This is the transcript from an Interview I did with Wolf, a friend from Germany. I thought some pretty good points were brought up so here it is.

 *Wolf (W):* Do you agree that I record the phone interview?

 *Ryan (R):* Ok, that`s fine.

 *W:* What is political about Punk?

*R:* To me everything. I remember when I was younger a lot of kids would say that punk`s not political, it`s about having fun, it`s about the  music, it`s about the energy. When I grew up and got into it, I was like, “yeah, punk is not political, it has nothing to do with this and that, it`s just about music, having fun”, whatever. But then, if you look at the music and what`s involved, everything about it is so political, the way we put on shows, put on shows in squats or basements or a rented house. We do this so we can stay outside of the mainstream, outside of the norm, and right there, that`s a political statement, to say that we`re not going to go into these big clubs, we`re not gonna  have these guys just making money off the music, that`s not what it is about. It`s about keeping the money in this small community, in this small group of punk and hardcore, and not just like letting the money see by but having it for our scene and having it rotate around and fund what we`re doing. A lot of bands and people say that they don`t want to be a political band. But if you`re a punk or hardcore band, you really can`t avoid being a political band because you´re ultimately making an anti-music statement, an anti-authority statement, because you`re having concerts without bouncers, without big rock promotion, so it`s anti everything the mainstream is doing, and purposely making it anti, so it has to be political.

 *W:* So would you go as far as saying that punk activism, like writing  fanzines, playing in bands or organizing shows, is actually political activism?

 *R:* Yes, it is a form of political activism, because, you know, when some people are asking me what I do actively, locally, what kind of things I do for my community, I say, “well, I set up punk and hardcore shows”, I always ay that, and the reason I say that is because setting up punk and hardcore shows and community-based shows in your area is different from working for a rock club in town. This has nothing to do with the community, they do that for a job, they set up big rock concerts for a rock club. I set up punk and hardcore shows, it`s an open forum, it`s free to ten dollars, but it`s always donation-based. Nobody  involved, the people who cook the food for the band, the people who make the flyers, so on and so forth, gets paid. We`re just trying to get the band as much money as we can so they can eat, make it to the next show, enjoy their tour. So it`s a complete form of a collective, most punk and hardcore shows in the diy-world are collectives and activist movements,  because we`re setting up these shows collectively against the norm, against the mainstream. That`s it, that`s what we`re doing, we`re doing it for no money. And we`re all doing it based on anarchist ideals also.

 *W:* If you sing in your band, you address certain topics like the state of America or wars. Punks write about things like this in zines, things that transcend the microcosm of the punk scene. What`s the connection, if any, to punk?

 *R:* There`s two different kinds of bands: certain bands I see address a lot of world problems like word war, whether there is going to be a world war 3 or the war in Iraq or what`s going on in North Korea, anything. Or free trade, they address a lot of these issues that are important. But I think one of the great things about punk and hardcore for the most part is that I see a lot of bands address their direct community. And I think it is really about where you live. Wherever you live, you have to start there as far as your activism goes and as far as being political and as far as what needs to be done, you have to really look at your next-door neighbor or, you know, the scene around you within a 2- or 10- or 20-mile radius. It`s important to know what`s going on, directly. And you can make change there, and that change can benefit the people, then you can get people involved with other issues and make them aware. It is important to be aware of what`s going on in the world, in say, Germany, but it`s more important for me to know what`s going on in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live, than to know what`s going on in Germany. Even if, maybe, what`s going on in Germany could be a major world issue. It`s more about community issues.

 *W:* So do you also want to reach beyond the punk community?

 *R:* Yes, I think that`s one of the most important things that really gets missed in the punk community. I do see this a lot, for example when tour in Mexico, that guy Fernando, who set up every tour we have ever done there, would bring his family with him. And his wife would sell food at the event. If you look at Fernando or his family, they don`t necessarily look like punks. And if you walk down the street, you will maybe not think that he`s even a punk rocker, but really he is like the punkest guy I`ve ever met because his whole family is involved in setting up the shows. And then you go to the shows and there`s other people with their families, with babies at the shows. You know, I did see this in Germany and Europe a lot, too. In America, sadly, it seems like the punk and hardcore community is only the punk and hardcore community in a lot of places, and we`re really not reaching the people out in our neighborhoods. I think it is important that we do that, I think it is important that we get the people in the community involved, because I think how shows are set up and how labels are run and how all the work is done in the punk and hardcore community, is also a life lesson.I think you could learn a lot of things about life from being involved in this. The way I do everything in my life outside of punk, which is a lot of things, always comes backto what I learned from being in a punk band or involved in the punk community.

 *W: *Did you ever get a positive or negative feedback, for example when you made political comments during shows or about the state of the punk  scene or about diy? 

