Interviews

Rien a Déclarer (August 2005)

Let’s get rid of formality first. So you have a new record coming out sooner or later this year that will be call Potemkin City Limits. Can you tell us what the title means exactly or what it tries to illustrate? Will the cover artwork try to illustrate something like on your last record? Musically, can we expect something in the vein of Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes or you added some more "trash" influences in your sound compare to your two first records on FAT? Did the line-up changed in any ways?

In english, the term "potemkin village" refers to something that is a facade. it is based on the story of grigori potemkin and his efforts to impress empress catherine II by erecting false villages along the volga during her tour of the Crimea.

"Potemkin City Limits" means to suggest that perhaps we have arrived at a point in history where the deception has reached it’s extreme, most absurd conclusion. we are what seems to be the terminal phase of terrestrial life, but continue to receive and accept messages that everything is OK.

Eric drooker painted the cover.

In the interview you gave to Exclaim! Magazine in 2001 you said that "…we’re going to put out this record, it’s going to kill and there’s a good chance nobody is going to recognise it for what it is because we live in such a fucked up, shitty culture. We have to wonder if we have any relevance. Are people so brainwashed by MTV that this is going to just be lost in the sea of records? ª Do you still think like that today about the new record?

I don’t really think too much about what we do anymore. i am increasingly ambivalent about and disconnected from the business of selling people music. i don’t really have any expectations.

Your record How To Clean Everything (that actually came out 12 years ago but interviewers like to play the smart ass by pulling out old shit) open with these words: "Dance and laugh and play. Ignore the message we convey. It seems we’re only here to entertain.ª Looking back on the 3 full length you’ve put out and all you’ve done with G-7, do you think you’ve really only entertained people or you think you’ve had some kind of impact on the "scene"? That you made it move forward in any ways?

I can’t really say. I don’t know how you’d measure something like that. Considering how boring the punk scene has become, i’d like to think that we’ve had no discernible impact on it.

In the same vein, does it bother you sometimes to think that your public doesn’t totally endorse your ideas? That they’re not all vegetarian leftist, that some of them get out of your show and go have a late meal at McDonalds. Would you rather not have some people like me who, for some reasons, consider themselves progressive-liberal or on the opposite you prefer to preach to the un-converted?

i’m not really concerned with either preaching or converting. the only reason i bother to do any of this anymore is to just make sure my complaints are registered somewhere before i blow my head off.

Is there something you did or said with Propagandhi that you wish you hadn’t said or some ideas you were talking about in the past that changed and that you don’t believe in anymore?

Not really. aesthetically of course there are sounds we’ve made that don’t do anything for me anymore, but nothing in terms of messages i’ve put out into the universe.

Last year with the whole Rock Against Bush comp, tours and what not, some people or bands were saying that bands were just using their "fame" on their audience to influence them vote against Bush without having them really understanding the whole thing. What do you think about that kind of argument?

I certainly had no problem with famous people leveraging their access to an audience to expose the madmen in the Bush administration. But when that same fame was leveraged to suppress or omit similar criticisms of comparably stupid, arrogant, war-like pieces of shit politicians, the pretense of "educating" an audience lost any and all credibility. That was punk voter’s modus operandi. It was a cynical and arrogant project.

What do you think of bands with a political "message" who "sellout" by signing to a major label. It would be a lie to say that Anti-Flag and The(International) Noise Conspiracy don’t first come to mind about it. Do you think it’s a good thing in order to get their message to a wider audience or that’s just another not-so-great excuse? Would you ever go out on tour with any of those bands if they invite you?

If something like this were measurable, the real question would be: does the scale and impact of the band’s message (in terms of "converts" to their worldview) grow proportionally in relation to the profits they are generating for the proverbial "system". if it does, then I suppose they’ve made the right decision. if it doesn’t, i suppose they’ve made a mistake.

I’ve read in some interviews that Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains and others were an influence for you since you were really into the eighties hardcore-metal political scene. Our editor would like to know what you think of the comeback of Dead Kennedys considering the fact that Jello Biaffra is not longer in the band.

Seems lame to me.

I know that you and Jord met in a hockey room. Not really the kind of place that will lead two kids to become leftist/progressive/socialist/anarchist( or whatever…) in the future. More the kind of place to turn them into macho-gringo. I also saw in an interview you gave to Daily Nexus in 2001 where you said: "I used to be a pro-imperialistic, pro-nuclear-proliferation, pro-Reagan, pro-NATO nutbar when I was a kid. Considering it, do you think that if instead of discovering punk-rock or leftist writers you would have fall on any of those intellectual who preach for a "new American century" you would have become a totally different person who would consider who you are a "unrealistic dreamer" or a simple idiot?

