Their new record, which hit stores on the third anniversary of the Gulf War, For Blood and Empire was complex for many reasons. First off, it marked Anti-Flag's move to "corporate" America, signing with RCA, which garnered a whole lot of raised eyebrows from diehard fans. The band assured us that nothing would change, it was simply a way for their message to be heard by many more ears. RCA gave them the freedom of speech and For Blood and Empire is one of the band's strongest records to date. It's got strong political messages, opinions are outcries, but it also had a lot of pop sensibility without losing the punk grit that make Anti-Flag who they are.

Popular Underground Magazine had a chance to chat with drummer Pat Thetic, about three months before the release of the new record. He was candid about everything Anti-Flag and below are some things you should definitely think about.

Popular Underground Magazine: You've been in Chicago for a couple days now, have you done anything interesting or eaten any good food?
Pat Thetic: Yeah, yesterday and today. I know there is good food in Chicago, but I'm too lazy to go out so I just ate almonds and raisins in my room. A couple of the guys are vegans.

PUM: So after the holidays, you guys are going overseas.
Pat Thetic: We're going back to Europe. We'll tour for 10 days in Europe.

PUM: How do the fans at those shows react to your message?
Pat Thetic: Well, it's interesting. You go to other countries and play rock shows and it's all pretty much the same. The community of people, whether they're in Germany or France or in the U.S., the are all people that are socially [and] politically on the same level. They're all looking for something better and these borders that are all put up around us that say you're different than "this" person... They make you realize how stupid borders are and how stupid nationality and stuff like that is when you're playing rock shows.

PUM: I was reading in an Interview that you did with a Canadian-based site and you were talking about that you guys want to put out the music that you want to put out. You mentioned that RCA gave you the freedom to do that more-or-less...
Pat Thetic: They completely did.

PUM: You said that you had the "power to deal with that."" What is that power?
Pat Thetic: Well, we have the power to do what we want to do and that's the bottom line. What happens is a lot of young bands sign with companies that are a lot larger than they are and what happens is the company says well, "I'm bigger than you, you do what I tell you to do." We are in a position that we came to the table large enough to say "fuck you, this is how we do things, either take it or leave it." And they were willing to take it. So we can create the music we want to and that's the only way we were doing it.

PUM: So in a way you guys had an advantage in that situation.
Pat Thetic: Oh we definitely had an advantage. Most bands that go into that situation are at a very great disadvantage. We went in and had a lot of power.

PUM: When you guys made it public that you were signing with RCA, a lot of your fans were grumbling about it. How did you guys react to that?
Pat Thetic: We come from a group who always though majors are very in control of bands so we are very aware of that. We expected that to happen. We had our eyes open when we made the decision. How we deal with it is to just talk to people and explain to them that our views, our message, our ideas are not changing. We've been doing this for a long time, there's been a lot of people who have said "if you just do it this way or that way, you'd be so much better," and we don't buy that. That's not who we are. We chose this because we believe in it and we're confident in our decision.

PUM: Was there anything that ever happened when you were younger that made you want to be so active politically with your message?
Pat Thetic: Yeah, on the level that we're at; when we were young we went to a protest and you look around and you just see the power of the people organized in a group and we realized that's an amazingly powerful thing. To be able to use that power and be able to say, "this can really have an impact." I was like, "this is great, how do we achieve it?" Because if I feel this way and the guy next to me feels this way and the girl on the other side... This world of pompous, this world of greed and this world of work all the time for corporations is just crap. We can make a different world and that's an amazing thing.

PUM: What can we expect from the new record, For Blood and Empire?
Pat Thetic: It will rawk your ass off. You ass will be completely on the ground. No, it's a great record. It sounds great, the ideas and focus we were tackling and talking about issuea that are very important to us.

PUM: Looking at a March release?
Pat Thetic: Yeah, March 21st. The third anniversary of the Gulf War.

PUM: No you guys do a lot of work outside of Anti-Flag with A-F Records and the other organizations that you're involved with, how do you juggle all of that?
Pat Thetic: It's very difficult. We really can't. We're incapable of doing it. We have some amazing people working with us. That's another part of who we are is that we have an amazing community of people who believe in the same things we do. They help us to achieve goals and they come in and say, "hey, let's do this."

PUM: You have very strong message on your records, on stage, I saw you a couple years ago on Warped Tour and you were quite outward about your opinions regarding George W. Bush. Do you ever receive any repercussions from the government or the law?
Pat Thetic: For sure. Not so much government or the law, it's much less now that it ever was. Ten years ago when we were making statements like this people wanted to kick our asses. It's definitely been less than it used to be. When we were young we wouldn't get our mail all the time and I don't know if that's because the Post Office sucked or because other people were ripping it up. Now, we don't have as many problems.

PUM: If you had 90 seconds on any national news channel, at a prime time spot and you could use that 90 seconds to say something to the world, what would you say?
Pat Thetic: I would say that a government that authorizes and allows torture and does not categorically and completely say that torture should be unacceptable, is a government that is not about people it's about power. There is no justifiable reason to torture somebody. All the information you get from torturing somebody...It's never right. If you think that you can achieve something by torturing somebody, you are morally fucked up and you should not have position in power.

PUM: Back when Bush was up for reelection you were trying to inform people about why he should not be reelected, but now that he made it into office, what sort of things are you tackling?
Pat Thetic: We started militaryfreezone.org, which is an organization that is trying to get people aware of the fact that in the No Child Left Behind legislation, people have to give up their records to military recruiters. Not only is that an invasion of privacy to the students, it's also completely fucked up because the schooling system should not be a funnel to put people in the military. It should be about learning alternatives to violent conflict, not about seeking out ways to get young people in wars. The record; we're talking about issues like the war, a book called Confessions of an Economic Hitman, the views of women in society and their view on commercial society of breast implants, all that crap. We're tackling a lot of different issues. Yeah, the election was definitely a focus right before that, but it was worth giving it a shot?

PUM: What's more important to you guys, the music or the message?
Pat Thetic: I think they're both very important. Nobody cares about the message from the four dudes in Anti-Flag unless they're playing music. We've been able to put the two things together so people are interested in the music and then the message is another element of what we're all about. We are most powerful when we are on stage as a rock band.

PUM: If you weren't in Anti-Flag what would you be doing?
Pat Thetic: Billie Joe from Green Day in an interview [in the Bullet in a Bible DVD] said there's nothing in life he could do outside of Green Day because his whole life is Green Day. In many ways that's how we are because everybody around us is trying to achieve these goals. Whether it's the record company or whether it's the political organizations; we're all working toward something. Even if the band was out of that equation, we would still be working toward those goals, it would just be much more difficult.

PUM: If someone walks up to you and gives you $50 in cash, what would you do with it? And you can't give it back to them.
Pat Thetic: Ummm, I'd take it and give it to somebody else. One of the great things about what we do is; there are people around us that need money and we can distribute that from one place to another, a lot of great organizations. That's a bit of a puss answer that probably everybody says. I would go out any buy a vegan dinner for all the dudes that I know. It probably wouldn't get me very far, I'd have to add to it.

PUM: What's your favorite Vegan food?
Pat Thetic: I do like the tofu. I'm a big fan of sweet and sour tofu, that's good stuff.

PUM: Do you have anything you'd like to add?
Pat Thetic: Yeah, if you get a chance, check out militaryfreezone.org and opt out if you're in school. It's not just in high school, but it's also in colleges that they receive federal funding. And stand up and say no to torture. If they start wars and there's no one there to fight them then they can't have the wars.