The Federal Empire are a band, or supergroup, if you will, based in Los Angeles, CA. The group consists of Chad Wolf, McKay Stevens and Keith Varon. Chad and McKay both originated from the deep South, with singer-songwriter backgrounds, singing songs in coffee shops which they compared to Bob Dylan, but with this project, an electro-pop sound has taken over. Their fresh debut EP ‘the American Dream’ was released in full in the winter of 2016. However, the thing about The Federal Empire is that they’re not only fresh with new sounds, but also with strong political ideas they’re more than happy to tie in with their music. Myself, Chad and McKay teamed up for an interview, to see what they’re all about.
As with all musicians, there was an era of music that was life-changing for them. Chad says of The Cure’s ‘The Lovecats’, “I saw the video when I was a kid, and something about it just mesmerized me, especially growing up in a pretty ‘redneck’, ‘white trash neighborhood’. Seeing Robert Smith and everybody just cruising around with lipstick, I was like ‘what the hell is going on here? I’m not supposed to like this, but this is awesome!’” Perhaps it was this act of seeing something completely different to the culture he’d been surrounded by that inspired Chad to make music, and perhaps it wasn’t, but he was being exposed to social change from when he was young – even if it was subconsciously something as little as a man painting his face – and that’s what The Federal Empire definitely want to achieve with the millennial generation.
The band say they’re all writers, and that they’ve been writing their own music from the start. There was no Panic!-At-the-Disco-being-a-blink-182-cover-band stage for them, so to speak. When asked who their songwriting muses were, the response was, “wow, it’s everything. It’s funny, ‘cause we’ve written a lot of electronic stuff, so there’s the influence of… I mean, it even goes back to something like The Cure, and Depeche Mode, maybe even Kraftwerk in that sense… and even more modern things, like there’s the Chainsmokers and that kind of pop world, so we straddle that line.”
The band would say that their main focus for songwriting for their upcoming first record has been relationships; they were all coming out of long-term ones during the writing process, so it was “kind of like group therapy to just talk about those things, and it was on our minds and in our emotions so it just, it came out naturally.” Chad then clarifies that they’re ‘always down’ to write about anything they care about or are passionate about, so it ranges a little bit. Despite this overlying theme, there’s one song that proves the most fascinating to young people like me, and that’s the EP’s title track, ‘The American Dream’. McKay comments that a lot of The Federal Empire’s songs were written at Chad’s house in the Hollywood Hills, and the culture there is consumerism. “It was slightly a satire on America in general, and the Donald Trump era of America, which is just like, everything bigger, faster, louder, harder, stronger. The ultimate thing is, like, in America it’s a beautiful thing, for freedom, but we take that freedom and we take it to the limit of, like, ‘I’m gonna be free even if it kills me’, like, ‘I’m gonna be free to destroy myself’.”
There was also a focus on human nature in general in the song, as the band based the lyrics not only around the potential uses of freedom, but also around the idea of ‘the 7 deadly sins’. The band think it’s good to be able to make fun of yourself, but also “poke fun at the Supersize Me, Fast Food Nation”, and just everything.
That being said, the whole idea of freedom in the US is described by the band as “a marketing campaign, America is the greatest corporation. It’s a selling point. You can’t exist in that place.” The image of the US being the ultimate free country and what it’s actually like on the inside are, according to McKay, very different things. In fact, he goes on to explain that the reason why Trump was elected is because there are people who want to ‘come down hard’ and say, “no, you can’t do that, you can’t say that, because you’re not like me.” Chad adds that state by state, city by city, freedom of expression and choice varies. He’s a white man in Los Angeles, his life is free, but for others, it’s not so easy. “In LA, there’s so much diversity that everything has just been accepted, but there’s pockets of the country where it’s not like that at all.”
Chad says he’s definitely seen the good and the bad sides to the American Dream. He moved from South Carolina to LA and he had that dream: “like, I’m gonna move to California, and make it.” However, he doesn’t miss out the fact that it’s brutal, and you’ll be replaced in an instant, and friendships apparently don’t matter. “Pursuing that dream… if you don’t have the right perspective going into it, it can eat you alive.”
Of course, with a focus on the American Dream, there was no way we weren’t going to come around to talking about Steinbeck. So, after a discussion about Of Mice and Men, Chad agreed that Steinbeck’s themes and motives as a writer somewhat resonate with The Federal Empire’s aims and values themselves. “One of those things we’re trying to capture, in that kind of Americana sense, is, like, you get a writer like Steinbeck, who really captured the beautiful thing of what California was, that statement, everything about this golden coast, and these people. And to point out those things. Like, that’s kind of one of the voices of what we’re trying to do, use that – even the name of the band, ‘The Federal Empire’, it’s like all these voices coming together, we all sing together.” He explains. “That’s why our gang vocals are there. ‘Cause we can all come together, with these songs, and look at these things, and point out, like, this is the American Dream, and we see it in different ways, but we can come together, we’re in this together. Music, it breaks barriers, and if you can look at the monster and you can laugh at it, you take its strength away.”
So, the moral of the story is, The Federal Empire have a lot to say. A lot of valuable things to say, especially in the information age of Trump and In ‘n’ Out Burger and Amazon Instant Video. I recommend you listen to the band’s EP, and watch out for new music of theirs — whether their songs are focused on relationships, satire or any other topic, this band will provide a wise yet amusing perspective that you’ll be fascinated by, but also relate to.
