The Last Internationale

Nice interview with member of The Last Internationale. (possibly my favorite band)

music:https://web.archive.org/web/20171225163310/http://louderthanwar.com/the-last-internationale-interview/

“…What is the situation with protest music in the US at the moment? Are there other bands that share your agenda?

There’s not much at all. We had that Ebola video that came out with Bono in it and that was the biggest piece of shit I’ve seen in my whole life. It’s degrading, even the people in it admitted it afterwards. How could you not know that was the worst thing you could do?

But that’s the nature of protest today, you just can’t call out an enemy. If a band identifies an enemy they would be slaughtered so they say things like “we want to end starvation or homelessness”. Then you get to the root of the problem and ask why people are homeless? You can’t answer that question because it makes you a communist or something and people are afraid to do it. So bands would rather say “support this cause” instead of saying “let’s eradicate this sick society that causes these things”. We try to go to the root of the problem, that’s what it means to be radical and this is a radical band…

You cite the influence of the likes of Dylan and Woody Guthrie to your development. How important is folk to you and in America in general today?

Mainstream folk in America, possibly in Europe but I don’t want to speculate, is very watered down. It’s not even remotely close to what Dylan or Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie were doing. The most important element of folk is missing within the folk genre today and that is community. There’s none whatsoever within current folk music. I don’t want to trash any of these bands but when I hear songs by mainstream folk acts I don’t hear the community interests being reflected within the music and I don’t see members of those bands being embedded within the community. The whole definition of folk music for me is music for the community themselves by members of the community. Woody Guthrie, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Odetta are all examples of incredible folk musicians and it’s the spirit of people like them that we hope to carry on….”