Twenty-three-year-old Evan Greer is rolling into the New Year with some big plans. Member of the Riot Folk! Collective, Greer has spent the past few years touring as an activist, and more recently, offering workshops on social justice. Greer and fellow Riot Folk! member Shannon Murray are about to embark on a 1200 mile plus tour around Florida on bikes, offering these workshops to anyone willing to attend. The musician is also scheduled for an album release at the end of January 2009. Evan was nice enough to answer some questions for us, and this is what he had to say:1. Tell me about your new album. How is it different/similar to your previous releases? What was your intent while writing?
I'm really excited about the new album. After I dropped out of college, I traveled a lot for a few years, touring and playing shows and then volunteering as a medic in New Orleans after Katrina. I didn't really slow down for long enough to make any decent recordings, so I’ve had pretty low-quality CD-Rs for years. For me, the lyrics and the message were always the most important part, so I didn't care so much about the recording quality. What I've learned since then, though, is that having a great sounding album can really help get that message out to a lot more people.
This album has been years in the coming and I’m so happy with how it sounds. It's the first thing I've recorded that's not just me and a guitar, and my good friend Jory Leanza-Carey of Broadcast Live (www.myspace.com/broadcastlive), incredible activist hip-hop band from Albany) engineers and produces it. I play guitar, mandolin, banjo, and kazoo and I'm joined by a bunch of great friends playing drums, hand percussion, bass, fiddle, and cello. I'm also really grateful to have some amazing harmony vocalists from Taina Asili (formerly of the political punk band Anti-Product) to Pat Humphries and Sandy O (of the popular folk-duo Emma's Revolution.)
The songs on the new album are all about connections. When I'm not touring I work fulltime as a community organizer in Boston and address many social and environmental justice issues. This variety is definitely reflected in the album. What's the connection between climate change and sexual assault? How is the prison system similar to industrial agriculture and factory farming? What does love look like in the face of police and FBI repression of social movements? These are all things the album explores in 15 songs. Stylistically it varies from straight-ahead acoustic pop-punk to upbeat bluegrass to quiet and folky.
The album is called Never Surrender, and it will be done at the end of January 2009. People who want to support the process can pre-order it by e-mailing me: evangreer@gmail.com or going to www.riotfolk.org
2. You're a part of Riot Folk. What is that like? How did you get into what you do now?
I got involved in organizing in high school during the lead up to the war in Iraq. Around that time, I started listening to folk music and got an acoustic guitar for my birthday. Over the next few years I got more and more involved in the anarchist movement and struggles against the war, the IMF and WTO, etc. I met Ryan Harvey, another member of Riot-Folk on the DNC2RNC March, which went from the democratic national convention in Boston to the Republican National Convention in NYC protesting both. Riot-Folk started then as an idea in our heads, and became a reality not too long after.
We're a great group of friends who support each other musically and politically. Sometimes we're really active as a group, putting out collective albums, updating the website frequently, having convergences, doing big shows together, etc. other times, we're all pretty focused on the struggles going on in our communities and have less time to put into our music or the collective. Some of us do music for a living, others do it because it feeds our souls, and others to use as a tool in our organizing. All of us know that music is a powerful weapon if we use it right.
Being part of riot-folk has been really helpful in shaping my ideas around how to use my music and how to make a living from touring and playing shows. It keeps me grounded in the idea that, no matter what, this is about making change and organizing. The money that I make on tour makes it possible for me to organize in my community when I get home and still pay the rent. Knowing that there are eight other great people out there who have my back if something goes wrong or if I need some support makes it a lot easier to take some of the risks that are inherent in trying to make it as a political songwriter.
3. You're about to do a 1200 mile + trip around Florida offering workshops on social and environmental justice. For those who don't know, what could one expect from one of these workshops?
