we're an american band
u.s. bands on tour in europe find themselves unwitting ambassadors of an unpopular goverment
by kyle ryan
on february 15, nearly two million people packed the streets of london to protest a potential invasion of iraq by the united states. in france, 300,000 protested.
in rome, authorities estimated one million did the same. there were 50,000 in athens and half a million in berlin. in spain, 1.3 million protested in barcelona,
along with 600,000 in madrid. there were protests in turkey, russia, indonesia, iceland, australia and more. if that weren't enough, a handful of scientists stationed
in antarctica even staged their own mini-demonstration in a show of solidarity.
in the early spring of 2003, it seemed unprecedented anti-american sentiment had united the world.
what better time to tour?
on march 13, i left to manage a 10-day german tour for my friends horace pinker. we weren't alone, numerous bands like horace pinker were on the road abroad,
ignoring the pleas of family members to stay home. we became accidental representatives of a hated administration whose behavior squandered the goodwill
that followed september 11th.
even though we only wanted to play music, politics were inescapable. bands like horace pinker, who weren't overtly political,
found themselves denouncing the war on stage and in interviews. "how do you say, 'we don't like bush either' in german?" i asked the english-speaking girl selling merch
for another band at our first show in nuremberg. she wrote it down, and i made a sign that hung next to the t-shirts the rest of the tour. "wir stehen echt nicht auf bush."
"i expected the worst," says enon drummer matt schulz, who toured europe and england from early march to early april. "here is george w. bush, saying the dumbest shit ever
on tv, and you just feel embarrassed, you know?" embarrassed and more than a little apprehensive." news reports showed a world passionately opposed to the american
government, and rumors of attacks on americans spread through the grapevine. family members of the punk band avail, which toured europe in april and may, expressed
deep concern, but they didn't persuade singer tim barry. "i don't believe in hiding," he says. "when shit goes down around the world, that's when i want to be out there
doing it. i want to be learning and living history is much more interesting to me." if people couldn't convince us to stay, they all gave us the same advice: "be careful"
they'd say, as if we were playing in pakistan.
despite my relatives fears, i was pretty sure al qaeda wouldn't be likely to strike our second show, at the fat music festival
in passau on the austrian border. the festival drew a couple thousand kids, many of whom wore t-shirts of american punk band anti-flag, who had toured europe in february
and march. the band has a seemingly endless supply of vitriol for the u.s. government, as evidenced in their songs, records and merchandise. one of the most popular
anti-flag shirt designs featured fighter jets below the headline, "why is it not called terrorism if the united states does it?" next to the jets was a list of civilian
casualty figures from various u.s. military operations. another shirt i saw had a picture of bush on the front that said, simply enough, "not my president."
our relatively apolitical t-shirts sold more slowly. horace pinker guitarist don meehleis joked, "if we had antiwar stuff, we'd sell so much more merch." if you think
anti-flag was exploiting anti-american sentiment for their own gain, you wouldn't be the first to suggest it. "that's something people have shot at the band the whole
ime," says anti-flag bassist number two. "i think there's a difference between capitalism and exploitative capitalism. going to germany at that time for us wasn't so
much so we could go over there and make a million. it was more to go over there so they know not every american is waving the flag saying, "nuke 'em, george!""
with news of bush's high job-approval rating and limited coverage of u.s. antiwar protests, europeans found it easy to assume the worst about us yanks. "i just noticed
that some people didn't seem to know if they could trust us or not," says songwriter mary timony, whose band toured europe in february. "they were a bit suspicious
that maybe we were like all of the americans that they hear or read about. as soon as we talked to them, they would relax." people's curiosity was ubiquitous and
mostly nonconfrontational. despite their critical rhetoric, anti-flag found people occasionally questioning their sincerity. "we ran into people more who'd had a few
drinks and would say, how dare we, as americans, try to put ourselves in the same category as them, because we're far dirtier," number two says. the language barrier
didn't help, either. on the road, you learn basic words to get by, although, thankfully, many europeans know at least some english. something still often gets lost in
the translation. when interviewed by a local radio station in halle, germany, timony, anxious to grab a bite to eat after a long van ride,inadvertently incensed a
reporter curious to see if she considered her music to be political. "i think i said, 'um, it used to be more, but now not so much. can i go eat now?" he looked at me,
steaming, stood up and said in a really loud voice, "i am one who marches in every peace march against this war!" i felt extremely, 100 percent antiwar and am so
grossed out by the bullshit bush is pulling, but i had no idea that was what the guy was asking me."
in passau, a kid asked me if horace pinker were patriots. knowing my sarcasm and irony wouldn't translate well, i restrained myself from making a smartass comment.
