Here we publish a preliminary and unofficial translation of an interview with the Brazilian punk band "AntiPorcos (Against the pigs)", which was published on June 23 by A Nova Democracia.
Band AntiPorcos: Punkrock, class struggle and passion for football
Antiporcos is a band founded in 2014 by members of several other bands from the soteropolitan scene. The political ideas and the love for punk rock brought the long time friends Dudu, Pellegrini, Paulo and TP77 together to a project they thought was missing: a punk/hardcore band that talked about football, friendship, politics and class struggle.
Proletarian
Every day the same routine / Work x house and lots of exploration / All this to strengthen the pig of the boss / For whom do we sweat? For whom do we sacrifice ourselves / For whom do we sweat? To whom do we sacrifice our sacrifices/ Every boss is an enemy and every worker a brother/In the class struggle, on which side of the trench will you be?/In the class struggle, on which side of the trench will you be?/Proletarians, victims of social injustice/proletarians, unite/ôôôô On which side of the rift will you be in the class struggle?/Proletarian victims of social injustice/proletarian unity/ôôôô .../Proletarian victims
AND: As you reported, the band was formed during this period of great politicization, and we were confronted with the Fifa binge at the 2014 World Cup, and we realized that some lyrics address this theme of class struggle and popular revolt against the old state. How has this moment influenced the band?
Pellegrini: Of course we even faced the pigs together during the demonstrations.
Dudu: Yes, in the 2013 uprisings, for example, me and Tripa fought together because we are members of the same organized group. In the end everything influenced the formation of the band, they really had this feeling of popular revolt. Even the name of the album (As long as we live, we will be on the front page) comes a lot from this reality, from the moment we spent in that time.
Paulo: Boy, I think the protests of 2013 influenced that. We were there, side by side, and that undoubtedly shaped us and had a lot of influence, which motivated us to compose and make another tone in this protest line, which culminated in the formation of the band.
AND: One of the themes of the band is the criticism of "modern football"; can you say more about that?
Dudu: So many people mix it up in the end, as if we were preaching low salaries to the players, or even an archaic and declining tribune. It's not that, these bizarre things from the past can be left behind. The point that we are fighting, and which represents the hatred of modern football, is against this social hygiene of the arenas, the high entrance fees, the mercenary players, the obstruction of the celebration in the stands where they ban flags, instruments and banners. And there is no way not to hate these actions and the person who propagates them.
Pellegrini: As one of our texts says: "Without flags it is not a stadium, it is theatre".
TP77: It is very important to tell you that all of Antiporcos' work is part of an experience of all its members, is it connected? When it comes to criticising modern football, all this wild capitalism that is in football, it is because we experience it, because it harms us. We are part of an organized crowd and the experience of an organized crowd; it is, as I said, we are not here to say that we are the best or that we live right or wrong, in short, what we believe is that we live real football, we live football with love, we live football as something that is in our daily lives, football for us, the fans of us, the celebrations in the stadium, fan songs, all these things.
Paulo: You tried to turn the stadium into a Playboy ballad. They transformed the stadiums into "arenas" with "boxes", increased ticket prices and kept people away from the games. The clubs are now trying to reverse this with popular membership campaigns and reduced ticket prices for less important matches, but it will never be the same as in the 1990s and 2000s.
AND: The band's name is a frontal attack on the police, and in addition the band has released an Ep Against the genocide of the black people, which deals with a lot of criticism of repressive companies. How was the name chosen?
Paulo: The idea of the name "Antiporcos" is a criticism of the public security policy, which we know here from "shoot first, ask later". We have all been victims of police violence in various forms, and to ridicule the institution by calling them "pigs" is also a way of questioning its actions and showing that we are dissatisfied with the way we and our brothers and sisters are treated by the armed arm of the state.
AND: What does the band think about the Military Police (PM) and especially about the "public security" policies of the petitioner governments in Bahia?
Dudu: I have a thought that fits in well with your ideological line: The police and, since they are very sincere, public security itself serves to benefit the wealthiest, they do not have this concern to serve and protect the people. It is oppression of the people in order to protect the privileges of a few.
As for the Bahia military police in particular, everyone in the band has already suffered some kind of police violence, so it's only fair that we distil all our hatred for the company.
The PT is a centre party that will oscillate its rulers. Some with a more humanitarian orientation, others much more scrotal, such as Rui Costa, a guy who openly supports police violence, who is against custody hearings, i.e. a ruler in line with the current president of the country, who aims at strong repression as a means of solving social problems, this tactic is so old and ineffective that he does not even waste much time talking; Rui is genocide and period.
Against the genocide of the blacks
Against the genocide of the blacks, the blood of the blacks that flows through the city / Every day the blacks are oppressed / Every day the blacks pay the price for their colour, they are drained, humiliated and killed / We will not forget the dead of the Cabula / The blacks pay the price for their colour
TP77: Brother, as the name implies, we have a greater rejection and hatred of the armed arm of the state than you can imagine, because all the members have already suffered at the hands of these guys. So all of us here in the band have already lost one brother who was in the hands of the police, every week, every month we lose friends in the hands of the police; all of us in the band have already suffered police repression. So in this way, there is not the slightest condition that anybody in the band supports anything that comes from the military police, we are totally against it there, we think it is a shameful fascism, it is a bizarre dictatorship, and the police is our biggest enemy; we have the biggest hatred for the police because they are declared enemies for us.
AND: Finally, tell us about the new EP "The Bagulho is twisted" that you have released this year and the difficulties of producing independent sound in Salvador.
Dudu: With this new EP we chose a theme that is very close to our hearts, which is the question of the elitization of football, the movement of the fans, the resistance in the stands. We also managed to have several friends at our side from the production to the execution of the songs. It was a nice process, there are four songs, which also made it easier... when the final result came out, I liked it a lot.
TP77: Very few people know how hard it is for a punk rock band to produce anything in this city. So we count a lot on the help of our friends when it comes to doing something because we know it's a kind of music that you don't pay for; it's not a market parade, we do it because we love it, because we like it, to this day we are willing to invest in it because we can take it somewhere, but it would give us a lot of dignity if something like this happened now for example: If you ask us to do an interview about it, or if we come out in a collection like we did now with Brazil, or if some idol of ours plays some song of ours in some podcast or on the radio, then that's what pays us. The most important thing about this EP is what it is worth because we believe in what we stand for, which is the masses, despite all the difficulties, that we don't have a concert hall where we can play, that we don't have a real punk place in our house so we can do what we want, etc. Regardless of all these difficulties, we can start a job that makes us very proud, and it's a job that talks a lot about us, that sums up a lot about what we are and what makes us believe in our dream, that keeps us alive, that makes us happy, that is still something that we do and that we listen to and say: "Damn, I stopped, I stopped well, it was all worth it".
The band's contacts are:
www.instagram.com/antiporcos
www.facebook.com/antiporcos1312
Ep Cover Against the genocide of the black people
Dudu, Pellegrini, Paulo and TP77, members of the band Antiporcos
One of the inserts on the new AntiPorcs CD was created entirely with images from AND.
