After more than 20 years of silence, the leg­endary punk band Jaw­break­er reunit­ed this Sep­tem­ber to head­line Riot Fest, where they played their grit­ty, melod­ic songs as a packed crowd shout­ed along. The charged atmos­phere in Chicago’s Dou­glas Park also resound­ed with the band’s bold, rad­i­cal polit­i­cal state­ments — point­ing towards a ​“rev­o­lu­tion­ary spir­it” as a nec­es­sary anti­dote to Trumpism.

I don’t think of us as having a political legacy, other than living well and responsibly—that we’re conscientious people. I’d love for that to be a takeaway later on.

“Every­one call into work tomor­row, because gen­er­al strike, fuck this coun­try,” said Blake Schwarzen­bach, Jawbreaker’s singer and gui­tar play­er, address­ing many thou­sands of fans gath­ered in front of the large, out­door stage. Wear­ing a black T‑shirt read­ing, ​“Gaza on my mind” in Eng­lish and Ara­bic, Blake denounced the ​“hell scape we are all liv­ing in, in this moment of total sex­ism, total racism, total cor­po­rate cap­i­tal­ist shit.” He thanked the crowd for ​“sup­port­ing art and resis­tance.” Mean­while, bassist Chris Bauer­meis­ter played the show wear­ing an orange ​“Antifas­cist Action” T‑shirt.

These were no small ges­tures. The band, which broke up 21 years ago, has a cult fol­low­ing, and many of its fans had nev­er seen them play live. Their Chica­go per­for­mance, in addi­tion to two small­er shows in Cal­i­for­nia, fol­lowed years of rumors that there would be a reunion. Jaw­break­er head­lined after major acts, includ­ing Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age and Prophets of Rage.

I spoke with Blake about why a band not known for on-the-nose polit­i­cal state­ments decid­ed to use this high­ly-antic­i­pat­ed show and giant plat­form to voice rad­i­cal polit­i­cal mes­sages. Rather than present him­self as an expert or author­i­ty, Blake said that he did it ​“on the fly, like a liv­ing per­son.” Here is our con­ver­sa­tion about art, punk, poet­ry, Pales­tine and the moral imper­a­tive to reject fascism.

Sarah Lazare: Thanks for being up for doing this interview.

Blake Schwarzen­bach: Hey, I’ve been silent for 20 years.

Sarah: As I men­tioned before, this will pri­mar­i­ly be polit­i­cal, not your usu­al rock inter­view. I want to give you a chance to explain or expand on any polit­i­cal state­ments you were aim­ing to make at your show in Chicago.

Blake: I will do my best. I’m not real­ly a pub­lic fig­ure, you know, oth­er than play­ing music.

Sarah: You’re more pub­lic than most of us.

Blake: You wouldn’t know that to see how I live. I’m just a cit­i­zen, you know.

Sarah: I know you recent­ly did an inter­view with Brook­lyn­Ve­g­an about how it’s been hard for you to get a job as a dog walk­er in this hor­ri­ble economy.

Blake: I felt bad about that, because I felt it came off as dis­parag­ing to dog walk­ers. I want­ed that job, I think that’s a great job. Tak­en as a pull quote, it seemed a bit dismissive.

Sarah: I just took it as a state­ment about how bleak and pre­car­i­ous the econ­o­my is.

Blake: Yeah, I think it is, if you don’t devote your life to being employ­able. I have a very sus­pect resume, I think, because of these enor­mous gaps in it where I try to claim I made music. That was my job, and I don’t think they real­ly buy that in human resources.

Sarah: I’ve lis­tened to Jaw­break­er more than half my life and was excit­ed by how many overt­ly polit­i­cal, rad­i­cal state­ments you made dur­ing your show. I’m think­ing of your ​“Gaza on my mind” shirt and Chris’s ​“Antifas­cist Action” shirt, as well as state­ments about the much-need­ed rev­o­lu­tion­ary spir­it in the face of total sex­ism, racism and cor­po­rate cap­i­tal­ism. I’d love to give you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to explain what your aims were, if you had any, in express­ing polit­i­cal views at your show.

