Los Angeles – Sitting around a pizza joint on the Sunset Strip, The Last Internationale—comprised of Edgey, Delila Paz and Fernando Silva—talk blues, the end of capitalism, music today and making their next album with Brendan Benson.

Katie Booth: Where do you get ‘New York, I Do Mind Dying’ and what does that mean?

Delila Paz: It’s from a book called ‘Detroit, I Do Mind Dying.’  Edgey was the one that thought of the ‘New York’ I do mind dying.

Edgey: Yeah.  That name was incredible.  ‘Detroit, I Do Mind Dying.’  I always loved the name.  My professor, when I was in grad school, had us read the book.  It was about all the boycotts and the black revolutionary groups that were during the ‘60s, Black Panthers, and there was also a group called DRUM… And so when we were thinking of an album name, ‘New York I Do Mind Dying’ fit perfectly with this album.  It’s kinda like the sentiment we were feeling.

K: You said grad school, what did you study?

E: Political Science. And, funny enough, I discovered Woody Guthrie and Son House and Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, a lot of these blues and folk musicians late in life… When I first discovered that, it was like a whole new religion to me.  I was finishing up my degree… I left my degree there.  I never even picked it up.  It’s still sitting at Brooklyn College.

K: Maybe you won’t need it.

E: (Laughing) I definitely don’t need it.  Definitely–it’s useless.  It’s just a piece of paper.

K: So, is that how you settled on wanting to do a folk/blues band? How did you meet?

D: Edgey and I met first.  We lived around the same area… We got into music late, back in like college–

E: –Yeah, college.  Ugh—not music!  Folk music, we were listening to music since we were born.

D: We were listening to the same music and no one else around us seemed to be listening to that music, and we were so passionate about it.   So at first it was kind of like a political folk duo.  That’s kind of what we started as.  We were also heavily influenced by blues.  We’d go buy these records and try to learn as much as we could…so then it developed into our sound now, I guess… It emerged.

K: So did you guys always want to do music, or is this like a recent, semi-recent thing?

E: We’ve always done music but in different ways.  Didn’t you do some opera stuff?

D: Yeah, at one point… I love like the old, old classical music… I fell in love with that.  I also did music therapy and that’s what I got my degree in.  At one point I just wanted to help people with music in that way.  But I didn’t think of like being in a band or anything.

E: It’s weird because when we met we both [had] just discovered… roots music, blues people, blues and folk people, so we discovered that at exactly the same time.  And nobody that we knew was doing that–no one.  And if they did they were lying. They say they do because it sounds cool but no one really does…  And her and I were doing it like religiously.

I don’t think the band could be what it is right now if we didn’t come into it late, because everyone that we tried playing with came from musical families, or knew about this when they were young.  I can’t connect to those people because they get kinda stunted… They lose the passion for it.  For us, this shit is brand new.  I feel like I just discovered Howlin’ Wolf yesterday.  It was years ago but I feel like… it’s so fresh to me.  We… keep coming up with new ideas to make it all new again.  That couldn’t have happened if we came from musical families and just grew up in this stuff.  Music would be totally different.  So I think that’s an advantage.

K: How did you guys go about deciding you wanted to form a band?  Where do you want to go, what goals do you have?

D: I didn’t really think about it when it happened… Like it needed to happen, and it was going to.  I quit my job…we were like—just go for it.  We haven’t looked back since.  The first tour we had was the worst tour ever.  We were out for three months around the U.S., in our van that we still have—

E: We were playing with musicians that we did not want to play with.

D: Yeah.

E: We thought they would be good because they grew up on this music… And it was the complete opposite.  They had zero passion, zero heart.  They didn’t want to do anything.  They just fuckin’ slept all day.  And her and I just wanna work, just wanna push the band forward, you know?  And it was just like a nightmare because of that.

This band was formed maybe about four years ago…five years ago, but it was a folk duo at first.  The band was really reborn… when we met our drummer.  And that was maybe a year and a half, two years ago… Everything about us just changed.  There was a certain thread to it that didn’t change, but that’s when we really tightened up as musicians, because we found people that we liked to play with.

K: You are a very political band, was that a decision you made?

E: Even if you have someone that says, ‘I’m not political,’ that’s a political statement.  You’re being political by not being political.  There is no politics because everything is politics.  I never understood why certain bands… like Rage Against the Machine, why are they a political band?  The reasons are obvious, because they’re touching on a lot of social issues… economic, racial, whatever… Who’s on the radio today, I don’t even know.

K: So you’re not a political band, what are you then?

E: We’re socially responsible.  We see something that’s wrong and we speak up for it.  We have our own political views of course, but we don’t push them on anyone.  Obviously, we’re radical but radical simply means… To go to the root of the problem… Who doesn’t want to go to the root of any problem, you know?

We have our own specific ideas on how… we think the world should be run, like any other citizen, but we don’t use the band as a platform… to tell people, ‘Okay this is how we need to run society, this is what you need to do.’  We use it instead to channel the aggression, and the opinions, and the emotions that normal, everyday working-class people feel.  And of course you have some strong political commentary in there… You have to do that.  People that live in society… They need to determine the future they wanna live in.  It’s not a fuckin’ stupid band that’s gonna say, ‘This is what you need to think.’  All we can do is just bring attention to things and shed light on certain issues.

