If you're a right-of-center music lover, you've undoubtedly happened upon an Internet list of allegedly conservative musicians. These lists range from the tried-and-true roll call to the dubiously inclusive, but they usually operate the same way: by capitalizing on a stray lyric or an out-of-context remark to make the case for "fill-in-the-blank-with-a-surprising-musical-name" as a closet conservative.
Does 50 Cent really lean rightward because he once declared George W. Bush a "gangsta"? (And where was that gangsta during the 110th Congress?) Did Nikki Minaj actually support Mitt Romney, as she claimed on a Lil Wayne mixtape? (Nope.)
The problem with this sort of exercise is the implicit idea that conservative musicians are the two-headed calves of popular culture. The phenomenon is viewed as an anomaly, reminiscent of Dr. Johnson's famous remark about a dog walking on its hind legs: "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." So it is with conservative rockers: their music is usually recognized for its alleged novelty, not its quality.
But if rock 'n' roll has always been the music of the counterculture, then musicians on the right are the only ones who can truly claim to be countercultural today. The Left is The Man--and has been for some time, at least as far as music is concerned.
Indeed, ever since John Lennon made his endlessly-satirized plea to "imagine no possessions," leftist musicians have struggled to pass themselves off as countercultural rebels. It's a difficult trick to manage when 1) most assumptions of the 60s left, including an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, and anti-American bias, have become mainstream attitudes, and 2) through their decades-long dominance of pop culture and mass entertainment, they've become charter members of the 1 percent. As a result, we're still routinely lectured on the evils of capitalism by working-class millionaires like Bruce Springsteen, who have in fact become everything the left purports to despise--right down to the part where they seek out questionable tax loopholes.
Like other rich lefties in the entertainment business, from Lady Gaga to Kanye West, The Boss wears his countercultural attitude, with its familiar gestures and rhetorical cliches, like a uniform. It's really a form of camouflage, even though it's as transparent as your average Miley Cyrus ensemble. But when people like the music and grew up with the myth, it's easy to ignore the Emperor's see-through wardrobe. (For more reading on this topic, try Fred Goodman's The Mansion on the Hill.)
Meanwhile, something else is being ignored, something much more important that has gone unnoticed even by many conservatives. After decades of progressive taxation and political correctness and apologies for America and infringements on civic and personal freedoms, there's a new counterculture rising on the right. Unlike the left-wing counterculture, which has become nothing more than a fashionable pose, a matter more of style than substance, this counterculture is authentic. It's raw, rude, unvarnished, energetic, and above all true to its principles.
It's this new counterculture--being developed and refined in basements and garages, on laptops and iPads, by a new generation of web-savvy musical entrepreneurs--that Liberty Island exists to showcase, explore and support.
Does that mean we're going to be cheerleaders for every right-leaning musician who can manage three chords and the truth, to use Bono's famous phrase? Not in the least. We'll identify the best music we can find, whatever the style or genre. And we'll celebrate those that should be celebrated, while offering criticism of those who we think could do better. If the new counterculture is going to become a worthy new chapter in American musical history, its creators have to produce great music first, and advance their conservative ideology second.
With that in mind, we've put together our own list of conservative bands. These rockers have three things in common: they make legitimately excellent music; their art, and often their views, aren't as well-known as they should be; and they are in authentic rebellion against the political and cultural establishment. (Several, in fact, have been at it for some time, which says something about the careless way this music has been treated in the mainstream press.)
Although they differ musically, there's some overlap of their signature issues. Common themes, in interviews and often in song, include the need for individual freedom and less government intrusion.
After that, the paths diverge. Some champion gun ownership; some revere Old Glory. Some criticize the sitting president; some look back on the great men of the past. Some want to rally the Right; others want to reach out to the disaffected on the Left. Some make their points with righteous anger, some with humor. Some do so overtly, and some with subtlety. Their music may not suit every taste. But all are true heirs to the great tradition of musical protest--and all are worth knowing.
These musicians, to quote a certain Defense Secretary who unwittingly gave one of these groups its name, are the army we have--and it's a bigger army than most people think. In coming weeks, you'll read more about these artists here on Liberty Island. For now, we encourage you to check out and support the five acts we recommend here. And feel free to let us know about other groups you think we should feature. That's what the comment thread is for!
1. The Army You Have: Taking their name from a 2004 remark by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, this California-based alt-pop act is led by the husband-wife team of Shelli and Gary Eaton. (The latter did time in the floating Nineties supergroup the Continental Drifters). Their self-titled album is lighter in sound in spirit than most of the other material on this list; it takes some feisty and funny jabs at a certain 44th president, and the Army is one of the only acts on this list that doesn't depend on hard rock as their base, opting for a more laid-back, tuneful Americana that recalls the aforementioned Drifters on much of the album. Musically speaking, what's even more interesting is their smashing, spot-on cover of "Go!," a 1984 dance club classic by British alt-rockers Tones on Tail, and dedicated to the late Andrew Breitbart. It's the kind of move that reminds you of the good musical taste and long musical history of this band, amply reflected on their debut.
