Causecast

The members of State Radio are no strangers to the world of service. Through their organization, Calling All Crows, the band participates in volunteer events with their fans prior to each show. You may also remember lead singer Chad Stokes, while in Dispatch, who sold out Madison Square Garden three nights in a row in 2007 with all proceeds going to fight poverty, disease and injustice in Zimbabwe.

Causecast caught up with Chad, Chuck, and Mike at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. Here’s what the guys had to say.

Full interview:

Causecast: Tell us about what takes place on a typical tour stop for State Radio?

Chad: We meet up almost every other city with fans before shows and do some kind of social action where we’re raising awareness for a cause like Troy Davis, who’s on death row in Georgia, or we are painting the insides of schools in Philadelphia, or pulling out invasive species of plants, I think we’ll do in a few days in Tempe, Arizona. So, just a number of things. We just kind of tailor it to whatever city we’re going into and what we can link up. A lot of food banks stuff, some shelter stuff, soup kitchen type things.

CC: Who or what has inspired you to want to be active and organize these volunteer events?

Chuck: It’s contractually required, actually.

No, I think part of it was the Justice Tour. I think seeing that kind of play out, and also the songs and the music deal with a lot of these things, so I think it just makes sense to be a part of those things as well.

CC: Do you feel that people are opening up to the idea of service more so today than in the past?

Chuck: Sometimes, yeah. (laughs) Sometimes not so much. We certainly hope so. I don’t know, yeah it feels a lot different than it did say…six years ago or four years ago. Those are pretty dark times. So there’s definitely…it feels like there’s more of a positive outlook. It feels like it’s manifest to it, people are actually sort of getting involved more, there’s a little bit of a sea change with the public consciousness.

Chad: I think Obama’s election helped with that as well and him putting stress on serving…I think within a month of him getting elected, they passed the Ted Kennedy Serve America Act. So there’s definitely more money and more emphasis going into public service, so we’re psyched about that.

CC: So obviously you see music as a means to promote social change?

Mike: Yes. It’s interesting being a musician too. You travel to the same cities over and over again, but like six months later or three months or even, you know, a year later. So you see things that maybe something might have started at someone’s college, like a chapter or raising awareness about Sudan or health care or something, and you come back and you see how it’s manifested there and more people are on board. So you can kind of see it almost being in a band too, as well as preach it.

CC: Are there any specific reoccurring trends you notice on tour?

Mike: Yeah there’s more people out usually. Even at the shows, it’s good to see shows growing. We do service projects, I think we mentioned that earlier, in the cities and more people are starting to show up to the service projects. So, not sure if it’s just, like Chad was saying, something because there’s more stress on community service as people are becoming more aware of it or because like just the grassroots organization kinda starting to work.

CC: I assume your fans respond well to the idea of participating in volunteer events with you?

Mike: Yeah, pretty good now. Better than the first tour we started doing it, definitely.

CC: You work on behalf of a wide variety of causes, but are there any specific issues that you consider yourself to be more passionate about than others?

Chad: Besides the public service, which is kind of chameleon like depending on what the city’s like, we’re trying to raise enough money to send 5,000 stoves to Sudanese refugee camps which will enable the women to stay in their camp and leave the security of their camp a lot less. Often they would go and get firewood, and when they would leave…they would go and get firewood outside of the camp, where there’s no security, and they would be raped or sometimes killed. We teamed up with Oxfam, it’s $20 a stove and we’ve committed to raising $100,000 dollars this year, by the end of this year.

Domestically we’ve been raising awareness about Troy Davis, who’s on death row in Georgia. Just because he’s a great example of why we think the death penalty should be abolished nationwide. We do protests in different cities, have people sign petitions to send to the district attorney, we talk about him all the time, we wear his shirts that say Troy Davis, we’ll play shows for Amnesty International that are focused on his behalf. You know, just getting the fan base involved and in the know about him and about people like him.

CC: Are you finding that you’re able to sort of team up with other artists to tackle these issues or is it typically more of a solo effort?

Chuck: We’ve teamed up with Tom Morello, the Nightwatchmen, and the Axis of Justice for a similar tour which was built around community service with a show. But I think there’s a lot of bands that want to get involved, don’t necessarily know…executing it is really difficult logistically. So I think it’s cool how there’s becoming more of a network available to bands to make it happen.

CC: How did you decide to form your organization, Calling all Crows?

Chad: My partner Sybil and I, we were doing all this stuff as a band, and we were like how can we kind of focus our efforts and create something where people are kind of easily engaged through the band to another organization that is strictly based on human rights. So we started Calling All Crows and we have a great networking site, Callingallcrows.org, where people sign-up and there’s a list of stuff that people are doing on their own, starting chapters…there’s a list of stuff the issues that we feel are important issues to know about. So it’s a real easy way for kids to get involved. I think part one of all this is just education or learning about what’s going on and what might connect with your heart and set you off on a certain trajectory.

CC: This idea of achieving “peace” has been talked about for ages, so what does the word “peace” mean to you?

Chuck: Peace to me is harmony. It’s a condition of harmony, where there’s the absence of violence.

Mike: Yeah I like that, absence of violence. That’s the keyword, violence.

Chad: Communication. I feel like if everyone could just learn or have the empathy to see what it’s like from someone else’s view point…

Chuck: It’s a lot of effort. I feel violence is almost part of being lazy. It’s a lot of work, I think, to establish the idea like a peaceful world that we’re striving for.

Chad: It takes understanding. Kind of getting out of your own head-space to be like, “okay, well this person is like that,” instead of just having this knee jerk reaction and being like “ok why are they like that?” You know, what’s the reason? Kind of collectively getting to know each other more, you know, before dropping smart bombs.

You can volunteer with State Radio at an upcoming volunteer event via TheVoluntour.org. Or for more information on the band and other volunteer events please visit stateradio.com and callingallcrows.org.

Read more Causecast musician interviews at www.causecast.org/music.