Most bands don’t talk about what they’ve done.  It’s like ‘Oh, here’s what I think, my opinions are fucking cool, agree with it.’  But just recently we did a video for deportees, where we got really involved in the song we were doing.  It was a Woody Guthrie cover, and we turned the video into—Do you want to explain this one?

D: Sure… We recorded the Woody Guthrie song “Deportee”… It’s from 1948.  It’s about a plane that [went down] in Los Gatos Canyon, carrying Mexican nationals… [We recorded it] for ONE Campaign, which is Bono’s campaign to end poverty.  We didn’t see any songs about deportation or immigrant rights, and we wanted to record the song anyway for a long time…

We found out that the Mexicans who died in that plane still didn’t have gravestones.  They were all buried in like a mass grave, in Fresno, and it so happened that… the community raised thousands of dollars to get the names written on headstones.  And it was happening at the same time.  So we went up there… to the ceremony, we went up there to see the crash cite, where the plane went down … We got immersed in this Woody Guthrie song, and it was like 65 years later.

E: And now [the song and the documentary are] going to be released on Bono’s ONE Campaign.  So we feel, our part as musicians now: We did a video for it, we participated in it, we went there twice for it, we went to the memorial service.  Now it will turn into a video that’s going to get a lot of exposure because the ONE Campaign’s gonna promote it, and this will make a lot of people around the world aware that there were 28 Mexican nationals that were on a plane 65 years ago, that went down, they were being deported, and they went down in Los Gatos Canyon, California, and it took 65 years for them to get a freakin’ gravestone with their names on it.  And of course this touches on issues of racism, imperialism, and a whole bunch of other things and so we’re bringing attention, through this video, to that.  That’s what we can do as musicians.

I agree with the Pete Seeger quote.  He said something like, if music alone could change the world, I’d only be a musician.  So a lot of what we do that helps to change the world is what normal everyday people are doing.  And that’s just doing our part.  Participating in protests, or being informed about current events—especially America’s terrible foreign policy.  Doing our part, whether it’s petition writing or whatever.  We support riots, we support armed revolutions, whatever.  You know what I’m saying?  We just do our part as regular citizens, just showing up at the damn protests, cause it’s actual community and everyday people that are changing the world.  It’s really not musicians.  We’re just part of the community and it’s us in the community, with people from the community, that’s changing things for the better.  That’s our whole view of, whatever, politics I guess.

K: Okay, so speaking just strictly musically, in case there’s anything you want to add: What do you want your music to be, what do you want it to say, where do you want it to go, what do you want from it?

E: Total collapse.  I want the whole fuckin’ system to collapse, and I want to build anew.  It’s a slow, transformative process built on like generations upon generations of struggle and revolution.  It’s not an over-night process.  Our music, and who we are as people, and what we try to do, is bring about the collapse of capitalism.  And this is where my opinions are very strong.  Like I said: I’m not pushing opinions on people.  But, we strongly feel—with the rest of the world, because most people in the world dislike capitalism.  Most people in the world live below poverty line.  Most people in the world are suffering.  Most people in the world are victims of… [Capitalism.]

K: How do you feel about music today?

E: Brendan Benson!  He’s my new cat, he’s amazing!  Brendan Benson.  From The Raconteurs.

D: He’s gonna be producing our next record—are we supposed to be talkin’ about it yet?

E: Fuck yeah!

K: You guys remind me of The White Stripes a little bit.

E: Oh really? Cool.  I love The White Stripes… Our aesthetic is more White Stripes.  Sometimes, some of the sound is… I only heard Jack White just recently.  Like I said, I never listen to modern music… We kept getting compared, like when we started the band, ‘Oh you guys sound like The White Stripes.’  I was like, ‘Who are they?’  I really did not know, I swear to God.  I knew of “Seven Nation Army,” that I knew… [When] I actually listened to The White Stripes… I was like, holy shit, these two remind me of ourselves, in a way, because he loves Son House, he loves Howlin’ Wolf, all the people that we love, Freddie King, Albert King, Led Belly, the list goes on.  That’s all we listen to.  Naturally, there’s gonna be a comparison because we have the same exact influences.  And so I’ve grown to love and have a great deal of respect for people like Jack White.  So when I found out Brendan Benson was gonna do the record, I was like holy shit, that’s really cool man.  Someone who loves tape and analog, someone we can trust and really make a cool record with.

K: How did that happen?  How did you guys find out about it?

D: Through our manager.  We had been going back and forth with different producers and, I didn’t even know he produced actually, and then we found out about him and… ‘oh hey, he seems perfect.’  And he like grabbed on to it right away.

E: It’s gonna be really cool, yeah.  I have never been so pumped for a record in my life.  It’s insane.  Sometimes I can’t sleep, or I’ll wake up in the middle of the night thinkin’, holy shit, I’m making a real record.  No more, fuckin’, ‘Aw yeah, we can’t go to tape. It’s too costly, too time-consuming; lets just go to Pro Tools.’  I don’t have to hear that shit anymore.  It’s a real record!  Like, what the fuck!