I'll be going on this tour with my great friend Shannon Murray, who is the latest addition to the Riot-Folk! Collective and a great songwriter and organizer. We're so excited to be on bikes in February and about all the places we're stopping along the way. We're playing in all sorts of different spots from libraries to churches to punk houses to bars to high schools to youth detention centers to colleges to bike collectives. It’s going to be an amazing adventure and our goal is to use this tour to directly support the struggles on the ground in Florida who are working for justice and liberation.
The workshops that we offer are really interactive and based loosely in the ideas of "popular education." This is the radical idea that learning should be horizontal, rather than experts teaching students we should all be learning from each other. In a pop-ed workshop, we'll all sit in a circle, and everyone's voice and ideas are valuable.
The workshops consist of music, discussion, games, visual exercises, and small group brainstorming. They're fun and give people a chance to talk about the issues that are most important to them on topics like climate justice, gender liberation, community organizing, mental health, confronting racism, etc.
These workshops are also a great tool for fundraising. Many universities are willing to pay pretty well to bring something "educational" like this in (as if a concert isn't educational...) the money we make when we do workshops like these in a university directly supports the community organizing work we do in our communities. People should get in touch if they're interested in bringing us to their schools. We'd love to come.
4. What made you choose Florida for the tour, and why on bikes?
Shannon is from Bemidji, MN. I am from Boston, MA. It's really really cold where we are this time of year. Where better to ride around on bicycles playing music than Florida?
In all seriousness, though, we chose Florida for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is the somewhat terrifying reality that climate change is no longer something of the future, it's here. There's a very real possibility that all of South Florida will be under water within our lifetimes, or shortly after. There are powerful movements of resistance in Florida who are fighting back against the economic systems that are driving their communities into the sea. We wanted to get down there to connect with them and share our music with the people who need to hear some hope.
Touring by bike seems only logical. We're living in a time where consuming fossil fuels to get around is not only environmentally irresponsible, it's damn expensive and soon enough may not even be possible. Radical musicians need to radically rethink what touring means and how we do it. Bicycles are definitely one option for able-bodied folks and we're really excited about it. People in Florida seem really excited about it too, and many groups who normally might not respond to a booking e-mail are getting in touch because they think what we're doing is cool.
I ride my bike everywhere when I'm home in Boston, and I generally hate being in a car. The idea of biking around for 5 weeks playing music, offering workshops, and meeting great radical people pretty much sounds like the best thing ever to me.
5. What do you want people to take from your music? What do you think it conveys?
My music is mostly about telling stories. Some are my stories; some are stories from people who I have met, movements who I have been a part of or support, lovers, friends, pen pals, etc.
I hope people take comfort in these stories, and that they challenge us all to work harder both to be better people and to make a better world.
6. What's coming through your headphones these days? What do you enjoy listening to?
Ooh, I love this question, mostly just because I really love to talk about music that moves me. I love music from all genres so long as it has some passion and some politics to it. Lately I've been really into underground hip-hop, and some other stuff.
First off, though, everyone should give a listen to the other eight people in the riot-folk! collective: Adhamh Roland, Shannon Murray, Ryan Harvey, Ethan Miller, Kate Boverman, Mark Gunnery, Tom Frampton, and Brenna Sahatjian. They rule and their music is free at: www.riotfolk.org.
Then, listen to Broadcast Live: www.myspace.com/broadcastlive, they're a fantastic radical hip-hop/rock band from Albany that lays on-point political poetry over a full-band of rock. And check out their companeras Taina Asili Y La Banda Rebelde: www.tainaasili.com, incredible Latin-influenced rock for liberation.
Other than that, topping my list lately are:
The Welfare Poets (political hip-hop troupe)
Rebel Diaz (radical hip-hop from NYC)
Humanwine (political freak-punk from Boston)
Chumbawamba (yep, they're actually an amazing anarchist band, look up their album "pictures of starving children sell records." it'll change your life.)
Kimya Dawson (I guess she's huge now so I don't have to describe her!)
