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Surf’s Up! Against Me! Catches “New Wave”

Posted Feb 20, 2007 by Clarisa Gerlach

Updated Feb 20, 2007 at 04:46 PM

Gainesville’s Against Me! takes on the powers that be in its politically-charged songs. Right now, though, leader Tom Gabel is taking on the Big Apple’s winter weather.

“It’s cold and the snow is melting all around,” he says by cell phone from the streets of New York City. “It’s like walking through one big Slurpee.”

Gabel and his band mates - guitarist James Bowman, drummer Warren Oaks, and bassist Andrew Seward - were in New York mixing their fourth album, and first for major label Sire, with producer Butch Vig (Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Garbage). The album, to be released later this year, has the provocative title of “New Wave.”

Against Me! hasn’t abandoned its muscular but open-minded punk rock for synth-pop, though.

“Some people might think we were doing an ‘80s pop/new wave record which was kind of humorous,” Gabel says. The title, Gabel says, actually is “a mission statement of whole record. I used it more in sense of physical wave, metaphorically, washing everything away. Not just applying to our band. It’s about not living in the past, living in he now.”

Gabel’s now includes leaving indie label Fat Wreck Chords for Sire, a move that inevitably brings tongue-clucking from punk naysayers. Gabel isn’t concerned, though, mainly because he knows the indie=good, major=bad preconception doesn’t always hold true.

“It’s a lot different when you’re in a position where you realize how things work,” Gabel says. “I’m making decisions from the most educated point of view. I’m not an outsider. I’m dealing with things day to day.

“I wouldn’t make a decision I though was morally wrong,” Gabel continues. “I wouldn’t want people selling my music that were bastards. As our band progresses, we’re coming to terms with what we want to do and doing what we want to do. It’s getting over [caring] what other people think about it.”

Gabel’s unassuming speaking voice couldn’t be more different from the authoritative bellow with which he calls out Condoleeza Rice on “From her Lips to God’s Ears (The Energizer)” on “Searching for a Former Clarity,” the quartet’s last studio album. The band bids Fat goodbye with last year’s “Americans Abroad!!! Against Me!!! Live in London!!!”

Gabel began as a solo acoustic act, playing anywhere he could find a space for himself and his guitar. Even with the fabulously energetic punk rock playing of the whole band, there’s still a bit of the busker in Gabel’s songs - he could take them into the street alone and still put them across.

He bristles at the “political” label, though.

“I don’t think just because you’re playing music on one side or the other that it’s political,” Gabel says. “I think it’s just having an opinion and committing to that opinion.”

Against Me! performs Wednesday (Feb. 21) at State Theatre, 687 Central Ave., in St. Petersburg. Riverboat Gamblers and Fake Problems also are on the bill. Doors are at 7 p.m. Admission is $13. Call (727) 895-3045.