*R:* Oh yes, definitely. When you talk, it comes in rotations of what the scene`s like at that time. For example, 9 years ago in punk and hardcore in the US, a lot of people were talking about a lot of things at shows. Bands would play a song, they would talk, and people would listen. In the past five or six years, I´ve noticed a huge decline in that. If a band talks, you have people yelling “shut up” or “play” or “keep going, we don`t want to hear this”, you know, you hear a lot of that, whereas in the nineties, in the late nineties and stuff, there were a lot of people talking a lot. A lot of debates came out of that. Sadly enough, nowadays people are just going to hear the music, and they use it as a soundtrack for drinking or partying. To me, that`s kind of like you could get that in any subculture. What makes punk different is that we are talking about things, that we are bringing dialogue to a show. And there`s issues being brought up and people are actually discussing important issues. It is not just a soundtrack to a party, basically.

 *W:* How has Punk changed over the years since you`ve been active? According to a lot of people, there`s been a recent re-polititicazation of punk, even with bands like Green Day, which you may not consider Punk. Would you agree?

 *R:* Definitely not in the past five, six years. But now, in the past year, I definitely think it`s getting better. Just looking at the records that I bought in the past year and the new bands that I`ve checked out, I definitely think that there are more bands bringing up important issues and that we are getting back to the more political or community-oriented, meaningful, honest and energetic kind of punk and hardcore scenes that I did see in the era between 1998 and 2002 with bands like What Happens Next or My Fault or Tear It Up. I think we`ve lost that over the years but people are attempting to bring it back. I definitely think there some great new bands out there.

 *W:* What is the background of bands getting back to more political standpoints, what is the context? Is it the political climate of the US or are they just fed up with the scene?

*R:* I think it has a lot to do with, and I don`t know if it`s like that in Europe, a huge insurgence of people getting back to that early 1980s sound and mentality over the past six years or so. I have even seen bands with members that are 19 or 20 years old – nothing wrong with being young -, but they were singing about Ronald Reagan. And Ronald Reagan has little to nothing to do with someone who`s 19 or 20 years old. It has had a lot to do with real serious political situations over the years, but right now for someone who is 19 or 20 or even someone like me, there are more important issues than just trying to sing about Ronal Reagan. Singing about Ronald Reagan was an 80s thing and a lot of people want to be nostalgic and a lot of these older bands of the 80s were getting back together and this was building a mentality of basically living in the past. And bands who are recording are trying to sound like that and they`re trying to put albums out that lock like that and people really won`t be addressing new issues. I always notice when this is all going on, there was a burning in some of the people who want to start something more and I think a lot of those people who wanted to start something more in the last couple years, they have. And I`m just seeing more bands popping up, and I`m just seeing more community-based bands happening. Like the last tour I went on, with my band Positive Noise, it was a 10-day tour of the East Coast, and I felt it was the best tour in years. And we are not a well-known band. People were really nice , the shows were really well set up, a lot of the bands we played had something to say. And we just recently were at a fest where we played and the first three bands all had something really good to say about different issues and also kept up the energy and the excitement of punk and also did a sound that wasn`t necessarily new, but it gave a new energy. Punk does have that three-chord sound to it, sort of hardcore, but if you play it differently, with a new form of energy, it`s different and it`s new.

 *W:* Would you say that, because you mentioned Reagan, that the presidency of George Bush had an impact on punk rock similar to when the conservative Reagan-administration was in power?

 * R:* Yes, definitely. I think that Punk and Hardcore, it`s been said and I think that it is somewhat true, that when we have a more fucked-up government, the people in the punk and hardcore scene seem to be better and seem to be more angry. But I have to say, like I said, between 1998 and 2002 there was some really great honest and energetic hardcore coming out, honestly the best I felt maybe that has ever been. We had Clinton and then we were going into Bush, and in the eight years of Bush, for the first couple years, I felt like, I definitely think it fueled someone, but for some reason I don`t think there were as many angry hardcore and punk bands pissed off about what was going on in the past six years. I feel that maybe now that Bush is out of office, maybe it has caught up and maybe that`s because we have more people now that are more like, “man the last 8 years were really fucked-up”, because when I talk to some people who were around in the Reagan era and lived through it in their teen years and went to shows then, they said that George Bush is much worse. It has been a much worse 8 years with Bush than it was with Ronald Reagan. I have seen a lot of anger, too, and I think a lot of people are coming back to that because of that. But things are a little bit different now that we have Barack Obama in office because here in America, every day there was something crazy going on with Bush. Every day you`d hear that Bush did or said something stupid, and this really angered people. We don`t really read that about Barack Obama as much, if at all, because he is not screwing up every day. 

*W:* Does the Punk scene in Grand Rapids, and I don`t know how big it is and if you have a real radical political scene, but does the punk scene  have connections to the political scene?

