The three greatest things to possibly come out of Gainesville: Emmitt Smith, Gatorade and Against Me! It might be surprising to learn that the resident punk heroes eat at The Top, listen to The Streets and are playing a benefit show for the Civic Media Center this Sunday at Common Grounds. Yeah - not very anarchist of them. But lead singer/songwriter Tom Gabel also does interviews while dodging traffic. Now that's more like it.
TG: I'm trying to cross a busy intersection real quick. Bear with me and if you hear a loud crash, call the paramedics.
AVE: Yeah, absolutely.
TG: OK, I'm across. We're good.
AVE: What's the biggest difference about playing a Gainesville show?
TG: It's your hometown show, so it's always a little more hectic because you have your friends and your family coming out and stuff like that, but you want to see everybody and want to spend time with everybody, but you really don't have any time for anybody. But it's always cool. I think usually before the show we go to dinner at The Top and get something good to eat, and then go over to Common Grounds and play a sweaty-ass show.
AVE: So five years ago where did you see yourselves? And how does that match up with where you are today?
TG: Five years ago we probably pretty much saw ourselves here. We were already touring full-time and doing all we could, and it's really just growing at a pretty natural pace for us. And every time we've gone out on tour, we've been lucky that the shows have gotten a little bit better, and every time we've put out a new record, there's always been more people who've wanted to listen.
AVE: You're about to release a solo E.P. How do you decide which songs to keep for yourself and which to play, you know, with the band?
TG: Well, I mean, originally, going into this, I started writing songs early in this year and a lot of the songs were themed around this election and everything and the current political climate in the world. And we've been touring all year long so we haven't had a chance to practice or anything, so it's really just been me sitting in the back of a bus or a hotel room writing these songs by myself and not really playing them with the rest of the band. And I wanted to record them and have them out in some form before the actual election happened because I feel like they had to be a part of the moment or else a little bit of the relevance would be lost. Hopefully people will still want to listen to them after the election happens [laughing] and everything like that, but I wanted them to be a part of that.
AVE: As a band, are you guys working on any new material?
TG: Yeah, at this point we've just really started talking about it and getting our schedules together. Over the past two and a half years, we've been going straight non-stop without any breaks, and we have dates booked right now until mid-December. And after that, everyone is gonna go and do the whole Christmas/ New Year's thing with family. And then after that, we'll get together. And we just rented the new rehearsal space in Gainesville to start writing another record, and we'll hit that in the new year.
AVE: How did the benefit show for the Civic Media Center come about for this weekend?
TG: We usually like to make the shows we play in Gainesville benefits. I think the past, maybe, 10 shows we've played in Gainesville have been benefit shows, and we try to mix up the charities they're for. And the Civic Media Center - I used to volunteer at the Civic Media Center; I used to do shows at the Civic Media Center. Against Me! played some of its first shows in Gainesville ever at the Civic Media Center. And I really just think it, you know, totally at this point a Gainesville institution that deserves people's support, and I really think that the community would suffer should it ever go away.
