Interview

Agnostic Front Singer Roger Miret Discusses "The American Dream Died"

For Agnostic Front singer Roger Miret “The American Dream Died” is the result of built up frustration of seeing greed and corruption go by unchecked. The album, Agnostic Front’s 11th full-length, serves as a vehicle for Miret to voice his opinion on current events like “Police Violence,” which the group compiled videos of police horrifically beating citizens. Other things that upset him include the housing crisis, war profiteering and corporations leaving America for a cheaper labor force. There is just so much anger building inside of this man that he got mad as hell and wouldn’t take it anymore. “The American Dream Died” is his outlet. It’s an outlet not only for his self, it's also gives a voice to the oppressed.

I called Roger at his home in Arizona to discuss these topics he feels so strongly about. We also talked about the legendary NYC hardcore band’s making of the album—the production and recording. Read further on to learn more about “The American Dream Died” available April 7 through Nuclear Blast Records.

Rex_84: “The American Dream Died” is finished and ready to come out on April 7th. How do you feel about the finished product?

Roger Miret: I love it. I’m very proud of it. It’s pretty current with what’s going on with the times. It’s a great album that will get people thinking. I think a lot of people don’t think anymore. They buy music, sometimes they don’t even care to read the lyrics. At least with a title like this and what we’re speaking about in some of the songs, whether you agree with me or not, it’s going to get people talking. Maybe people will start looking at things from a different point of view.

Rex_84: What were your recording sessions like?

Miret: They were pretty fucking amazing for the first time, you know (laughs). It was fun. It’s always fun, but this time was really fun because we did it a bit differently. We knew a staple seven songs we were going to record. The others were a mystery until recording session, which we wanted to capture some of that chaotic rowdiness. The band was able to hear the song, a couple of takes to do it and then go with it. It was kind of cool that way. We call it the hardcore CBGB’s Sunday matinee sessions, which was those crazier fast songs. If you don’t think much about it and put it the way you hear it, that’s how you capture all of that rowdiness, craziness and looseness that’s so great with the hardcore.

Rex_84: So some of the songs weren’t rehearsed?

Miret: Right, some of the songs they were able to listen to them, no rehearsal—the rehearsal was one or two takes before—or if they got it in that one take. Usually by the third take they had it. Most of them were just one takers anyways. That was it. Just do what you gotta do. Here are the parts. Here’s the section. Here’s where it switches. Try this. Try that. Ok good, perfect.

Rex_84: That’s different.

Miret: It’s different in a way because a lot of people just write songs and they over analyze stuff and think about changes—change this and change that and add this and add that. I was doing some projects of my own a band called The Alligators. It’s a side project that I sing in. The other guys are in a hardcore band called Instead. That’s how we did our songs. We met in the studio and everyone presented their songs. We would get them down one, two, three takes the most and move on to the next song. That record is called “Times Up Your Dead.” It’s on Bridge Nine Records. When you buy our vinyl it will be a full download of the record, which is only fourteen minutes long, but it’s crazy, chaotic like that. I felt like that was incredible to do. We also did it using Paul Miner in California. That’s what I wanted to do with Agnostic Front, which is how we always used to have the songs and write the songs. When we wrote the songs back in the early days we never thought. At the time we never thought about it, but that was a song. We never got a chance to record and sit back and do what you can do today. You can do so much today with the technology. That was it. That is what came out. That is what you got.

Rex_84: What was it like working with producer Freddy Cricien of Madball? Have you worked with him before? What is he like as a producer?

Miret: First of all, Freddy is my little brother. No one knows the band more than him because we’re blood related. This is his third time he worked with us for the last three Nuclear Blast records. This time it was a little bit different because our scheduling, rescheduling that is, Freddy was supposed to come into the studio with us and we had to reschedule at the last minute for work reasons for one of our guitar players. Freddy, on our reschedule, had to play a show with Madball, so we continued doing all the work because, as I said nowadays it’s different, via internet. “Here’s a song.” We go back and forth, do you know what I mean. Technology helped out on that end. Most of the songs he was fully prepared and knew them. The crazier ones he actually enjoyed listening to afterwards, but it was cool.

Rex_84: “My Life My Way,” your previous album, was recorded by Erik Rutan in Tampa Bay Florida at his Mana Recording Studios. This album was recorded at Buzzbomb Sound Labs with Paul Miner (TERROR, H2O, ATREYU, DEATH BY STEREO, ETC.,) How do the two studios compare?

