Exactly four years ago to the day (it’s already November 4th in my time zone), the Freedom Bandits made their world premiere.
I was spending a few months back in Austin, Texas, in an interlude between my time in London and my move to Japan. While I was there, theater director friend Joanna Garfinkel got me involved with a political theater festival set to open on Election Day, 2004. If I wrote something, she promised, she would direct. So I wrote a one-act play, a dark slapstick political satire rock musical called “Freedom Bandits”.
It was about a mild-mannered emo rock band from Canada (portrayed by Jay McElfresh, the charismatic frontman for the Awesome Cool Dudes; Nick Travis, an old school rock’n'roller whose day job was as Guy Forsyth’s bass player; Punkass Marc; and myself) who are on tour in the American south during the run-up to the 2004 US national elections. The band members get branded as international terrorists by overzealous local police, and soon enough they are on a cross-country run for the Canadian border, Homeland Security in hot pursuit.
To aid their escape, they adopt the disguise of the “Freedom Bandits”, an All-American hard rock band, and posing as such they win a talent contest for the “most patriotic song”– and inadvertantly record what goes on to be a megahit single in the process, If They All Were American. Through an unlikely sequence of events, our plucky band of Canadians are soon faced with a choice between safely returning to Canada… or risking their lives to play a special concert which could very well decide the fate of the US Presidency, and the world.
We premiered it while the results were literally still coming in on the Kerry-Bush race. The play had two endings, and so, in its first performance– since Kerry appeared to be in the lead at the time– we performed the “Kerry wins” ending for what turned out to be the first and only time. (Alas, it made for a much more dramatically satisfying ending to the play than the “Bush wins” ending we had to do for the other performances.)
The best part? I later discovered that I had actually, through my psychic powers, based the play on a true story.
The whole thing was really a blast. We all decided afterwards to make a music video of If They All Were American, as kind of a going-away project just before I left for Asia. Joanna, Marc and I amassed a cast of fifty in what promised to be a joyfully ironic display of over-the-top These-Colors-Don’t-Run Americana. Unfortunately, less than a week before we were set to shoot, Jay suddenly learned his dad had terminal cancer, and he dropped out of the filming to go be with family. Without our lead singer, it just didn’t feel right going on. So we scrapped the project, and during my last three days in America, Marc and I made a short film instead.
All that remains of this once-promising music video is a lone recording of the song. It, unfortunately, has only a temp track on top with me singing, which was meant to be replaced by Jay at a later date. But it’s better than nothing, and to this day I’m still proud of the song itself.
So, without further ado, I present the only song ever recorded by the late, great Freedom Bandits. An anthem for a superpower’s battered soul. Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure:
Things, they might be bad
But we’re not to blame
Some wild and crazy guys
Ran into us with a plane
The commander in chief
Talks to God every night
I lost my job
But we’re winning the fight
CHORUS:
If they all were American
If they all were American
If they all were American
Then the world would be as one
Then the world would be as one
It ain’t such an easy life
Always being right and good
That’s something supervillains
Never really understood
Why does the whole world
Seem to hold a grudge
Let’s free them all
And let God be the judge
(CHORUS)
In the land of the free
There’s room for every type
But the colors of the rainbow
Never beat the Stars and Stripes
This is Democracy
We speak with one voice
Let freedom ring
You don’t need another choice
(CHORUS)
(CHORUS)
———————————————
(special thanks to Violet for the technical help)
A similar event also happened to Godspeed You Black Emperor! in 2003 in…some flyover state. I want to say Oklahoma?
Damn Canadians are all terrorists.