On the back of their latest EP release Better Ash Than Dust, the boys from Stick to your Guns are finally bringing their unique brand of mash metal back to our shores. In the wake of their highly anticipated return, Music Feeds sat down with vocalist Jesse Barnett to chat about growing up playing music, politics and how one will always drive the other.
Music Feeds: What is it about metal that you love so much?
Jesse Barnett: I don’t think it’s really just metal. I love all of these different kinds of alternative music. The type of music that lives in this subculture you know. Whether that be punk or hardcore or metal. Which of course has turned into 75 billion genres and sub-genres.
But I grew up in a very musical household, with a big emphasis on respect for so many different types of music. But I think metal, for me, connected in a way that was sort of unexplainable. I had an older sister who showed me punk and hardcore from a real early age, and an older brother who also tried to instil that into me. It’s just something that seemed to align with how I felt. Even later on, when I was able to create my own opinions and thoughts, it seemed to really resonate with me from a social and even political standpoint.
Music Feeds: What kind of music were you playing when you were growing up?
Jesse Barnett: For whatever reason I grew up in a house that had a piano and a trumpet and a clarinet and a guitar, but no one in my family actually played any instruments. As I got older though, my brother wanted to start taking guitar lessons. I just wanted to do everything that my brother wanted to do, so, of course, I wanted to take guitar lessons too. He said to me, ‘hey why don’t you take drum lessons and I’ll take guitar lessons that way we can play together’. I guess it’s really from that point onwards that I fell in love with actually playing music. I played drums through school, I also started learning the trumpet and playing guitar, really just playing a whole bunch of different instruments. I tell people all the time, I’m not a drummer, I’m not a guitar player, I’m not a pianist, I’m someone who can play those things barely, in no way am I fluent in any of those things, just enough to be able to write a song.
Watch: STICK TO YOUR GUNS – Nothing You Can Do to Me
Music Feeds: Is there anything, in particular, that’s inspiring you to make music at the moment, particularly with the release of your latest EP, ‘Better Ash Than Dust’?
Jesse Barnett: I think the political climate, especially as of late in the United States seems to be pretty inspiring at the moment [laughs]. Especially with this kind of music, it’s always been a part of Stick To Your Guns history and will always be a part of it in the present and the future. We’re a band that draws inspiration from the social and political aspects in the world and a lot of people call us left leaning or liberal or whatever you want to call it. I don’t really see us in that way, but there are certain things that we believe in and feel and I feel that I have an obligation or even a responsibility to stand up on stage and speak about the things that are true to me. I think one of the great things about the community that we’re in, that’s come from the music that we make, is that we can have open conversations about things and challenge each other and try to teach each other and learn from each other. That’s the beautiful thing about this kind of music.
Music Feeds: You made a recent post on Facebook in regard to the band’s stands on a zero tolerance of things like homophobia, racism, sexism etc. Is that related to the political climate as well at the moment?
Jesse Barnett: For me? No. There are definitely lots of different people who are very involved with the election every four years. For me personally, I don’t have much faith in a system that’s historically proven to constantly fuck people over and over again. I do want to make it known that I’m speaking for myself here as well. Something that bothers me on both sides of the fence is that how much power we have been lead to believe that our vote carries. I mean our vote is a very powerful thing and I believe that if you want to exercise that right, if you want to vote you should. I’m not the kind of person who says that your vote doesn’t count but no… I didn’t vote. But to me, that was a deliberate action, it wasn’t out of laziness.
There were specific reasons why I decided not to partake in it. People put too much faith in voting, and they make you think that it’s the most powerful thing that you can do in a Western society, that your vote is the most powerful thing you have. To me, that’s incredibly weak. And I don’t think people should be falling for that, or people should be buying into that. We believe it so much and we as a society will continue to do so. As Propagandhi says, “We sing their anthems, convinced that they’re ours”. That’s not my anthem, I believe that I’m stronger than that. My words and my actions, thoughts and feelings and the way that I express them have a lot more merit and a lot more power than just what’s contained inside a voting booth. You can go and you can vote, that’s your right, but I don’t believe it to be the high watermark of all human empowerment by any means. A lot of people feel like once they’ve voted, ‘hey I’ve done my duty’. And now I can go back to what I was doing before. We really need to start re-evaluating and redefining what it means to be powerful and what the word “value” means to a lot of people.
Music Feeds: Tell me more about your upcoming tour, what are you most looking forward to about coming to Australia next year?
Jesse Barnett: Everything! I love it. There’s always a story I tell about when I first came to Australia. It was one of the places I was looking forward to coming to the most. When you’re a person who’s not from there it’s a matter of “holy shit this is an insane place”. I remember I landed in Perth and walked outside I thought to myself, ‘this is San Diego’ [laughs]. But of course as I started driving through the country and my friend Trent took us around and he really just… showed us Australia and my God… what a fucked up beautiful place. It’s like amazing, I love going there, we don’t come often enough and I think that’s why I’m so excited to be back and play a few songs. It’s going to be awesome.
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Stick To Your Guns kick off their Australian tour on Wednesday, 18th January 2017. See dates and details here.
Watch: STICK TO YOUR GUNS – The Crown