I have no idea. i consider myself an idiot as it is anyways. I don’t think that particular fact would change in any parallel version of this universe.

OK, things are not really doing great in the world these days. Concerning the bombing in London, do you think that it’s right to say that "THEY" (’cause of course the people who got killed most probably didn’t went to war in Iraq) deserved it? That Great-Britain deserved it ’cause of its implication and presence with the Americans in Iraq? Does this explication or argument sound right to you?

Nobody deserves to die. Yes, it was a predictable consequence of the UK’s involvement in dropping bombs on people in Iraq, but there is nothing righteous about killing people….in my opinion.

Another question about Iraq. At the point things are right now in Iraq, do you think the Americans still should get out of there or the bad is done and they now have some responsibilities in this place to take care of before "leaving"?

I don’t know. perhaps the people of iraq are better equipped to answer this. if anyone cares, electroniciraq.net purports to report on opinion inside iraq from time to time.

Do you think that sometimes political violence can be justified to get what you want? ‘Cause maybe the British will now want to get their troops out of there now that they see that what they do there can have repercussions on their own land? Is that a simplistic argument to you? Or if we even look at what happened in Oka,Qu√©bec more than a decade ago when a police officer got killed(you deal with that in one of your song) by what is supposed to be an Amerindian. Can we call it a "justified" act of "revenge" from people who have been oppressed?

There is no justice in revenge. Of course people should defend themselves, but the idea that violence against other humans is somehow glorious in any context is a pathetic, swaggering myth that needs to fade into history.

Let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on in Canada. We’ve had all this big thing about the sponsorship scandal and the debate around the anti-missiles defence program. Is that serious issues for you or there’s a lot of more important things to focus on in our country these days? Which party would you support in Canada (if you think that it’s worth voting)?

The sponsorship "scandal" is only a serious issue if people understand there is nothing unique about it. That is how the system works.

if the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement began running candidates in Canada, perhaps there would be a platform that reflects my interests.
The title of your last record was Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes. Something that implies that history shows that every empire is condemned, sooner or later, to fall. The empire of today is clearly the American and the western way of life. If this domination on the world has come to fall and that the leadership of the world would be taken by another superpower, do you think that a lot of the world’s problem would be solved? Is the problem the Americans or simply the fact that there’s an "Empire"?

Clearly, a mere "changing of the guard" is not is what is required to stave off global extinction.

Your last record end up with these words: "It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you can do. It’s just the way it is. There’s nothing you can do." It’s clear that by saying that you in fact try to make people realize that it’s what some people want them to believe but that it’s not really true. But on the other hand, do you think that everybody should turn into major activist to change the way things are?

I’m not sure. what do you think?

Let’s talk about music. ‘Cause you also rock pretty hard. I’ve long understood that you don’t really fit in any sub-scene in the "scene" but I would like to know to which bands you could associate yourself with today. Which bands really inspire you or get you excited to see these days?

I’m pretty much interested in the same bands i was interested in when i was a kid.

Which show do you remember that totally blew you away when you were young that made you realize that you wanted to get involver in the long term with the punk-rock scene?

I have memories of some shows that left strong impressions on me, but most were metal bands and nothing ever made we wanted to a long-term involvment with a punk-rock scene. That was just a sad twist of fate.

For some reasons, I think that we often perceive Propagandhi has a "negative" band. With a negative outlook on life, America, on how people act and on world politics. But if we take a look at the Phil Ochs quote at the end of the Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes we see that you, in fact, have faith in today’s youth. Does "fighting" everyday to defend your ideas that seems totally strange/stupid to a lot of persons make you want to give up sometimes or you really have the feeling that there’s good ideas behind the concept of what America was supposed to be at the beginning at that one day people will want to bring back part of them when they’ll really get sick of what most America has become?

I don’t have faith in anything, never mind young people growing up in the West. on good days i have fleeting (and probably delusional) slivers of hope and that’s about it. the phil ochs’ quote was more a comment on the general tendency for human societies to slowly march towards freedom and against despotism despite the best efforts of pyschopaths and opportunists like the Taliban or the Bush Administration to clobber back the hands of time. i have serious doubts that this otherwise promising tendency will be able to outrun our newly acquired capacities to completely destroy the entire planet. that’s all i meant. the truth is i don’t give a flying fuck about romantic notions of restoring nations to their alleged "original" intent. all that shit is a myth that annoying and pathologically positive american bands keep retelling.

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