Blake: I thought that wear­ing some­thing would prob­a­bly be the best way to do it, because everybody’s talk­ing, and I didn’t want to waste that plat­form. I knew it was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to express some kind of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the rest of the world — the whole rest of the world. I’m so tired of speechi­fy­ing. I’m also aware of being from a place of priv­i­lege in my own way, as a band, I didn’t think the world need­ed a lec­ture on fem­i­nism or racism from a pow­er trio that’s white. I didn’t pre­pare any remarks, but I think we all want­ed to do our lit­tle part to acknowl­edge we had a lot of space and a big micro­phone for a minute. So I did it on the fly, like a liv­ing person.

Sarah: Have you done any activism or orga­niz­ing around Pales­tine sol­i­dar­i­ty or Gaza?



Blake: No. I’ve spo­ken at anti-war events, I’ve attend­ed ral­lies. But I don’t know, I haven’t been inclined to be a full-time activist. I sup­port what I can, and I do it through books that I look at and read. I guess it’s a kind of liv­ing activism that I admire in oth­ers, where it’s a part of your life and not such a big pub­lic expression.

Sarah: Do you think now is an impor­tant time for artists and musi­cians to make polit­i­cal state­ments, in light of Trump­ism, cli­mate chaos, mass depor­ta­tions and the fact that orga­nized white suprema­cist mili­tias have a direct line to the White House?

Blake: I think it’s always a good time for that. I wish peo­ple were bet­ter at it. I find most lec­tures at shows feel like just that. It’s very rare that you find an artist that is liv­ing their rev­o­lu­tion­ary ethos. An artist who doesn’t have to tell: Those are the ones who inspire me in the long-term. Until we have anoth­er Fugazi or some­thing, I don’t know how it’s going to hap­pen on the stage.

As I get old­er, I get a lit­tle less explic­it. I like sly rad­i­cal­ism. I always think of Leonard Cohen, because I think he’s a very sly rad­i­cal. He was say­ing things that were philo­soph­i­cal and reach real­ly deep if you take them on.

We played imme­di­ate­ly after Prophets of Rage, an explic­it­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary group. They do that very effec­tive­ly. They’re a giant pro­pa­gan­da machine, in a way, for their ide­ol­o­gy. That polit­i­cal­ly says noth­ing to me. I don’t know what to do with that kind of rhetoric. I’m all for ​“pow­er to the peo­ple” and every­thing. I love Chuck D, I grew up lis­ten­ing to his music. But it was a lit­tle intim­i­dat­ing for us, com­ing on right after that. This is a band fir­ing on all cylin­ders, fir­ing peo­ple up. And then it’s an inter­est­ing tran­si­tion to our act, which is kind of no act. It made me think a lot of how we ped­dle resis­tance and express the wish for it. I don’t have an answer for that yet. I think good writ­ing does it. It’s just slow­er — slow­er than we want.

Sarah: Can you explain what you mean about sly radicalism?

Blake: Well, poet­ry is what I stud­ied for­mal­ly, and that’s where I learned to appre­ci­ate that. It’s a form that doesn’t real­ly help you very much. It doesn’t hold your hand through a rev­o­lu­tion­ary process with lan­guage and ideas. The poets I stud­ied were the sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion roman­tics, like Per­cy Bysshe Shel­ley, who was quite rad­i­cal in his think­ing and a total­ly com­plex, fucked up per­son in his own life. I grew to real­ly appre­ci­ate work that makes you work.

Anoth­er per­son just off the top of my head — some­one I found real­ly gal­va­niz­ing when I encoun­tered her work — is Anne Car­son, the poet. She also has this com­plete­ly wild body of work that has no overt polit­i­cal con­tent to it. And yet, she com­plete­ly rethinks rela­tion­ships and gen­der and cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion just through her rig­or­ous poet­ic work and per­for­mance art. I saw her per­form once. She did a show called ​“Stacks.” It was just her and her part­ners build­ing piles of things on stage while she incant­ed this incred­i­ble poet­ic litany. And it was com­plete­ly about Sep­tem­ber 11 for me. That was nev­er said in any way, it was kind of this ter­ri­fy­ing, beau­ti­ful spec­ta­cle. And I just thought, ​“That’s a mem­o­ry I’m going to car­ry with me for a long time and draw from.”

That’s anoth­er exam­ple of some­one express­ing her­self oblique­ly and sub­tly. I’m going to car­ry that for longer than I’m going to car­ry a per­fect posi­tion paper.

Sarah: As we saw at your show in Chica­go, you have many ador­ing fans. Are you want­i­ng to find ways to express pol­i­tics that encour­age peo­ple not just to fol­low you, but to think?

