Propagandhi - Chris Hannah

Every four years comes a large event in punk, and it’s not the national elections of the US. Propagandhi has released a new album this year called Supporting Caste, continuing the pattern of releasing an album about every four years then touring in support of it. Changes are on the horizon though…. The album features Beaver, the latest addition to the band as a guitarist. Also, Propagandhi has mentioned that they may start releasing material quicker than ever before. Vocalist and guitarist Chris Hannah sat down to discuss what to expect on this tour and what may be in store for the future of Propagandhi.rn

Why did you guys choose to take out Paint It Black on this tour?rn

CHRIS: Out of a lot of the modern bands that we’ve heard, it seemed like when I heard Paint it Black, I was hearing some of the sounds that I really liked when I was younger. I was hearing some Swiz and Dag Nasty. I was kind of surprised that it was delivered pretty heavy. I’m not super familiar with a lot of the new breed of bands, even though those guys are actually a little older. It kind of appealed to me a little more than a lot of the other bands that were proposed to us to go on the trip. They seemed to be smart guys. On all accounts it worked out great. They’re great guys. Dan’s as old as we are so we have some things to talk about and some things in common. It’s always fun to have a decent, high-energy band play before you because you have you step up a little bit. You can’t just get away with whatever sounds good.

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At the Boston show, you guys mentioned that you wouldn’t give Obama a free pass. Has he done anything that has made you skeptical or nervous yet?rn

CHRIS: From the very beginning, I always told people we were in the States for his acceptance speech for the election night. As the cameras panned the crowd in Chicago, the emotion was palpable, even for me. I’m pretty skeptical of the two-party system in the states, but I was feeling something there that was resonating. The feeling for, say African Americans, who thought they were living in a de facto white supremacy that couldn't be pierced by anyone who wasn’t a white old man. That counts for something. But then if you look at his list of campaign donors, it’s the reverse list of who contributes to the Republican party. What you get from that is the corporations hedge their bets on who might win. Whoever wins the election is indentured to those corporations that finance their campaign. That’s the first order of business, to do the bidding. Otherwise those corporations wouldn’t have bothered giving them the money. They finance their campaigns for the purposes of them representing their interests. In that sense, that’s not good for democracy. It’s not good for the citizens of the U.S. or the citizens of the world if corporations are the first on the list to be served by elected officials.rn

Some of his cabinet appointments and his commentary, or non-commentary, particularly on the occupation of Palestinian land…. That doesn’t give me any hope for change in regards to that situation. People need to not regard him as a messiah, but as a politician and a human who’s not only fallible but probably an opportunist, because most politicians traditionally have been. If people want the change that he talked about in his campaign, they’re going to have to hold his feet to the fire to get it. You can’t just let the guy do whatever he wants. If he’s just left to his own devices, he’ll do exactly as everyone before him has, which is in the interest of the large concentrations of wealth and power that got him elected.

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What would it take to motivate the younger generation, and punks in general, to actually get outraged enough to do something about the issues they have with government instead of stand by idly and criticize?rn

CHRIS: I think when the time comes and when we actually have more to lose, people will rise up. Right now there are a lot of people living in the West that live comfortable lives as long as we stay the course and do as we’re told. We have a lot of things to distract from thinking about things. We have sitcoms, video games, punk bands, movies, and internet pornography. The list is endless of things you can spend your time on and be distracted by. We’re not encouraged by any of our mainstream media to think about things beyond celebrities and freak accidents, plane crashes, and stuff like that. In that sense, a lot of it is pretty predictable. I think that’s the culmination of Western government actively destroying traditions in our society such as pro-labor traditions, traditions of being skeptical, critical, or active in regards to a federal government. In Greece and other parts of Europe, the tradition of keeping the government in check still exists. It’s different culturally. Unfortunately, over here it’s going to take a huge crisis where people’s distractions disappear because the infrastructure is destroyed and there’s no more internet or TV. And then when people are faced with a food shortage, that’ll probably be the time when people finally do something. When they finally do that something, they’ll probably socially negative to their neighbor because they haven’t practiced any traditions of community support or thinking of how to cooperate with people. It’s all about being isolated and serving your own interests.

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At your Boston show, quite a few kids knew the words to your new songs that you played. That’s kind of remarkable since only a couple songs have been released at this point, and those have only been up for two weeks.rn

CHRIS: I was surprised myself actually. Even as far back as Australia, which was a month ago, there seemed to be some people that knew the songs to some songs. That seems like a good sign, not just that people like the tunes, but that whoever recorded and mixed it did a good enough job that people could make out the words. I totally appreciate that and am glad that’s happened so far.

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Have you found a good outpouring of reviewer support in magazines and online? Do you pay much attention to the media looking at the albums you write?rn

CHRIS: I haven’t seen too many. The ones that I’ve seen have seemed positive, but I generally don’t pay a lot of attention to it because it doesn’t really tell you anything. People will probably make up their own minds anyway. I appreciate it when we get emails when someone likes the record. If you’re reading the review in a magazine full of fucking fifty reviews, there’s probably little chance that the person listening to it has really spent time to critically assess the record both lyrically and musically. Most reviews I’ve seen over the years for records in general aren’t really complete. In that sense, if a lot of negative ones showed up, I don’t think I’d worry about it too much. It’s not so bad that so far they seem positive.