Miret: Erik Rutan’s studio, not to knock down Paul’s, Erik has a beautiful studio. It’s big, it has two recording rooms. There is a lot more room, a lot more state of the art. That wasn’t what we were looking for. To be honest with you with today’s technology you can do about anything anywhere. What we really wanted to get the difference between Erik and Paul is I understand Paul is quick. I’ve worked with him before with The Alligators and I wanted to capture that type of moment. Paul is also a hardcore guy. He plays in Death By Stereo. He recently did some great records that I really liked. I’m not knocking Erik down in any point either. Two great albums done in different places. We just needed to go elsewhere. Most of our records were done in different places because we wanted to try a different location or we feel this person is the right person for the sound for what we’re shooting for. That’s where we kind of end up at. So I thought Paul Miner was the right place for this record.

Rex_84: Going into the lyrics on the album, “The American Dream Died” seams like you’re a voice for civil liberties? Is that a goal of yours when writing songs?

Miret: I’ve always spoken about overcoming oppression. You could also say civil liberties of course because I do want to voice my concerns and opinions. And of course not everyone may agree with it, but I’m always up to a good challenge anyway. You know, I learn from other people, too. Sometimes I’ll say something then later on reading all the critics and comments I realize I was in the wrong, but I learn from it. Criticism works in two ways. You can take it wholeheartedly and bum on it or you can try to learn something out of it. I’ve been incarcerated. That was a horrible time in my life. I took the best out of it and moved forward. That’s kind of where I stand lyric wise, especially on this record. This record is built on frustration from the last five years of watching corruption going on in huge levels—government greed and all the abuse of police violence, etc., etc., etc. There has got to be a moment where people have taken enough. I guess I can’t take it anymore. I’ve had enough. I need to say what I gotta say. I feel like I’m talking to the American people—we the people. I really do. If anything, it’s more American than anything you can think of. I want that liberty. I want that justice. I want to fight for the Constitution. I’m pissed off there are homeless veterans on the street. Yeah, I’m really fucking pissed off. I’m pissed off that Detroit is the way that it is. And I’m even more pissed off that there is no money to help these people but there is 40 billion dollars to send arms to Iraq. I don’t get this shit.

Rex_84: We spend more money on the military than Russia and China combined.

Miret: That’s just one of the points. And the corruption where you saw everyone lose their homes. If anybody got prosecuted it was the actual people not the corrupted banks and the government members that built the corruption themselves. When it was time to help out the people, all that bail out money went to the banks. What did the banks do? They rewarded their CEOs. Fuck the people! And that’s the mentality they got. That’s fucking rude! One of the rudest things I’ve heard is Mayor Bloomberg go on national TV and say the police—and you can Google this up—are not there to protect the people or serve the people. They are there to enforce the law. Nobody said jack shit about that except for Senator Ron Paul.

Rex_84: I thought they are suppose to protect and serve.

Miret: That’s exactly what he said. No other congressman, nobody else said shit. It’s just abusive stuff like that makes you pissed off enough where you gotta say what you gotta say. You can’t sleep through this song. What little freedom of speech you have you have to exercise it. You have to use it. You have to stand for your rights. The Clash, one of my inspirational bands, have been saying that from the very beginning and a lot of people. Just stand up for your rights!

Rex_84: In the title track, you mention false flag attacks, military domination, a government of secrecy and multi-national corporation. This is a world of lies built on greed. Talk about multi-national corporations for a bit if you would.

Miret: One of the ones I hate a lot and have hated since I was a kid is McDonalds, which is on a level we can all speak on. There are a lot of other multi-national corporations hidden within the military. There is no secret that war brings profit. Not to you, not to me. We aren’t going to see anything out of it. We’ll see people we loved killed. You get to see it on that level, but you don’t get to see these multi-million dollar corporations making money over expensive stuff we need to patrol and police the world. I don’t get it. At the same time all I’m saying is what about America? What about the people here? I travel the world and I don’t see so much homelessness. I see it in Third World countries. Guess what, America is not a Third World country. I don’t see so much of the stuff that happens here. Why don’t we take care of ourselves first for a minute. Take care of ourselves first. Let’s handle our business.

Rex_84: It seems like we’re helping out people but there are always strings attached. They are doing it because they are making money.

