Playing Politics

The 2004 presidential election was accompanied by an almost universal outcry from the music industry for the dethroning of George W. Bush, but no one embodied this sentiment better than Green Day, with its punk-opera masterpiece American Idiot. That wasn't the only band with something to say, though, as ska-punk...

By Cole Haddon

January 26, 2006

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The 2004 presidential election was accompanied by an almost universal outcry from the music industry for the dethroning of George W. Bush, but no one embodied this sentiment better than Green Day, with its punk-opera masterpiece American Idiot. That wasn't the only band with something to say, though, as ska-punk rockers The Suicide Machines proved with their latest, War Profiteering Is Killing Us All. Guitarist Dan Lukacinsky dragged himself away from a Guitar World in L.A. to give New Times his two cents.

New Times: On the title track, you call for a revolution by "any means necessary." Do you really mean that?

Dan Lukacinsky: Over the next few years, I think it's going to get to the point where people get so fucking fed up with the Bush administration's antics -- for lack of a better term -- that shit's going to go down, yeah.

NT: What do you think the chances are that the FBI has got a file on you?

DL: The FBI's probably got a wiretap on everybody.

NT: Do you think American Idiot deserves the credit it got?

DL: When I first heard it, I thought, wow, these guys are seniors in the punk rock scene, so it's pretty cool they're saying this. If I had multimillions in the bank from everything they've done, I'd be like, "Fuck it, I'll say whatever I want to say." But then I see them accepting Grammys, the most fucking conformist industry award you can accept. It totally made me not care about anything they were saying. Like, "Yeah, okay, I know where you guys are coming from."

NT: On "17% 18-25," a song about the percentage of young voters who actually voted in 2004, you say "Fuck Gideon Yago and fuck MTV." Why give SuChin Pak a free ride?

DL: Because she's a hot Asian chick, that's why.

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