Onstage, you’re not shy about speaking to the crowd about issues like immigration or mental health or any of these things. How important is it to you to take that time during the show to talk to people?
It’s tricky because sometimes I feel like the best thing to do is just kind of let the music speak for itself. Overall, I think it’s good to say a little something because it gives some more context. I think we take this platform of being onstage very seriously and we want to push certain causes, but we want to do it in a way that’s encouraging dialogue about certain things. Whether that is sexual harassment at shows or in the music industry, or talking about mental illness and depression. And then there’s stuff where we can’t believe our country is doing it, like the separating of kids and their parents on our Southern border. It’s mostly music, but there’s a few times during a show where we might take 20 seconds just to say something.
Your tourmates Nahko and Medicine for the People are politically minded as well. Did you have a chance to hang out with them?
Yeah, we hung out all of the time. We just went to a juvenile detention center in Florida, and played a few songs. We’d been to Pine Ridge Reservation. There’s definitely some overlap.
I think Brad and I both want to be carrying on the folk tradition of playing protest music, talking about things that are out there in the world today that are troubling, and places where our country could do better and injustices.
Playing a juvenile detention center in Florida, how did that come about?
Nahko’s violinist Tim [Snider] had done it before and knew this lady who goes into the prison system once a week and plays hand drums with the kids. There were twelve of us that went. Kind of like a super band: Nahko’s band and all of Dispatch, so it was crazy. The prison system is so fucked up in this country, and it’s just exasperating the problem. It’s not educating or rehabilitating. These kids will come out and they’ve only gotten angrier.
Were you able to lift some spirits?
We played a couple Dispatch tunes and a couple Nahko tunes that seemed appropriate. A lot of the kids were just like, “Who the fuck are these guys?” But there was that every seventh or eighth kid that was really watching. This is crazy, but I don’t think any of them had seen live music before. So it is wild for them to have this motley crew of musicians cruise into their world for the hour.
It’s a very layered and complex issue.
Playing live, are there any new songs that you feel are really getting a response from the crowd?
We’ve been ending all of the shows with “Letter to Lady J” which is a letter to Lady Justice, which isn’t even released yet. It’s the most political and Nahko mentioned how much he loved it and it has this rallying sense to it.
Nahko and Medicine For The People join us, and Raye Zaragoza, who was on this tour, joins us. So it’s just this super band and we all end it with that tune. So that one’s been really good.
Do you want fans to view it as a double album with your previous LP America: Location 12 ?
It’s kind of a double album, but double albums are a little ridiculous in today’s day and age. So it’s more like a sequel.
Currently, there’s no set album release date. Any big plans in the works for a record release show?
We end in Boston on September 21, and then we we’ll have some time off and right around when the album gets released I think we’re gonna do a few shows in the Midwest. So that’s a plan right now and you know, it’s always fun to get the whole team together when there are these releases. Maybe we’ll do like a big party in the barn or something.
Lastly, tell me about the Participation Row you have set up on the tour.
We have a just a little station within each venue that we create every night and it covers a few different causes. HeadCount is there and Reverb is there, helping to green the tour. We have gun safety initiatives and partnerships with the Brady Campaign. We also have a mental wellness area to kind of honor Pete [Francis] who was in our original three, who hasn’t been touring with us this last couple of years.
We’ve been doing some bystander training. At the venues, our friend Kim gives this training that we’ve all been through. Like, “Here are some tools to use when you do see something fucked up happening.” That’s something that this industry has been pretty slow on, at every show there’s shit going down. And we feel really fired up about it: trying to get this industry music industry to get in front of [assault at shows]. I think that makes the whole thing much more fulfilling for Brad and I. It just makes for a more a rounder experience.
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