Miret: Of course. I was talking to my wife the other day. I asked her when did all this stuff start happening? When did the economy go to shit? Maybe it was during the Reagan years. I can’t pinpoint it directly. When we started importing everything from fucking China. We took everything away from America, give it to China and then brought it back. Somebody made a lot of money in that. Like all the toys, for instance, that we were talking about. How great toys used to be made. They’re like garbage now. Then we got all the lawsuits for the lead paints because they outsourced it. Not only that, China took all this stuff and over polluted the land in their country out of greed themselves, just to make money and make this deal. People will destroy themselves if you leave them alone, they eventually will. I’m truly a humanitarian. I like to see everything work out. That’s what I would like to see. That’s my goal. Again, I speak about over coming the oppression. Some of it can seem a little harsh, but it is what it is. We live in a harsh world. What are you going to do?

Rex_84: You issued a video for “Police Violence.” The video is only a minute long, but it’s packed full of videos showing police brutality. There is so much of it you can’t say these are isolated incidents.

Miret: First of all I want to say that I don’t condone killing police. That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m trying to say there is so much police violence that they are going far and above their badge. They are acting like criminals. They should be treated like criminals. If you’re going to act like you’re a giant gang, then you need to be prosecuted like a gang. The thing about it is the world sees it. I’m talking about what you clearly see on those dashboard cameras or with people with cameras. You clearly see this homeless guy being beat up by three cops in Fullerton, California and the guy is calling for his father. A homeless man calling for his father. And all three of those guys got away with it. I don’t get it! Look at the New York incident, for instance. You saw it where they choked that black guy out. He couldn’t breath and he told them he couldn’t breath and he choked. If you or I had done something like that, we would be sitting in prison. No questions asked, but when they do shit like that they are surrounded by the best lawyers. They go on a paid vacation. They’re on leave, but paid leave. They’re kind of rewarding them. I don’t get what is going on. It just frustrates me. There is stuff you don’t see and could go either way. I’m talking about the stuff you see. There is one in Texas recently where that guy tased that 70-something-year-old man. At least they got rid of him. I was following that to see what would happen with that one and they fired him. He tasered an old man. It’s stuff like that. In Kentucky, they took a fifty-eight-year-old man and left him paralyzed. He was just walking down the street. The dash cam shows the cops picking him up and brutally slamming him. Or the very last footage on “Police Violence” of that girl who is nineteen-years-old, I believe it was in Washington. She gets knocked the fuck out by a cop.

Look, it’s no mystery. They’ve been doing this forever. They’ve been doing this for a very, very long time, but now in this time of technology where you can see it and the world can see it and they are still getting away with it, that fucking frustrates me. Again, there is always a good and a bad. I’m sure there are good cops out there. If you are, stand up against those that aren’t. Make yourself one of the elite and take a stand. That’s it.

Rex_84: It has to be someone who really believes in to protect and to serve and believes in the Constitution.

Miret: They are out there. Look, if you are going to throw a Molotov cocktail at riot police, what the fuck do you think is going to happen? It is different when shit is provoked. It is what it is and that is a bunch of footage of cops beating the fuck out of people in a horrible way. It’s gotta come to an end.

Rex_84: How do we get that to stop?

Miret: We don’t. We at least make people talk about it. We make it aware. You can’t change the world, but you can make a difference. Little by little there is that difference. Unfortunately, in the civilization we live in today it is what it is. You can go around, house to house taking everyone’s weapons. That’s unconstitutional when they’ve legally registered it. You don’t know what is legally out there, so it becomes chaos. Little by little you gotta hope people are doing the right thing. I’m just alerting people about those not doing the right thing and getting away with it. We’ve got to come together. I’m not provoking violence. I’m with Martin Luther King on that one. There have got to be different ways. I’m just showing it. You’ve got to get out and do something. Little by little people’s actions do something. Look, sometimes you need to address stuff the way it is addressed. I’m really talking about those caught straight on with camera. Now you’re not even allowed to record police officers. They can take and smash your phone. It’s crazy.

Rex_84: You’re not allowed to do that anymore?

Miret: You’re not allowed in certain states. It’s illegal. I think Illinois is one of them for sure. They can take and smash your phone. There is all kinds of stuff like that going on. Little by little they’re chipping at the rock. We are living in a world where people don’t have phones anymore, they have cameras. There are cameras everywhere. You gotta do what you gotta do, man. Like I said there are good cops out there. I’m not condoning any violence against the police. Like those cops that were killed in New York City. That was wrong to go up to a cop and shoot him in the head. Let’s be civil about it. People like to take stuff into different contexts. Then all of a sudden everyone has an opinion, of course. That’s good. I want everyone to talk about it and they are doing that.