twelve years old. I moved around a whole lot before that, my father was in the military. I was born in Georgia, I lived in Texas, Ohio, Colorado…
How has living in Florida affect your life or your music?
It has definitely affect it. I got into punk when I was maybe thirteen years old and that was definitely a life changing thing but I didn’t get into Florida punk bands I got into the Sex Pistols and The Clash and then after that I got into Californian punk. It wasn’t like Florida punk directly inspired me to get into punk but growing up then and once you discover the scene around you, it’s definitely a life changing thing.
Florida has a pretty awesome scene. There were things even just beyond the music like the activist scene that was happening here that were really life changing. Florida is a really unique place too in the United States. You have a very varied state from north to south. The South is very wealthy lots of retirees and lots of tourism stuff like that and north it’s not so much. Gainsville is a very progressive college town, kind of like an island of progressive people. There’s lots of interesting things to witness as you’re growing up, life shaping things.
How do hope your music affects or inspires people?
I guess that I would hope that people could take things from it and that they can maybe feel like they weren’t alone if they felt a certain way.
What do you pursue outside of music? Do you even get time to do other things?
I like to go to the movies and I like to ride my bike.
So just the everyday things?
Yeah pretty much. I’ve been living in a hotel for the past six months. I don’t even have all my stuff or anything it’s all in storage. That kind of limits things when you’re out on tour and then your back here still in a hotel like you would be on tour. You never want to really commit to anything that’s a long term project in town because you’re going to be leaving again shortly. Even if you aren’t though your focus is writing more music and practicing. That pretty much takes up all my time other than normal everyday things.
Do you think that’s healthy?
Yeah. I know it’s important to do other things but at least for me at this period of time in my life, what else would I be doing? It’s certainly a lot better than pissing it away in a bar. I’m twenty-five years old. I want to be a musician and I want to play music. So why not do it? Why not give it all that you can give right now because I have the energy and I have the youth right now to let me do that. Someday I’m not going to have that energy and not going to have that youth and I will have to end up doing something different or at least change the way I’m doing this. Right now I just go for it.
Have you started writing for the next album?
I actually have yeah. This is the the first time after actually finishing a record where it hasn’t been a while – usually you finish a record and your like ‘Jesus Christ we made it! We’re done let’s take a break. Let’s not thin about writing songs for at least a year’ – I feel really still inspired and I want to keep going and while I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish with Searching For A Former Clarity I’m ready to keep on going to keep the ideas going.
