Againt Me! (again)

Against Me!
New Brookland Tavern: Friday, May 1
BY BRYAN REED

Gainesville, Fla., punk outfit Against Me! begins its major-label debut, New Wave (released on Sire Records), with a declaration embedded in its title track: “We can be the bands we wanna hear / We can define our own generation.”

More than 30 years of punk rock is condensed to one couplet.

It’s that kind of thoughtful attention to lyrical songwriting that has proved constant through the band’s career.

“The lyrics have always been the most important part of music,” opines Against Me! frontman Tom Gabel, and fitting the sentiment espoused by “New Wave,” Gabel sets out to write the songs he wants to hear — or at least to avoid the type of songs he can’t stand.

“I don’t want to listen to something that’s mindless,” he says.

And mindless is hardly a valid descriptor for the Gainesville band, the songs of which have bridged the space between the personal and the political, meshing the narrative bent of folk with a political outspokenness born of both folk and punk.

New Wave, the band’s fourth studio full-length, covers the life of an unrepentant junkie (“Thrash Unreal”), the paradox of protest songs (“White People For Peace”) and globalization (“Americans Abroad”). But where a lesser songwriter would resort to bumper-sticker slogans, Gabel mines big-ticket themes from individual observations.

“At this point, doing this full-time, you kinda gotta be open to whatever inspiration comes your way and taking in everything you see,” Gabel says.

But his songwriting bent might be the only constant in Against Me!’s career. To date, (and counting only full-lengths) the band has moved from its ramshackle folk-punk debut, Reinventing Axl Rose, released by punk label No Idea Records, to two increasingly accessible LPs on NOFX’s Fat Wreck Chords (As the Eternal Cowboy and Searching For A Former Clarity). And then from the Fat Wreck days to the sonically condensed and rock-centric sound of New Wave on major label Sire (which punker-than-thou naysayers should be reminded was the imprint on all the Ramones records).

As is custom of beloved indie bands moving to bigger deals, Against Me!’s major-label jump (like those of The Replacements and Hüsker Dü) was greeted with some backlash.

But, says Gabel, it’s been a natural and organic transition in the band’s still-ascendant career.

“The labels we’ve worked with over the years have been the right labels for the size we were at the time,” he says. “[Working with Sire] afforded us a lot of opportunities that I don’t think we would have gotten elsewhere.”

Label politics aside, Against Me!’s ultimate goal, Gabel says, is as it has always been: “to keep improving and put on the best shows we can and make the best records we can.”

The sonic transition, though, has been perhaps more fluid than many long-time fans would be willing to admit. And with the same voice as its foundation, Against Me! is undeniably the same band whose early recordings helped it became the de facto figurehead of the early-‘00s folk-punk scene.

So even as Against Me! prepares its second major-label release (again enlisting Nirvana/Smashing Pumpkins producer Butch Vig to man the boards), the old adage stands true: the more things change the more they stay the same. Against Me! is still the band its members want to hear. As they’ve grown older, maybe the tastes have changed a little, but the philosophy is the same. And the band’s career arc has been decided as much by the legions of fans that have filled ever-growing venues across America and abroad as the band itself.

So, as Gabel nonchalantly asks, “If life took you to that place, why would you not want it? I’d just be happy if I were able to play music and support myself doing it.”

The New Brookland Tavern is located at 122 State St. in West Columbia. Off With Their Heads and Of Angels and Lions open. Doors open at 7 p.m.; admission is $10. Call 791-4413 or visit newbrooklandtavern.com for more information.

Free Times, 4/29/2009