{"id":5017,"date":"2012-08-31T09:17:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T15:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=5017"},"modified":"2012-08-31T09:17:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T15:17:00","slug":"propagandhi-rec-hockey-and-failed-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/08\/31\/propagandhi-rec-hockey-and-failed-states\/","title":{"rendered":"Propagandhi :: Rec hockey and Failed States"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

\nby Sheldon Birnie<\/strong><\/p>\n

On September 4th, Epitaph Records will release Propagandhi\u2019s sixth studio album<\/a>, giving heavy hitting music fans a few months to enjoy headbanging along with it before constricting economic and geo-political realities propel our society into its final phase or, alternately, \u201cNibiru comes flying out of the Oort cloud and annihilates Earth in late December.\u201d Over a couple beers on a blistering hot July afternoon, Chris Hannah sat down with Stylus to<\/em> chat about rec hockey, the state of the world, and the new record.
\n\u201cAfter the last record [2009\u2019s Supporting Caste<\/em>] we did a year and a half, almost two years of touring,\u201d Hannah explained. \u201cAs soon as we got home, we just started, we really hunkered down. I think the songs got written in a year. We recorded in a month and a few weeks. It\u2019s the fastest we\u2019ve ever done it. Probably because we don\u2019t usually bear down and do it. We usually do it piecemeal, lazy fashion. But this time we were like, let\u2019s just fucking do it.\u201d
\nFucking do it they did, judging by the title track<\/a>, which was released online in mid-July. A rager in the tradition of classic Propagandhi ragers, the tune clocks in at just under two minutes long. While of course nodding the hat to failed nation-states, Hannah explained that \u201cFailed States\u201d is focused closer to home.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s the state of consciousness, and a failed state of consciousness.\u201d
\n\u201cThere are a few more abstract thoughts about us as people and human nature on the record,\u201d he continued. \u201cI guess some of that might be inspired by reading some stuff like Chris Hedges<\/a>, where some of his work talks about how we need to accept that we are imperfect, and that darkness exists in everybody. There\u2019s no need to seek perfection. When you do, it turns into a nightmare. You see it over and over. When we build institutions to perfect technology or humanity or whatever, it always ends in disaster. So the institutions that we build should be there to bring out the best in us, and to discourage the worst in us.\u201d
\nHoping to get some more insight into the as-yet-unheard tunes, Stylus<\/em> wonders if maybe the album as a whole can fit into that theme, one where geo-political states have not only failed us as citizens, but the world as a whole? Hannah reassures us the whole album isn\u2019t doom and gloom.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a song on there called \u2018Things I Like,\u2019 which is literally an itemized list of things I like,\u201d he says with a smile. \u201cThe song turned out really cool. I guess that\u2019s sort of off the beaten path for us. Although the last word in the song is \u2018doom\u2019 still, now that I\u2019m thinking about it.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s hard to keep doom off of one\u2019s mind in times like ours, where our federal government is busy dismantling social and environmental infrastructure that has been at the forefront of developed nations for years (see Old Age Security<\/a> and the Experimental Lakes Area<\/a> for two examples among countless others). As the father of a young child, Hannah has seen intellectual truths his band has been singing about for years transformed into concerns that are far more pressing than he\u2019d previously imagined.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t understand how those guys,\u201d he says, shaking his head, \u201chow Stephen Harper himself doesn\u2019t worry for his children. I mean, if he thinks putting his family in a gated community is going to save them from what\u2019s coming… Which could be within our lifetimes, a total disintegration of social order as we know it, from ecological catastrophe.\u201d
\n\u201cBut I don\u2019t know what to do about it,\u201d he admits. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to tell my son when he\u2019s older, and he goes, \u2018So your response to ecological insanity, war, patriarchy, rape culture, animal exploitation, was to start a band?\u2019\u201d
\nStarting a band that has been going strong for over 20 years, engaging fans across the world in an ongoing dialogue about those issues, though, is a far cry from sitting on one\u2019s hands and ignoring the world\u2019s problems altogether. While Hannah might not feel that he is as engaged as he should be, through Propagandhi\u2019s six albums the band has helped to radicalize and engage thousands of bewildered and unwashed youth over the years.
\nWith the release of Failed States <\/em>on Epitaph<\/a>, the band\u2019s doom-laden, but ultimately hopeful message may have a chance at reaching its largest audience yet. However, Hannah admits he and his bandmates may have been skeptical at first about signing with such a relatively large American label.
\n\u201cAs a band, we\u2019re pretty gun-shy of big American indie labels,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then I talked to John Samson<\/a> from the Weakerthans and he gave this totally honest, very positive report. I thought, \u2018Wow, that\u2019s interesting.\u2019 I talked to Kurt Ballou from Converge<\/a>, and he was like, \u2018Yeah, it\u2019s awesome.\u2019\u201d
\nTo date, Hannah says the working relationship with Epitaph has been purely positive. \u201cThere\u2019s been no false advertising,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re very artist friendly, very respectful, and they did a good job.\u201d
\nFollowing the September 4th release of Failed States<\/em>, Propagandhi are hitting the road hard with fellow Winnipeggers Comeback Kid<\/a> for a month of dates along the East Coast of the US and Canada. Stylus<\/em> asked Hannah, a rec hockey fanatic and third-line grinder for ASHL\u2019s Caress of Steel, how the tour will affect his season.
\n\u201cI\u2019m bracing myself for missing up to eight games of the 32 game season with Caress of Steel, which is huge. That\u2019s a huge amount to miss,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ll make it work. I\u2019ll probably take my gear on the road and book ice time. There\u2019s some guys who do that in bands. We\u2019ve never done that before, but fuck, it sounds amazing to me. Beave\u2019ll probably bring his. One of our road crew guys plays hockey. We\u2019ll make it work.\u201d
\nPick up Propagandhi\u2019s <\/em>Failed States September 4, 2012 at your favourite independent music retailer in Winnipeg.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Sheldon Birnie On September 4th, Epitaph Records will release Propagandhi\u2019s sixth studio album, giving heavy hitting music fans a few months to enjoy headbanging along with it before constricting economic and geo-political realities propel our society into its final phase or, alternately, \u201cNibiru comes flying out of the Oort cloud and annihilates Earth in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[321,436,563,760],"class_list":["post-5017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-epitaph","tag-hockey","tag-local","tag-propagandhi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}