Blake: I do it self­ish­ly too, because I want to be engaged in the process. If I’m not being intel­li­gent about it, it’s going to get flat real­ly quick­ly. I’ve known plen­ty of bull­shit artists over the years, where their bands say all the right things but live in ways that are very out of step of their rhetoric. I am vis­cer­al­ly resis­tant to that. I don’t want to be that guy. We have that guy in office, we have that guy every­where in Amer­i­ca. I want to do my best to not be that person.

I don’t want to be the guy who uses that for cul­tur­al cache. It’s kind of play­ing at a pop­u­lar­i­ty con­test. That’s already going on. That’s our cul­ture right now. I don’t see that as a cre­ative endeav­or. It seems emp­ty and unpro­duc­tive. It’s a short con.

Sarah: What do you con­sid­er Jawbreaker’s polit­i­cal lega­cy to be? Or, if it’s hard to think in terms of lega­cies, feel free to push back on that.

Blake: I don’t think of us as hav­ing a polit­i­cal lega­cy, oth­er than liv­ing well and respon­si­bly — that we’re con­sci­en­tious peo­ple. I’d love for that to be a take­away lat­er on. There were a lot of things we didn’t do, because we didn’t feel good about it or in the right space emotionally.

Jawbreaker’s a pret­ty psy­cho­log­i­cal band. We’re all con­cerned with men­tal health. That’s a big issue for me, per­son­al­ly. One of the things we’ve always been about is the way the mind works. Depres­sion, anx­i­ety, frus­tra­tion — those are themes from the ear­li­est songs. That doesn’t always have an overt polit­i­cal spin to it. But if you are unwell, if you’re men­tal­ly unsta­ble and thrown into soci­ety in a very raw way, it is quick­ly polit­i­cal and financial.

Per­son­al­ly I’ve strug­gled with my own men­tal health for a long time and had to learn how to take care of myself, luck­i­ly with some real­ly good friends and fam­i­ly, but unluck­i­ly in some insti­tu­tions and sys­tems that were very unhelp­ful. I tend to write from that space, about try­ing to find your place in this world, with those challenges.

Jaw­break­er bassist Chris Bauer­meis­ter wars an ​“Antifas­cist Action” T‑shirt. (Ali­son Green)

Sarah: It seems that we can’t sep­a­rate per­son­al men­tal health and well­ness from soci­ety, at a time when com­mu­ni­ties are under attack and the front lines are everywhere.

Any­ways, when you made your state­ments, you had a giant platform.

Blake: Yeah. I don’t go to fes­ti­vals that often. I have played two now. I’m lucky to have played two that were real­ly fun. I was just hap­py to see peo­ple enjoy­ing music. It’s such a rare thing these days. Live music is now the entire indus­try, so that’s one weird part of it. All these bands have to make their liv­ing, not by record­ing or writ­ing, but by per­form­ing. Clubs and venues have become this whole oth­er mas­sive indus­try. In New York, every show is sold out by neces­si­ty I think. So it’s always kind of a do-or-die event, and the amount of inher­ent cap­i­tal­ist shit is present at every show I see. It’s kind of a bum­mer. I miss shows where there are 18 peo­ple, and you’re see­ing some incred­i­ble band. That’s very rare here.

Sarah: Well your show was real­ly dif­fer­ent from that. You were play­ing to a huge audi­ence, had a huge plat­form, and the atmos­phere was very charged.

Blake: Yeah, that was kind of a first for us after 20-some years. Every­one knows the lyrics final­ly. It’s the show we always dreamed of play­ing. Every­body was caught up. We weren’t play­ing a new record. That was just real­ly nice.

Sarah: I was struck by the fact that the polit­i­cal shirts you wore made bold state­ments that you had to stick your necks out for. As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s a phe­nom­e­non of ​“pro­gres­sive except for Pales­tine,” and you can be demo­nized for sup­port­ing the Pales­tin­ian strug­gle against occu­pa­tion and apartheid. And we are also see­ing antifas­cists, and peo­ple who take antifas­cist action, being smeared — not only by Trump, but also by some who are left of cen­ter and fall into these false ​“both sides are respon­si­ble” arguments.

Blake: Yeah, I was very hap­py with our shirts. We chose our own, and they were very spe­cif­ic. I’m glad you rec­og­nized that. My shirt came from one of my dear friends who is a his­to­ri­an. Her name is Eliz­a­beth Esch. She does a lot of work around U.S. his­to­ry of racism and cap­i­tal­ism. She’s been a kind of men­tor to me in terms of Pales­tine and Arab identity.

