Hip-hop, break-beats and rock n’ roll is never a bad combination, especially when the sound is coming from Flobots.
The socially conscience group from Denver, CO has been going hard since the height of the Iraq War, when they dropped their hit “Handlebars” and peaked at #3 on the Modern Rock Tracks Billboard chart.
We had a chance to chop it up with lead singer Johnny, who expressed his thoughts on everything from the Aurora, Colorado shooting, to Occupy Wall Street, to the group’s new album, The Circle In The Square.
Being from Denver, what’s your take on the Aurora shooting?
We always think about these tragedies. They stay in the news for two to three weeks. They go away, but nothing happens.
Obama and Romney said a week after the shootings, “We don’t need change to our gun laws.” Things like this, from Columbine, to Gabrielle Giffords, to Trayvon Martin, occur time and again and nothing happens. What’s your take on that?
The way I see it is, politicians only respond to the political landscape that they see.
So if it’s just a small group of people that want gun control or only a small group of mainstream America that actually cares about racial justice, then that’s the only amount they’re going to talk about it.
It’s always the job, especially of the people that create culture, we actually hold the power to create those conversations.
Whenever there’s a big enough ground swell, the political landscape can just shift real fast. You can see that with marriage equality or marijuana.
It can flip and now the thing you have to say to get elected can suddenly become the opposite. As creators of culture, we have to create the political landscape and politicians will follow suit.
We love the title of the new album, The Circle In The Square, obviously it’s a metaphor for the uprising in Egypt in Tahrir Square. You guys were in the Middle East, how was that experience?
Basically I was on the plane coming back from Jordan and Jerusalem and this phrase kind of came into my head. And then I was thinking people would always say you can’t have democracy in the Arab world, it’s like trying to square a circle.
It’s what we saw on TV. Twenty four hours a day, you had this circle of people sitting in Tahrir Square, literally a circle in a square.
So yeah, we’re definitely inspired by any kind of community in a public place that promotes progressive change.
We saw something like that with the Occupy Wall Street Movement. It hasn’t died out, but it has fizzled a little bit. Can we have something like Tahrir Square in America but bigger than Occupy Wall Street?
Yeah absolutely, it’s baby steps. I had the pleasure of being with a guy named Jim Lawson in the midst of Occupy. He’s trained the folks who did a national sit-in and taught them non-violent techniques. He’s also been to India and studied with many of Gandhi’s followers.
He was inspired by OWS and talking to people involved in the movement, but it was all too small. What he pointed out was that we all have to think on a much larger scale. I think Occupy was incredibly inspiring because it was something that grew out of frustration and took incremental steps toward changing the national conversation about income inequality.
Did you guys have the opportunity to go down to Zuccotti Park?
Yes we did, and what shocked me the most was how organized it was and how much of an inspiration was flowing around.
What was the spark that started Flobots.org?
Initially we wanted to be a non-profit band. But as we became known throughout Denver, the spark was the messages in our music.
But the original idea was how do we follow up on this messaging? How do we get people a chance to live the lyrics?
So we started out by asking people to organize the people in their communities. From there, we created a website that allowed people to do just that. What that showed us is that many of the people from our community a lot to say.
From there on, it just grew and now we’re developing a youth media studio in one of the neighborhoods so that kids can come and create their own music.
What’s the goal for this new album? What would be your biggest accomplishment?
For me, blend the craziness the world has to offer with having fun.
Because honestly it feels like we’re living in this paradox where the world is in direr straits now more than ever.
For instance, in our video we tried to show that engaging in a world in an effort to make a difference is way more fulfilling than just getting drunk.
People who do meditation get bored with acid you know? It’s like the meditation high is way better than this other shit.
For more info on Flobots, hit them up on their official site flobots.com, their Facebook page, Flobots and get their new album, in stores now.
