State Radio
CTG: What made you want to go to Zimbabwe at 18 and what did you experience over there that made you want to make a difference?
Chad: I wanted to get away from my home town and that was the furthest place I could think of, haha. I knew someone over there, so I could go and atleast sleep with a roof over my head. It was the first time I had ever been to a third world country and the poverty and AIDS and it was just like 'so this is how the rest of the world lives' or 'this is what life is like.' And sort of amist that struggle there's this beauty in the way the people of Zimbabwe confront it. The problems that came with the life they lead, that stranght and beauty, just blew me away.
CTG: How successful do you think Dispatch: Zimbabwe was at promoting awareness?
Chad: It was wild, even to hear people chanting "Zimbabwe" at the end and it was a special couple days... We aren't that naive in thinking we would save Zimbabwe from this or that. Right now it's a tricky time because of the elections and it looks like the opposition won, but they're not getting the final results. There's an armed shipment from China that's trying to land on the coast of South Africa. We just heard today that the South African Dock Workers Union wouldn't unload the shipment. They wouldn't take the cargo ship in, so that ship has actually turned around and is going back to China, which is a good thing. We may have been a part in something, it's hard to quantify how...if we made a difference at all. But, we raised some good money and that's going to great organizations. Just to have people aware of it counts for a lot. Just get the word out.
CTG: What does your album title "Year of the Crow" mean?
Chad: It means the year we won't stand for the bullshit anymore. The year the underdog comes back and...
Chuck: Pecks the hell out of everybody
Mad Dog: ...that's what dogs do
Chad+Chuck: ...and crows.
Mad Dog: Oh
CTG: What was it like to produce your latest album at Peter Gabriel's studio in England?
Mad Dog: It was really good. They cooked for us. It was an amazing studio really. We were over there for like a month, there was a 2 week spilt between Peter Gabriel's studio and Tchad Blake's professional studio.
CTG: On songs like "Guantanamo" you speak your opinions of President Bush, what would you like to see happen to this country after he leaves office?
Chad: We'd like to see him go to jail. With the country, we hope for the best. We hope that Barack or Hilary can do the things they're promising to do. This country is in a boatload of trouble, so it's gonna take a lot of undoing. It seems like every president is trying to, maybe not Bush or Clinton, but the scenario where the new president comes in and is just trying to play clean-up and change things-->that's just going to take years. We hope the economy get's better and there's real fair trade, there's less of an emphasis on incarceration, a lot of things.
CTG: You say the subjects of your songs come after your frustration builds up and you need to get it out, since you've made the album what has been bothering you?
Chad: The more the war continues, talking to vets and the tragedies keep rolling, it's almost hard not to be sadened or frustrated by that. Same thing with Sudan, it's still a genocide that continues and doesn't get any better. All the stuff with Zimbabwe. Maybe there will be a time in our career when everything's great and we'll run out of material.
CTG: "How's Your News" is an amazing project, how did you become involved?
Chad: I worked at a camp on Martha's Vineyard, I was 16 I started working there. It's a camp for people with disabilities. Brendan and Lucas are the "How's Your News" band and they'll be playing tonight. It'll be slamming.
Chuck: Watch out Mad Dog, Brendan's gonna take you job man.
Mad Dog: That's cool.
CTG: You recently did the Justice Tour, what was that like?
Chuck: In addition to the travel, which really threw us for a whirlwind to begin with, just getting there and back, was sandwiched in between all these other shows. And then all of a sudden we're backstage and Slash is asking Mad Dog how to play "Rockin In The Free World" and Mike has to teach Slash how to play "Rockin In The Free World." I'm like 'what planet are we on and how did we get here.' So it was a real cool night to be able to play some songs with those guys. And then New Orleans, which was the more recent of the Justice Tour gigs, we got to play some more tunes, slowly working our way in. It was cool.
CTG: You guys have played with some pretty cool people, especially on the Justice Tour, who would you like to play with?
Chad: Rage is playing, I think both conventions in St. Paul and Denver, those will be unbelievable. I wouldn't mind playing with the reunited Zeppelin or Sabbath or...
Chuck: System of a Down, Black Keys
Chad: We're opening for Anti-Flag in the UK. We open for Drop Kick Murphy's tomorrow night. We almost got the System of a Down opener. Incubus we opened up for. We'd love to play with System and Rage, Radiohead. That'd be a dream come true.
CTG: Who else have you played with?
Chad: We played some of these big time festival out in Germany, so we played with Drop Kick Murphy's on our tour, Pearl Jam played, Kings of Leon, Sonic Youth, Queens of the Stone Age...
CTG: What would you be doing if you weren't playing music?
Mad Dog: Counting, haha i love it
Chad: He's really good at counting numbers...drummers and counting
Mad Dog: 1, 2, 3, 4...
Chuck: I'd be homeless probably, or living with Mad Dog
Chad: Sleeping with him maybe
Mad Dog: Sleeping with me because he wouldn't have enough money to buy a bed, is that what you mean?
Chad: Um, yeah...I think that's what I mean, haha
I don't know, probably just bumming around
Chuck: Dude, you'd be like hopping on trains, cruising across the country.
Chad: I'd like to go on a train trip, like jumping trains.
Chuck: We were watching this thing on the Travel Chanel last night about a wine train from California, looked pretty swanky. It's a real luxurious train where you have these nice meals and all this wine is put together. It's chalk-full of middle-aged white people cruising around, drinking wine.
Chad: Paradise, haha. I'd like to follow Woody Guthrie's path around the country. He did some traveling on the trains. It's be neat to try to recreate that.
Chuck: We need to have a train tour. A train tour would be rad. Like build a stage on one of the cars. The Dead actually did that in Canada. The Dead and Janis.
Chad: The something Express... The Psycadelic Express... The Festival Express.
CTG: What did you listen to growing up that influenced your style?
Mad Dog: Tool
Chuck: Dispatch...
Chad: Haha... Jethro Tull, Creedence
MR. LARKIN
Chad: The name isn't Larkin, but it's a real person. Sybil worked in a Nuurseing Home for years, so Mr. Larkin's the boss and the protagonist in the song is the dishwasher, who's there to keep his wife enrolled in the assisted-living facility.
Chuck: It's all real, the names are just changed
FIGHT NO MORE
Chad: That song is about Chief Joseph and the broken promises from the US Government that led to him fleeing with his tribe and finally surrendering.
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