K: Your [current] album cover, it’s a picture of CBGB, is there a reason that you did that?

E: Every time we go to Europe, we get asked about CBGB.  Almost every single show: ‘CBGB’s man.’  So when we were thinking of an album cover: Alright, “New York, I Do Mind Dying,” what goes with that, what’s dead.   And I guess I heard CBGB’s so many freakin’ times. CBGB’s is dead.  So put that in the background.  It doesn’t exist anymore.  It got shut down… Which is like “New York, I Do Mind Dying.” Cultures been pushed out, music’s being pushed out of New York, there’s hardly anything culturally—musically—speaking worth seeing as far as independent bands in New York.  And that’s where there’s probably more bands than any other place in the world.  And that’s the irony behind it.  Music there is just, fucking horrendous.  Terrible.

K: That’s actually written here [on my sheet]: What’s it like being in the New York music scene.

E: It sucks. The answer: What music scene.  That’s the answer.  It’s terrible.  It’s all electronic music for the most part.

K: How do you feel about electronic music because we talk about this all the time.

E: (laughing) I’ve learned not to criticize, cause like, I know what I like—

K: Oh, this can be off the record, I’m just curious.

E: This can be on the record, I don’t give a shit.  The thing is… Alright.  All I know is blues or folk or rock and roll, which is all the same shit to me.  That’s all we know.  I grew up on hip hop so I know about that, too, but we don’t do it… As a rock and roll band we can only speak to rock and roll.  If your shit is not recorded on tape, or if it’s not analog, it ain’t good.  You don’t have a good recording, period. You could be rockin’ out, you could have a great performance, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of records that I like that was recorded digitally, I just ignore the sound.  It hurts my ears, makes me nauseous, I ignore that. You know what I’m saying.  It has to be analog.  As soon as you go into plug-ins and computer this, computer that, and electronic noises coming from here and there, itain’t rock and roll.  It’s something totally different and that I can’t judge, it just is not rock and roll.  Period.

K: Did you guys use Pro Tools ever?

E: We did, because we had to… Like just recently somebody was recording us for free and it was a good opportunity and we needed to get a song out right away for a TV show.  So, alright, do it digitally, but it’s not going on the album.  I don’t mind recording digitally if I don’t care about it, whatever.  Like oh, ‘record a song for radio,’ well fuck radio. Give ‘em anything.  I don’t give a shit.  That’s my opinion.  I don’t know if it’s a popular one, I don’t think many people share it, but I got no respect for radio.  I have zero, and I have zero respect for digital.  And a lot of people complain, ‘oh how can your music get on the radio,’ like do we need music on the radio?  Go buy an album, you know what I’m saying, listen to it yourself.  So the album’s gonna be all analog, because this is something that we cherish and it’s something that really means a lot to me.  I’m putting everything into this album, and to me, it becomes like a part of you.  You know what I mean?  So that’s…we’re not compromising with that.  But we’ve recorded digitally for like a [TV] show or whatever.  To me, I don’t care about that.

K: You toured in Europe, how long were you in Europe?

D: On and off for… two years?

E: The fans were really supportive [in Europe].  We could fill up a nightclub or a big ass fucking venue without anyone knowing who we are because they’ll see our name on the bill, they’ll see it’s a New York band, they do their research, check us out on YouTube or Facebook or whatever, and then they’ll come to the show just based on our music alone.  It’s not like you have to win some sort of popularity test like in America.  Like, oh this person was on fucking Glee, or something, come see them.  It’s different over there.

D: Before we came to LA we went to Europe.   We were there for awhile, and I thought we were going to be staying there, and not coming to the U.S. for a long time.  We were doing pretty well over there.  And then, our manager is from Los Angeles, he’s the one who brought us over here and now—

E: He changed the game, man.

D: Yeah.  Everything changed after that.  For good.

K: How did it change?

E: Dude. I don’t know, man.  These guys are wizards… They’re wizards.  We come into LA, three months later L.A. Reid personally signs us [to Epic Records].  So, you see what I’m saying.  Shit would never happen without them.  If it wasn’t for our managers, we’d be playing—we might not even be playing across the street [at the Viper Room.]  But if we were it would be, most likely, completely empty.  Well, hopefully people come tonight.  And no one would know who the fuck we are, and I’d probably still be sleeping in the van.  You know what I mean?  These guys turned it all around.  They know how to promote us… When they see a band they really like, they know how to take care of them.  And push them through the right avenues.  You know.  Which was what we lacked.  We lacked direction, and someone to really manage us.  So as soon as that happened, boom.  Three months, things just took off.

K: What to expect from the next album?

E: I don’t even know what to expect from it.  I really don’t.  There’s songs we been writing this week, or these past couple months… shit that I never imagined writing.  And I don’t know what Brendan Benson’s gonna do, so.  I have no fucking clue.  I just know it’s gonna be kick-ass.  That’s all I know.