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Do you find yourself a little bit more sensitive to criticism with your albums, considering that you put out an album every 4 years or so? A lot of bands put out an album every year or two, get it out of their system, and move on. rn

CHRIS: We’re probably less sensitive than ten years ago. The litmus test for us for records is truly if the 4 of us listen to it a month after it’s finished and are like, “I really like this, I’m enjoying this record, I’m enjoying the way we expressed ourselves.” Everything after that doesn’t matter too much. As long as we’re entertaining ourselves in the basement, that’s what matters the most to us. If no one likes it, then no one buys them and we just become a band that only plays in the basement and that’s okay with us, I guess.

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For your album before this, Potemkin City Limits, did you have the song of the same title written at the time that you put out that album? Why wasn’t it on that album as opposed to you putting it on Supporting Caste?rn

CHRIS: We had a version of it that was supposed to be on the last record, but it failed. It didn’t get finished for the record and it was bad. It just didn’t work. At the time, I don’t think it was called “Potemkin City Limits,” even though it had that lyric. It was supposed to be on that record, but we didn’t beat it into shape until we were ready to record this record. I’m kind of glad it took that long because if it had come out the way it used to be, I don’t think people would have really appreciated it.

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Where does Beaver stand in the band as far as input into the material that you write? Is he vegan and as politically active as you guys are, or is he more of an extremely good guitar player that you guys are good friends with?rn

CHRIS: He’s a little bit of all of that. If you asked him about his “activism,” he’d probably say that he doesn’t do the same as the other members have, but his core values are the same as ours. He just happens to be vegan too, but there’s no rule in the band that you have to be vegan. Obviously it helps and makes it easier on the road for us. He also happens to be one of my favorite guitar players of all time, so it worked out on all counts. Like I say, politically we’re very much on the same pages as far as our core values go. He’s on a program at a community center for kids in downtown Winnipeg. He’s done some music lessons for them and stuff like that. In that sense, to me that’s activism.

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With the liner notes in your new album, each member has a section to thank people, and he didn’t have one. Is there particular reasoning behind that?rn

CHRIS: He felt super shy about it. I think he’s still warming up to the idea of people seeing his writing. He contributed a lot to the new record musically. He’s also been writing lyrics for the first time and he actually showed them to us just the other day. I thought it was pretty good. We said to put something on the record, even if it’s just something short, and he didn’t want to do it. He’s just very shy about it. I’m sure next time around he will, once he gets over that. He just doesn’t want to do anything that embarrasses him.

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I’ve heard things here and there about you guys writing a few new songs already. Are you planning another full length or an EP?rn

CHRIS: We haven’t really planned it. We just assumed that we’d record another full length in the next year and a half. I think once this round of touring dies down, we’ll head right back down to the basement. I know Beav’s got lots of new stuff, and Todd’s got a bunch of new stuff. Todd has a song or two that were supposed to be on the last two records, but he still doesn’t think are ready. We have lots of material to work on. We’re more excited than ever to enter the song writing process because with four people it’s much more interesting and much more rewarding. You get a lot more out of it with four people than you do with three people. I’m looking forward to it.

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Since you’ve been putting out albums every four years or so, every album has been a pretty big breath of new air for you guys. There’s a lot of changes that you’ve gone through both politically and with your sound in general. Every four years it’s a huge deal for fans when you have a new record coming out. If you quicken that by two years, do you think you’ll still have that kind of effect?rn

CHRIS: I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that. Ultimately, if we record next year, and we feel that something’s wrong, and it doesn’t feel like we’re adding anything new to the history of the band, then we’ll probably call it off and wait until we have something better. If the songs are compelling, interesting and feel like they’re taking us somewhere else, then it doesn’t matter to us if people don’t get into it. I hope people don’t need four years to feel that a new Propagandhi record is worth listening to. I hope that they’ll just evaluate it on its own merit. I think we’re excited enough about the prospect of recording next year that it will necessarily take us somewhere else than this record did. I hope. Fingers crossed.

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Are there any particular bands that you’d love to see come back together, if not but just to relive old memories or see a band that you maybe have never seen before?rn

CHRIS: There’s a Canadian band called Guilt Parade that hasn’t been around for almost twenty years now. If they got back together, I’d be very stoked. Sort-of on the same subject, there’s another Canadian band called Sacrifice that are back together and currently recording a new record. I’ve heard some tracks for it, and it’s going to be fucking amazing. In that sense, it’s already come true. One of my favorite bands from my youth is back together, and they’re more compelling than ever.

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Is there anything that makes you less enthusiastic about touring?rn

CHRIS: The thing that weighs on us a little more is witnessing a lot of material resource waste that goes hand-in-hand with being a band on tour. Flights are a huge contributor to environmental degradation. It’s hard to rationalize that by saying, “Well, I’m in a band that’s trying to get a message out there.” I don’t think that’s an offset for what an airplane flight is doing to the environment. When we play shows and they’re finished, there’s non-recycled garbage everywhere. It’s the nature of an event when you have a lot of people. Venues have plastic cups, plastic bottles, and fucking garbage this and garbage that. It’s there whether we’re there or not, but it wears on your soul to see it and be part of it. Psychologically the most draining part for us is just getting in a van and filling it with fucking fossil fuels that people are dying over to get access to. The other stuff like sitting in the van all day isn’t particularly interesting to me. There are lots of better things I could be doing with my time. On the bright side, I’m there with my best friends and we’re usually having a few laughs. It gives you time to read, I suppose. We try to make the best of it but we also try not to do it too often for the reasons that I mention. When we’re home, we definitely try to remove ourselves as much as possible from that kind of lifestyle where you’re constantly consuming material goods and constantly producing non-recyclable and non-reusable garbage. None of us drive cars. We all just ride around on our bikes. We take mass transit to offset the nature of being a touring band.