Chad Stokes, Mike Najarian and Chuck Fay of State Radio
(Credit: C. Taylor Crothers)
After a year away from the mic as he recovered from major vocal-related surgery, Stokes resurfaced with State Radio, a socially-conscious trio with an aggressive sound that channels elements of rock, reggae and punk. The band’s latest album, “Year of the Crow,” is a biting collection of 13 tracks taking aim at, among other things, U.S. detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay and policies in South America, not to mention Halliburton and the current state of affairs in Darfur. You can check out State Radio April 24 at Toad's Place.
We caught up with Stokes in L.A. where he was filming “How’s Your News?”, a lighthearted documentary featuring a team of reporters with mental and physical disabilities that morphed into a feature-length film backed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker in the late ‘90s.
What’s the latest on “How’s Your News?”
Well, right now we’re at a pre-Grammy’s event where the “How’s Your News?” crew is interviewing a bunch of different nominees. We’ve been doing this for about 10 years now, but MTV has just picked us up and given us some money to film six episodes. So we’ve been on the road in this 1976 Buffalo bus for a couple weeks now, and we’re about halfway through the second episode.
And how’s the pace of that compared to something like a rock tour?
It’s a bit more regular, but it’s earlier mornings. Everyone gets up on a dime at 6:45 a.m., so that’s a little bit different from the sort of “rock schedule.“ But it’s cool. There are just so many people involved. There are about 14 of us out on the road. And it’s different having the cameras there and to be filming a TV show. But it’s really, really fun.
How did State Radio end up at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios to record your latest album? Was that a personal goal of yours, or was that door sort of opened by working with Tchad Blake (who has worked with the likes of Gabriel, Pearl Jam and Soul Coughing)?
We had done a full-length record and we had some new songs, so we sent some demos out to different producers. Tchad Blake miraculously got back to us and said he’d love to do it. Since we’re an independent band he gave us a real break on his costs, so we flew over and for 10 days we were at Real World Studios, and then for another 10 days we were at Tchad’s own studio, which is basically in an old barn.
Were you worried at all that the big-studio vibe would compromise some of the rawness of your sound and your approach to the music?
You know, everything that Tchad Blake has put out sounds so good that we really gave him all our trust. He’s just so talented that we weren’t worried about it ever sounding too glossy, ‘cause I think he’s just not like that.
Are you impressed by your younger fan base and how much some of those kids get into the message behind State Radio’s songs?
Definitely. I’m really impressed by these kids. I came from a pretty socially aware household and lived in this tiny town next to this place called the Peace Abbey, which was this old brick building and everything in it was dedicated to peace. So there was tons of John Lennon and Gandhi, Muhammad Ali and Mother Theresa. It was a shrine to peace. So I had a pretty liberal upbringing, but we came from a pretty rural town and didn’t go into Boston to see shows or anything. So I’m just so impressed by these kids who make the effort to not only come see the show, but then get inspired to start their own chapter of STAND, or create some small benefit show for the Elias Fund. It makes you believe again, you know, when you see these kids being proactive.
State Radio hits on a lot elements of different styles of music—is there a specific track on the new album that you feel really captures best what State Radio is all about?
As far as what State Radio was at the time of the recording, I would say “As With Gladness” is pretty close. But now, I think “Rash of Robberies” was kind of the future of where we were going. And that was the newest song on the record. So “Rash,” is more exactly who we are at the moment.
“Year of the Crow” was first released digitally last fall, though it’s now finally available on CD as well. Have you written a lot of new material since you initially wrapped this record?
Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff. I wouldn’t say it’s all that hashed out, but hopefully before this tour we’ll be able to get through some of it. There’s like six or seven songs that need some work, but those are the next convoy of songs, I suppose.
On your MySpace blog, you talked about trading in your van for a tour bus last year. Are you guys still on a bus, or are you back to your van?
It depends on the tour and how grueling the driving is, and if we’re doing well enough to afford a bus. This tour, the drives aren’t terrible, we’re going down South where we’re not quite as big and we’re playing littler places, so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to bring the bus. We’ll probably be back and forth for a few years.
I’m sure it’s pretty cool to be on a bigger, more comfortable bus, but you hear about a lot of bands that sort of grow up and make it with their van, and there’s sort of a connection that you don’t hear about much with a tour bus…
Yeah! I love our van, and I loved the van that Dispatch was in. There is a bit of sterility with the buses when you’re just renting. I like the idea of someday buying a bus if we can afford it so we can really make it our own, and turn it into a grease car and have it be “green,” with solar panels and all sorts of things like that.
Do you expect you’ll be doing more touring here stateside leading up to the elections this fall, any “get out the vote” type events?
Yeah, we’ll do as much as we can. The youth vote is so important. So we’ll have voter registration. We try not to be too demonstrative about taking sides. It’s obvious to most people, if they listen to the music, where we stand, and we would like nothing more than for the GOP to be banished away forever. But I would never want to be like, “This is what I think and you should think this way to0.” We just want people to take part in democracy.