A few other names to drop:
Rilo Kiley, The Coup, KRS-1, Fifteen, Crass, Bikini Kill, M.I.A., Foundation Movement, Steve Earle, Bright Eyes, Dresden Dolls, The Who, Mystic, Operation Ivy, and Defiance Ohio
Then there's the old standbys, the folks who made me want to pick up a guitar and sing what I cared about:
Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Utah Phillips, Neil Young, Anne Feeney, Paul Simon
And finally, a shout out to cheesy pop music. Because you can say what you will, but it's catchy as hell and some is really good. There’s definitely a fair amount of pop sensibility in my songs.
7. What is your best touring memory? Worst? Worst/Best place to tour?
Oh boy. So many great memories, a few terrible ones. But it's all humorous in hindsight.
Best:
We were at the G8 protests in Scotland, after finishing a tour of Europe, in the middle of this amazing temporary eco-village with 8,000 anarchists from all over the world who were there to shut down the meetings of the 8 most powerful world leaders.
We got to play on a stage right after Chumbawamba and Oi Polloi and we were really stoked. It was me, Ryan Harvey, Mark Gunnery and our friend Christa Kilduff, and it was long before riot-folk had really made much of a name so this was a pretty big deal for us. There was a ton of people and they had to shut off the sound system because it was too late. We played unplugged and all these kids from the U.S. who knew our songs came up on the stage and helped us sing so people could hear. Then we played Bella Ciao (this old Italian anti-fascist song that lots of movements sing around the world) everyone started singing along and all these kids got up on stage and sang verses in their own languages. It was so epic against the backdrop of what was about to go down.
The next few days were crazy. I ran as a street medic and saw some amazing acts of resistance and some terrible acts of police brutality. In the end, we managed to shut down every road and train-track leading to the hotel where the G8 was meeting and they had to fly everything in and out via helicopter.
Worst:
Probably from that same tour. We were in London staying in a squat that was being used as a local mobilization point for people planning to head up the protests in Scotland. Some of our friends were detained outside the building so I went out with my notebook to take down the cops' badge numbers. Some absurdity ensued and the cops ended up with my notebook, which had our tour itinerary, contact info, and all kinds of other stuff in it. We thought that was pretty bad, but that was nothing compared to the next day when we were waiting at the bus station and 15 cops came right up to us and stopped us before we could get on the bus. They detained us for a while, searched our bags and threatened us with deportation, but eventually let us go. I don't do very well in situations with police, so it was pretty terrifying, but I guess it let us know we were living up to the name of our collective.
8. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Hopefully doing what I’m doing now. My goal is to eventually work with some groups in Boston to buy a building or a piece of land that will be a permanent home base for the radical movement in our city. Hopefully in 5 years, I’ll be touring a little less, living with my partner and some great friends, growing all our own food and kicking some capitalist ass.
9. Who are your role models/ inspirations?
I take a lot of inspiration from my friends, the people who I live and organize with, and from both the elders and youth in my community. Anyone who has the courage to stand up and fight back against this insane system gives me some extra courage while they're doing it.
Historically, I take some inspiration from a lot of different movement figures and people. I recently read the Autobiography of Assatta Shakur, which I definitely recommend to everyone. Assatta was a member of the Black Liberation Army; she was unfairly imprisoned but escaped and now lives in Cuba.
I take lots of inspiration from youth as well. I frequently do workshops in high schools or for teenagers at community centers and I am always blow away by how bright and passionate young people are. Perhaps the longer you live in this messed up society the more jaded you get about how to change it, so I take advice from young folks whenever I can, and try to spend time with as wide a range of ages as possible.
10. Describe yourself in one sentence.
I'm a vegan gender-queer radical community organizer with a guitar and a whole lotta passion.
11. Describe your music in one sentence.
Upbeat acoustic songs of liberation to remind you that you're not the only one who cares.