2. Zeus: Imagine if the guys in Pantera had grown up not in freedom-loving Texas, but instead in Castro's Cuba, where there are few gigs, no money, and almost no way off the island to spread their power-metal gospel. Don't imagine--just listen to Zeus, frequently cited as Cuba's most legendary band. Actually, listening is a little tricky, given that music is monitored by a state-run Agency of Rock, but you can get a taste by checking out this concert clip for the song "Violento Metrobus"--proof that Zeus's sonic assault doesn't have to take a backseat to any act here on the mainland. For more than two decades they've taken their inspirations, gleaned by hearing Metallica and Pantera via radio broadcast from Miami, and turned them into music whose double-bass-drum-driven rage is the sound of an authentic revolution, not just the usual teenage kicks. A 2012 Spin feature explained it well: "It's no wonder that the country is responsible for some of the angriest, most extreme metal on Earth." It's also the subject of Nicholas Brennan's in-progress documentary Hard Rock Havana--watch a trailer here--which focuses on Zeus, in particular. Providing an extra bit of musical credibility, the Music Advisor for the doc is Cuban-born Dave Lombardo, a longtime member of Slayer, and universally recognized as one of the greatest metal drummers around.
3. Madison Rising: If you were going to create a blueprint for a conservative rock band, what would it look like? You'd probably want a classic rock sound, an amalgam of arena-sized influences, from the Southern Seventies (Skynyrd) to the somewhat more modern (Metallica, Soundgarden). You'd certainly want a charismatic frontman, preferably one who also had some military service to go with his tattoos. You'd pick a name that honored one of the founders--though maybe not a too-easy choice like Washington--and connoted positivism. You'd tackle subjects near and dear to the heart of the Heartland, honoring veterans and patriots, and reflecting a healthy dose of "Don't tread on me" attitude. And of course, you'd want a single song that showcases just about all these attributes--like, say, a rocked-up cover of the Star Spangled Banner? Enter Madison Rising, the band that checks all these boxes, in part because it was created according to just such a blueprint. If that sounds a little calculated, then listen to American Hero, the group's second album, and the first on which singer Dave Bray, a Navy veteran, steers the band straight toward what sounds like conservative rock nirvana. That is, a workmanlike, blue-collar sound that could offend no one but the fringiest of lefties, and should be guaranteed to whip red state listeners of all ages into a frenzy--maybe quite a few classic rock-loving blue-staters, too.
4. Jon Schaffer: The guitarist of the ultra-heavy Florida act Iced Earth also has a studio side project, Sons of Liberty, that is a much more pointed vehicle for his libertarian views. Schaffer's vision, politically and artistically, is broader than most: his bete noire is the Federal Reserve, and he's advocated Tea Partiers teaming up with Occupy Wall Streeters in the battle against tyranny. And his musical career, which spans nearly a quarter-century, has found him utilizing prog-rock chops, song structure, and lyrical concepts (yes, Lovecraft fans, there's a tune called "Cthulhu") to add both density and diversity to the bludgeoning assault.
5. Billy Zoom: Any list of the All-Time Coolest Guitarists must have a place for Billy Zoom. Best name, best haircut, best style. In the early Eighties, he was the musical engine of X, the punkabilly Los Angelenos and critical darlings. And onstage, like James Dean with a sparkly silver Gretsch, Zoom became truly iconic. These days, he builds and repairs tube amps, when not gigging with the reformed X. And he's also an unapologetic conservative. "I lean towards conservative values," he told interviewer Mark Prindle, "because basically what I want is a government that provides national defense so that we are free to do what we want within our borders, and that keeps criminals off the streets so we're free to do what we want in our homes, and that provides a fire department to help fight a fire if my house is burning down. And basically other than that I kinda want 'em to stay out of my life. I'm a big fan of things like freedom and liberty, and I see those as being conservative values, and I see liberals as wanting to have bigger government that sticks their nose in everybody's business and takes away our freedoms."
Few could have predicted such sentiments, back in the days when X were starring with fellow L.A. punks Black Flag, Fear, and The Germs in Penelope Spheeris' landmark 1981 documentary, The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization. (For that matter, who could have imagined X's equally iconic frontwoman Exene Cervenka regularly calling out the president via Twitter?) Yet more than any other band from their era (save, perhaps, the Ramones, whose guitarist, the late Johnny Ramone, was also an outspoken conservative), X proves that the old idea of punk obliterating the rulebook was utter nonsense. Zoom's amphetamine riffs made clear the raw rockabilly roots that underpinned most punk music; think of their timeless twang as a sort of Burkean contract between the dead, the living and the unborn.
