Flobots :: outtakes

With four shows and numerous appearances at rallies during DNC week, Flobots were everywhere, and they were gracious in taking photos with fans and talking to interviewers. Random quotes from the week:

BRER RABBIT:
_ Before the Iraq Veterans Against the War protest march: "I'm not looking to be arrested at all. I've spent a good part of my life trying not to be arrested. When I turned 25, we celebrated that I wasn't arrested. Just because the statistics for African-Americans..."
_ Only time he's been tear-gased: After the Broncos won the Super Bowl, the first time
_ He turned 30 on the road, in Minnesota.
_ Flobots started out as a high school project with something like 8 MCs. The first album was a cassette tape called "Masters of the Universe," "Which I refused to be on," he says. "All the cats had a jam session. I missed it because I was doing something responsible like homework. They came up and they were like, we came up with the best name ever. FLOBOTS! I said, That's the dumbest thing I ever heard of in my life! I refused to be involved because I was bitter."

Jesse talks with a bud:



_ They've gone in to Northglenn high School to work with kids on music. Also Denver Children's Home.
_ Their ascent: KTCL-FM started playing "Handlebars." It made the local rotation. Then in a contest, that song was one of the ones up for people's vote. Nerf at KTCL said the phones rang off the hook asking about the song. He'd never seen a reaction to a local song like that before. It was the same story around the country as stations would play it. "It's the people that made the difference in us blowing up," says guitarist Andy.

JONNY 5:
_ There's a Langston Hughes poem, "Let America be America Again." It says
"Let America be America again / Let it be the dream it used to be."
We're not going to wait for America to be America again. We're going to build a different kind of country...
_ On his vision for a different America: Imagine if the U.S. were seen as a resource around global peacemaking. We've invested a lot of resources toward war. What if we invested in a department of peace. It sounds weird but ...