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Ted Leo gets animated

Even though the Ted Leo and the Pharmacists show at The Blue Note was canceled, Ted Leo still has a lot to say about politics, Bruce Springsteen and his cartoon crush.

By Lindsay Eanet

Published Oct. 28, 2008

MOVE: You were born and went to college in South Bend, Ind. From one Midwesterner to another, how did being educated in the Midwest impact your music, if at all?

Ted Leo: Columbia's music scene compared to South Bend's music scene is like night and day. The idea that there would ever be an actual event happening in South Bend - you were putting it on. So for me, it's probably different than for you. I mean, being really removed from the circuit of touring bands and having friends that were in all those bands, for the time that I was out there, it was in some ways probably unhealthy because I lacked a certain stimulus. But on the other hand, I think it was kind of healthy in that I was also outside the loop of fashions and game-playing that goes on and was able to kind of develop my own voice a little bit. I don't know if everyone would agree with that. People tried. But Notre Dame was a really conservative place back then, and punk and indie music was a lot more underground back then than it is now. It was tough.

MOVE: On Living with the Living, you seem to have broadened out beyond the three-minute song style that you focused on on Shake the Sheets. What drove you back to more elaborate songwriting?

TL: Having hammered Shake the Sheets's two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half-minute songs almost every night for the previous two years, when I started writing again, I feel like I've learned a lot about how to not overwrite by working on those songs. I can take my seatbelt off a little bit and let things flow.

MOVE: You are known for covering Bruce Springsteen songs live, especially "Dancing in the Dark." Care to explain your affinity for The Boss?

TL: The Boss is one of the greatest songwriters America has ever produced. He's especially dear to me, being a Jersey boy as he is. One thing about rock is that every local scene has that person who rose to prominence who transcends barriers. It's not like metalheads and punks and preppies and any kind of normal office-working person. Bruce Springsteen manages to hit these notes that resonate with everyone because he just tells the truth and just kind of sings true songs about life in America. And that's important as an inspiration for me for one thing.

MOVE: You cover a range of social issues in your music, including eating disorders ("Me and Mia") and the current administration ("Bomb. Repeat. Bomb."). How do you choose which issues to tackle, and what gravitates you toward writing about specific issues?

TL: It's really just what I'm thinking about and what's moving me in a particular way when I choose to sit down and write. For example, "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb." is not about the current administration. It's not about Iraq. It's about a covert CIA operation in Guatemala in the 1950s. And you're meant to draw certain parallels with what goes on today, but that's an example of being forced to deal with the same issues, certainly for the last eight years, but kind of perpetually. You're looking back in history and teasing out the connections of not just specific current policy decisions but the underlying ethos of government in our country.

MOVE: Does it ever bother you that the focus can shift more to your politics than to your music, or do you see the two as too intertwined to begin with?

TL: It's not a question of seeing them as intertwined to begin with, it's a question of personally realizing that for me, they are intertwined to begin with. They're obviously not intertwined for Miley Cyrus when she's writing her songs. It's not a rule that music and politics are intertwined. But for me, when I sit down and write, I want to write something, more often than not, the music that has inspired me most is the music that deals with life issues. And that certainly includes love, but not just "Ooh, baby I love you," but I start to think about love. Unfortunately, I start thinking about it too much and start thinking, "How does love survive under eight years of war and humiliation?" It just tends toward the political anyway. I would rather be considered a political songwriter than just a songwriter at the end of the day.

MOVE: About the Rapid Response EP - what about the arrests at the Republican National Convention drove you to such a state of urgency that you felt you needed to record this EP?

TL: I'm just terribly, terribly sick of this culture of bullying and contempt that leads to outright and overt acts of entitled, empowered brutality with no fear - absolutely no fear - of retribution. It set me over the anger edge for one thing, that's point one. Point two is the specifics of what went on from actually preemptively detaining journalists to actually beating up fully credentialed journalists sent to cover a story because they're obviously associated with a left-leaning political show like "Democracy Now." Just attacking a young woman who is doing nothing but a dumb hippie gesture, just holding up a flower to a phalanx of riot police who are marching down the street in full gear - there's a video where you can just see her being repeatedly pepper-sprayed in the face. It's just horrible. It makes me ill and it brings me to the most insane tears of anger, even as I'm talking to you about it now. It just shows how far over the edge we've gone as a society. One thing I can do, I know there are enough people who will buy something that I put out, I can raise some money if I give that money to someone else. So that's why we chose to do it and chose to do it quickly. And third, once the Republican Convention had actually gone underway and Sarah Palin had given her insane speech, media attention naturally shifted to covering the circus that is her and the circus the campaign has become. And the story fell off the radar and I think it's a very important thing that people remember. So that's why it felt important to do it quickly: to keep this issue alive.

MOVE: What has the response to it been so far? Have you ever done something like that before?

TL: Really encouraging and really great. We've already raised a pretty decent chunk of change that's going to a legal organization that will disperse funds and to the "Democracy Now" program. It's been kind of thrilling to realize when you wake up a few days after you do this, you don't really plan ahead all that much. I literally wrote a song, we recorded it the next day, and within three days, it was up and ready for download. And then you see the effect it actually does have. That was amazing that we were actually able to do that. You don't often understand just how effective we as individuals can be in these very specific ways, and it was really encouraging to get the kind of feedback we did get on it. We've never done anything specifically like this before. I and we have been a part of benefit records before. We've given songs before and we've played more than I can count as far as individual shows. But taking one issue on on our own and deciding we really need to do something about this and doing it, we've never done in this way before.

MOVE: On your Web site, you talk about having a "degenerate crush" on Erin Esurance (that cartoon girl form the Esurance auto insurance commercials).

TL: You're going to call me out on my Erin Esurance crush?

MOVE: Yes.

TL: What do you want to know about it?

MOVE: How long has this been going on and what appeals to you in her?

TL: I don't know! I can't explain it. But it's been going on for a while, I'll admit that. And I want to be rid of her, damn it.