 *R:* The state of Michigan is not a small state, but all the major cities here are pretty much all relatively close to each other.  Detroit, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids are all pretty close to each other. So we don`t have a huge punk scene, but we have a lot of bands.  Sadly enough, our economy is very bad in Michigan, it`s one of the worst economies in the country. It probably is the worst economy in the country. This, over the years, especially right now, has developed into a lot of apathy and a lot of people that just don`t care because they can`t pay their bills. They don`t know when they`re gonna eat next, and a lot of people have turned to alcohol and drugs. And you see a lot of alcohol and drug use. You see a lot of people just trying to basically numb their minds enough to get by. And so a lot of the things that are political with punk sadly don`t really exist too much here. But on the other hand there is, when I first moved here I started…. I always did everything with punk and hardcore kids before I got here. Four years ago, when I moved here, because of that I actually became involved with non-punk people. There`s a collective show space here called the DAAC, it`s a collective art and show space, it`s very reminiscent of something you`d see in Europe, ran collectiveley, different bands playing. When I became a member when I moved here, I was the only punk person in their collective meetings, which to me was very strange. There`s also a collective like bookstore/lending library that we have here, and there`s no punks involved with that either which is strange if you live in a decently large city. Me included, I am not involved, but I do think it`s a great place. So that`s very strange too. And I`m a member of a screen-printing-collective and there`s no punks involved with that. So it`s people outside the punk community who are the active ones. I don`t know if it`s the economy, if it`s a depressive state, I don`t know if it`s the alcoholism – we have a big problem here, everything is based around drinking and partying. You have a party, you get a lot of people. But when I do shows at, say, the collective space I was speaking about, I get a very low turnout.

 *W:* I thought Grand Rapids had a bigger scene!

 *R:* Michigan has a big scene, we have many bands, many kids, but we should be doing a lot more than what we are doing, and we have a lot of very good outlets. In a lot of places like Detroit or Ann Arbor, they don`t have many venues. The scene is hard to organize and very separate. And also the economy is worse in places like Detroit. So that makes things harder. But here we have a lot of outlets, and slowly but surely it`s getting better and better, because we do have the bands, we do have the kids. I do the things I do locally and just hope that it is gonna get better and better.

 *W:* It´s a bit like in Munich where I live, we have a couple of good places but it`s always the same persons showing up.

 *R:* Yes, and one cool thing about here can be, because I`m involved, with people outside the punk community who aren’t necessarily into the music, they`re were into the idea. So when sometimes I do shows, people who aren`t necessarily into the band that is playing, they`ll come and pay the money and hang out and see what is going on just because they`re interested in the politics behind it, which can be good. I`m always a fan of people getting it. Because it is more than music, it`s way more than music. So if someone comes in and is like “this is really great, this is really cool, I`m gonna cook some food” or… you know, one of the people I was speaking about brought some food for the band and he was like “here, I didn`t have money for the show but I cooked this food for the band”, I`m like “that`s great”, that means he understands how this works.

 *W:* Right, that`s some kind of community outreach, going beyond the scene and influencing other people.

 *R:* Yes, definitely.

 *W:* When you became a member of the scene or joined the scene, how did you learn about the politics of the scene, what kind of process has made you a political punk? Were you political person before that?

 *R:* Basically, it was when I was starting putting on punk shows between the ages of 16 and 18 in the small town I grew up in. And when I was between the ages of 18 and 20, there was a lot of partying going on, we were still doing shows, but we were partying a lot. We were drinking and doing drugs and hanging out. It was fun, but it wasn`t sustainable and I couldn`t see it as lasting. And when I turned 21 years old, here in America, when you turn 21, you`re allowed to drink in bars. And if that happens here, a lot of things change with a lot of your friends. They start growing up and they start going to bars exclusively. So when I was 20 I noticed a lot of my friends, our groups we were partying and hanging out and putting on shows with, it was disappearing. So when I was almost 21, I decided to quit the drinking and everything, because I wanted more, I wanted to be in more bands, I wanted to be on tour, I was starting my label and so I just quit it all, which took my life into a complete whirlwind, you know, everything changed around me, the parties weren`t fun because I wasn`t drunk, the people I thought were interesting weren`t interesting anymore and I started meeting people that were giving me books and telling me about things, about protests, and telling me about bands that I never knew or did know or never really listened to much. In my teen years, punk and hardcore were huge and I listened to a lot of music, but I truly feel that I started feeling that music more real when I took a step back from the party and I was like “wow, this really has something behind it!”. And that`s when it became… I could have been one of those people who are in the punk community from 14-20, who just kind of like went to some shows, helped out or did some shows, but then moved on. But because I stepped away from it and looked at it in a more real, sober way, I was able to notice that this is sustainable for the rest of my life and this is gonna get me involved with things that are gonna change my life. And from there on I met people who were vegetarian and I met people who were vegan and I was like “wow, this is the way to be”. And then getting into veganism set me into a whole new world. I was learning how to cook and how to feed myself. I was learning how to be sustainable and I was learning about some bands and really had to set up shows and cook for bands and getting people involved and starting collectives, doing spaces. And from there on it was just constant. Still today, I`m 32 years old, I`m learning more and more from young kids, kids that are 17 or 18 that are showing me new ways to do things and new ways to start collectives. Ever since I stepped away from it and looked at it, it was just all these things were opened up to me, all these books and people and bands and everything

 W: Thank you! Do you have anything more to say?

 *R:* No, just thanks for the interview!