My con­nec­tion to that issue goes back to Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001 when I was in New York City. I was so mad at the Unit­ed States when that hap­pened. That was a strange, off-the-cuff reac­tion. I didn’t feel vic­tim­ized. I felt like we had fucked up. And then we did — we real­ly fucked up. We took an oppor­tu­ni­ty for self-aware­ness and being checked in a real­ly pro­found way, as some­one infil­trat­ing our implaca­ble defense.

I began grad­u­ate school short­ly there­after, and the first book I was assigned was Edward Said’s Ori­en­tal­ism. And I just read that book cov­er-to-cov­er. I was real­ly scared, because I was new­ly in grad school and was pay­ing my way, and I felt like I can’t mess up. So I sat in a chair and read that book front to back. And I went through a real­ly great sem­i­nar with about 10 peo­ple and talked about it. It drew me into the sto­ry of Pales­tine and that strug­gle and a lot of poet­ry in the region. Once you know about it, I’m sure you’ve expe­ri­enced this your­self, sud­den­ly you see it every­where. Arab iden­ti­ty in New York was so under threat, so under siege. If you knew any­body in that com­mu­ni­ty, you saw very imme­di­ate­ly how pre­pos­ter­ous these charges and para­noia were. I felt aligned with it from that moment forward.

That’s the long gen­e­sis of want­i­ng to say some­thing about that issue. Which, as you point out, no one wants to dis­cuss. There’s always some hor­ri­ble false equiv­a­len­cy that gets thrown in against it.

I can­not speak for Chris, but Chris is a his­to­ri­an who did his grad­u­ate work in Ger­man mil­i­tarism, and I know he chose that shirt for a reason.

I was hap­py. I think Adam felt a lit­tle left out. He was like, ​“I don’t have a shirt!”

Sarah: It was espe­cial­ly strik­ing for me giv­en that the Pales­tin­ian civ­il soci­ety call for Boy­cott, Divest­ment and Sanc­tions (BDS) against Israel extends to musicians.

Blake: Yeah, I’m torn on that one about musi­cians in Israel though. I think a band like Radio­head could do a lot of dam­age by play­ing Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and being this kind of crazy band. I always think going and being your­self some­where is a good idea. I’m a lit­tle torn that they would get flak for that. I can under­stand not buy­ing SodaS­tream or doing spe­cif­ic tar­get­ed things, but not going and per­form­ing and con­tin­u­ing a dia­logue or being present for that — I don’t know. That’s not some­thing I’ve read a great deal about.

Sarah: The argu­ment is that it’s not real­ly a dia­logue if Pales­tini­ans are liv­ing under con­di­tions of occu­pa­tion and apartheid. And it’s in the con­text of a cam­paign, ini­ti­at­ed by Pales­tin­ian civ­il soci­ety groups in 2005.

Blake: I guess I’m say­ing I agree with it in every way: I’m total­ly for BDS and a very vis­i­ble boy­cott and resis­tance to that ongo­ing col­o­niza­tion and occu­pa­tion. But when it comes to peo­ple going to the aggres­sor and colo­nial pow­er, then I get a lit­tle bit, ​“Hmmm.” I don’t know. Is it bet­ter just not to go? And then, there’s a resis­tant pop­u­la­tion in Israel. Are we exclud­ing them as well?

Sarah: Yes, but many from the resis­tance with­in Israel are strong sup­port­ers of BDS and join­ing the call for Radio­head to boy­cott Israel.

Blake: Okay.

Sarah: You talked about being politi­cized right after Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. The Unit­ed States has been wag­ing con­stant war since. Is this some­thing you’re pay­ing atten­tion to and think­ing about a lot?

Blake: Yes, I do. I pay exact­ly as much atten­tion as I can with­out being soul-destroyed by it. I do think peo­ple need to inoc­u­late them­selves a bit and not just wal­low in main­stream media garbage all the time. It can con­t­a­m­i­nate you, either with cyn­i­cism, hope­less­ness or despair.

Art is how I’ve always found my way for a rea­son to live and to truth. If you’re fight­ing all the time, you’re for­feit­ing a cer­tain degree of liv­ing that makes it all worth­while. I choose my sources care­ful­ly, and I don’t watch a lot of big media, just because I don’t get any­thing from it, oth­er than tox­i­c­i­ty. I don’t draw any infor­ma­tion from it, there’s very lit­tle infor­ma­tion being dis­sem­i­nat­ed. I stay off that stream as much as possible.