"we're proud americans," i responded. "but we don't like our president." nobody in europe does, either. evidently, bush and his administration have such a reputation
as war hawks, no one even seemed surprised when the bombing began march 19, 2003.
isis guitarist/vocalist aaron turner remembers hearing the news as his band ate
dinner in a restaurant. "it was a momentous occasion anyway, made more so by the fact that we were there, and we were americans in a foreign land, surrounded by europeans
who didn't know what our situation was," he says. "we were in places where everybody's against what our country's doing. it was very uncomfortable. i was just looking
around and wondering if people were glaring at us."
the day after the bombing started, we played berlin. police were everywhere because 100,000 protesters had marched that day to the city's historic brandenburg gate. i hadn't
visited the gate during our previous trip to berlin in 2001, so i took the subway with don from horace pinker to see it. the berlin subway system is pretty nice, each car
has a large screen that displays the news and weather with strikingly high-resolution pictures. as we rode on the subway, of course, the news was war, war, war. i couldn't
make out most of it, but there were numerous pictures of bush, saddam, german chancellor gerhard schroeder and one devastating picture after another of baghdad.
finding english-language media was difficult, so we were starving for news. don and i watched the screens intently, trying to make out different words and piece together
the situation. the news promptly changed, though. the very next story? something about britney spears' love life. the absurdity of it seemed lost on everyone, and it wouldn't
be the last time. right by the brandenburg gate, we noticed something startling, a starbucks (rare in europe), packed with customers. i could just picture the protesters
sipping a frappuccino and talking about britney spears' new boyfriend as they made their "down with america" signs. (such signs littered the street as we walked back to
the subway and passed the heavily fortified american and british embassies.)
when avail played in berlin a month later, its members saw similar things, homemade american flags with missiles replacing the stars, american flags burning everywhere.
may day in berlin has become the annual rioting holiday, as intense, confrontational protests have plagued the city on may 1 for the past 15 years. this year,
demonstrators fed off the war. avail's tim barry blended in by dressing in german army fatigues and trying to keep his mouth shut. police restrained him from getting too
close to the rioters. "i was really drunk and trying to get through the police line," he remembers. "the officer said, 'why are you trying to get through there? those people
hate you.'"
most bands who toured overseas around this time, myself included, would disagree. even though we worried about people's reactions to us, we were consistently
surprised by their supportiveness. in passau, horace pinker roadie dom gianneschi wanted to take his picture with a kid who had a shirt that said "bush = killer" on the
back with "antiamericans" on the front. instead, the kid took the shirt off and gave it to dom on the spot.
"there was an overwhelming positivity to bands like avail," barry says. "that seemed to be the continuing theme: we don't hate you. we hate your fucking government. we know
you're doing the best you can." anti-flag's number two agrees. "it doesn't come down to anti-american sentiment," he says. "it's more of an anti-american government
sentiment. people don't want to see the world overrun by a country."
our last show was in dresden, the city allied forces destroyed apparently for the hell of it in world war ii. of course, we were fighting unmitigated evil then, and
the u.s. government spent billions rebuilding germany. if some want to say we're doing the same thing in iraq now, dresden makes quite a resonating point.
in war, there is senseless destruction. saddam is no hitler, though, and people were hardly on our side when this one got started. "i think bush is the new hitler," said
one woman to me in passau. she seemed unfazed when i reminded her hitler ordered the extermination of six million jews. our last night on the continent was mostly free
from political discussion, though horace pinker's singer/guitarist, scott eastman, prefaced the band's set with an uncharacteristic political statement.
"hi, we're horace pinker, and this set goes out to that fuck, george w. bush, and his stupid war in iraq." people cheered, of course.
the stupid war continues, even though bush proclaimed the completion of major military action months ago. the world situation hasn't improved
since we were in europe, with fundamentalist middle eastern terrorism still the day's unequivocal boogie man. although anti-american sentiment lingers
(though with little similarity to the dire picture painted by homeland security goons and john ashcroft), people like avail's barry say none of it should keep bands off
the road overseas ("just go," he advises"). "i think in times of severe crisis, the arts are probably more important than they are at any other time," turner says.
"not only do they give people something to indulge in and take them away from what's going on, but they can open people's eyes to what's going on." "it becomes even
more of a life force when things are looking this gloomy," adds enon's schulz. by his count, touring provides a good opportunity to demonstrate there's plenty of folks
in america who aren't "greedy war-mongers." "sure, america sucks, but it's also ruling in so many ways," he says. "it's a big country" some of it's bound to be lame,
but we have so many different things here. i want to promote positive u.s. feelings and ideas in any way i can, and that is an area i usually have some control over
"playing shows."
if you're around german speakers, this phrase might be helpful: "wir sind nicht auf bush's seite." we are not on bush's side.