12. Tell me about an accomplishment that you are most proud of.
I recently helped organize an event called the Northeast Climate Confluence, that brought together groups and individuals from social and environmental justice movements all over the northeast. Youth, elders, indigenous folks, former political prisoners, parents, hip-hop artists, banjo players, environmentalists, socialists, immigrants, queers, feminists, artists, organizers, farmers, and children. All in one place learning from and teaching each other. It was a really amazing gathering and I was so honored to have been a part of it. We’ll be doing it again this summer, so stay tuned to www.climateconfluence.org for info.
13. If you could give a random stranger one piece of advice, what would you tell them?
Don't give up.
14. What can fans look forward to in this upcoming year?
Well, hopefully we can all be friends, not fans. ;-)
But apart from the new album, I’m hoping to do some more touring after Florida. The west coast is on the agenda for the spring at some point, and I’m planning to attend the National Radical Queer Convergence in Chicago at the end of May, maybe doing some touring around the Midwest then. Then, in December 2009, I’m hoping to head over to Europe for the COP15 protests and to do some touring there.
15. Are you a city or a country person?
This one is a kind of tough for me. In my heart, I’m a country person. I need fresh air and to be able to go swimming naked and not have anyone care. But my work is in the city. Most people live in cities right now and if we allow consumer culture, racism, and gentrification to continue in the way they are now, there will be 1,000 Katrina's before we know it. Therefore, although I’d love to run off and build a cabin in the woods, I know I have to stay here in Boston so that I can be part of building a community that will survive climate change and the other catastrophes facing our planet and our neighborhoods.
16. I've noticed a lot of your music is free. What is the purpose behind that? Would you encourage others to do the same?
The internet, whatever else you may say about it, is an incredibly powerful tool for spreading ideas, music, art, and activism. When Riot-Folk began, one of the biggest things we all agreed on was that our music would always be freely available to whoever wanted it. I think this is one of the things that helped us gain some recognition and a following.
Music is not a commodity to be bought and sold. Music is the life breath of our communities and our movements. That said, radical musicians still deserve to make a living like everyone else, but the idea that music downloading hurts musicians is a lie. Many people download all of our music and then still buy a CD when they see us on tour because they support what we are doing. Others just download it and then send us a check. But most importantly, having music up for free download gets lots of people excited about your songs. When I go play in a town I’ve never been to before and 30 kids all sing along to all the words, I know I can thank the fact that I put all my songs online for free for them to download.
For years, the record industry has created a culture that pits musicians against each other, makes us compete for airtime, gigs, and who can have the hottest single. The internet, and networks of solidarity amongst musicians, are starting to change that. We need to build concrete alternatives to the music biz. If radical musicians organized, we could distribute our music on a similar scale to the big labels without selling out to the corporations that profit off them. Free
downloads are just the beginning.
17. Is there anything else that you would like to let us know?
I've used the word "radical" a lot in this interview and I thought it'd take a second to define it, since it's a word that is thrown around a lot. Originally, by definition, radical refers to "the root." to me, being a radical is about addressing the issues we care about at the root. Regardless of what struggle we're working on, whether it's addressing climate change, building feminist power, or confronting colonization in Palestine, we need to identify the root causes of the many forms of oppression we face, so that we can see the connections between our many struggles and build broad movements for change.
Also, a last note on the word "hope." I often say that I want my music to give people hope. That’s another word that's been tossed around a lot recently with the election of Barack Obama. Without getting too far into Obama's personal politics, it's important for everyone to remember the way that things really change in this society. If you look at history, grassroots social movements have always brought about real change, and it has come from the bottom up, never the top down. Regardless of what you think of Obama as a person or as a politician, remember to put your hope in yourself, your community, and our movements, not in one person who is directly tied to the system that has been screwing us over for hundreds of years.
Check back for more updates on Evan's tour and an album review of Never Surrender, due at the end of January.
Mp3 - Evan Greer:
Liberty is a Statue
I Want Something
Links: Check out their website here for more information.
Upcoming tour dates:
Click here to see Evan's tour dates
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