I feel sor­ry for those lone­ly racist uncles out there who are awash in Fox & Friends. They’re so defense­less intel­lec­tu­al­ly. I know a lot of peo­ple who have lost rel­a­tives to that preda­to­ry broad­cast­ing. Per­fect­ly fine elder­ly peo­ple who sit around their house all day. Sud­den­ly they can’t talk to them any­more — they’ve been derailed. It’s actu­al­ly real­ly sad.

That’s always a ques­tion with this stuff: When do you write some­one off? I’ve seen that over the years, in the punk scene. It’s such a painful thing if you have to make that deter­mi­na­tion about some­one you were for­mer­ly con­nect­ed to. Are they actu­al­ly such a dan­ger or so irrepara­bly dam­aged that you can’t con­tin­ue to deal with them. I don’t have any wis­dom on that, oth­er than that hope­ful­ly you can make that deci­sion with a lot of com­pas­sion and patience.

I think most peo­ple are not beyond redemp­tion. Peo­ple do get to be way­ward and igno­rant for a while. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like that right now. There are plen­ty of peo­ple I would not want to redeem.

Sarah: Do you think punk scenes have a spe­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty to address fas­cism in this cur­rent polit­i­cal moment?

Blake: Gosh, I don’t know. We were itch­ing for that fight 20 years ago. It was more imag­i­nary skin­heads than real ones at shows, and peo­ple get­ting run out for fair­ly light trans­gres­sions. And now, you could real­ly have a small army come into your venue. I think you have to be fierce and make sure everyone’s safe and say no to bull­shit. That’s always required. The stakes feel like they’ve been elevated.

Sarah: Sad­ly, it’s been my expe­ri­ence that, in var­i­ous punk scenes, there is some­times too much room for fas­cism, too much tol­er­ance. Punk has, at times, had a prob­lem with that.

I think it’s impor­tant, as you seem to be say­ing, for punk scenes to refuse to give fas­cism an inch.

Blake: Absolute­ly. I think that’s a no-brain­er. Punk shouldn’t have an issue with that. It should always be antifas­cist. That’s a great thing to say no to. You have an all-ages show. The rule is that any­one can come into the show age-wise. We’re not ageist. The oth­er rule is that you can­not be a fas­cist. You can­not be a racist and come to this event. This is our event for our peo­ple. I don’t think that’s cen­sor­ship or any­thing, or what­ev­er that argu­ment is. You can do all that First Amend­ment shit outside.

Sarah: I want to give you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to expand on any oth­er polit­i­cal or oth­er mes­sages you’d like to include in this interview.

Blake: You know, I always say what I want in the songs that I write. I find I’m not very effec­tive at express­ing it out­side of that in inter­views. I can write about it. Real­ly, what I have to say, is stuff I’m will­ing to sign my name to in music. Per­son­al­ly, the work I’ve done — For­get­ters, my last band, and Jets to Brazil — those were a lot more of my think­ing. Those are my for­mal state­ments. I would leave it to that lega­cy. Any­thing else I’ll put on Face­book and the book that’s been elud­ing me the last 50 years. Hope­ful­ly I can write some of it down someday.

Sarah: Would you be open to me send­ing you infor­ma­tion on resis­tance move­ments with­in Israel call­ing for cul­tur­al boycott?

Blake: I know what’s going to hap­pen: In These Times is going to get me thrown out of the Park Slope Food Coop for sup­port­ing BDS [laughs].

Yeah, I would love that. I would wel­come information.

Sarah: Are there any exam­ples of orga­niz­ing or resis­tance that you find par­tic­u­lar­ly inspiring?

Blake: On Fri­day night, I went to see the Free­dom The­ater, the Pales­tin­ian the­atri­cal group that lives in Jenin, in the camps. They did a per­for­mance at NYU, sur­pris­ing­ly, of a play called The Siege. It’s the siege of the Church of the Nativ­i­ty, which hap­pened in 2002, I believe. It was real­ly excit­ing to see this group. They live in a camp, and they have this incred­i­ble the­ater and brought their show to New York and per­formed. It was a total­ly inspir­ing moment. I know a lot of peo­ple worked real­ly hard to help them get here and make this hap­pen. So that was total­ly inspir­ing. It was cool.