Resistance and activism take many forms. As we work to organize our own community it’s important to keep our ear to the ground and see how others are instilling class consciousness across the nation. Roanoke has a thriving hardcore music scene where folks from all backgrounds can gather and express themselves without fear of judgement. Even better, these shows are offered with a working class wage in mind, never exceeding more than $20 a ticket in my experience. I had the pleasure of catching the anti-fascist hardcore band AGITATE while they were touring. Based out of Florida, it was invigorating talking to fellow comrades from the South.
Here is the transcript from our conversation:
Sean: Hey, I’m Sean from the Roanoke Worker’s Assembly and I’m here with AGITATE from South Florida coming up to Roanoke to play a show. And here we have—
George: Hi, I’m George and I play drums in the band.
Will: Hi, I’m Will. I do rhythm guitar, vocals, and sometimes lead guitar.
David: David, Guitar.
Stix: Stix. I play Bass.
Sean: Alright guys, how’s the tour been so far?
Will: It’s been pretty good, we played Tampa, Atlanta, Wilmington. We had a gig that unfortunately fell through in Long Island, but it’s been fun.
Sean: You guys have been touring through the South recently, have you been facing any difficulties touring as an explicitly anti-fascist band?
Will: You know, I thought that we would but we haven’t yet. People tell me they love the messaging. They love the merch, which we’ll show you after the interview. The scene: It’s very much anti-fascist, it’s very much leftist, left-leaning but you know everyone’s been super supportive. Then again you’re not going to find cops at a hardcore show.
Sean: How is the le doing in South Florida, how is the scene there, like are there a lot of leftists or is it kind of a mixed bag?
Will: It’s like the rest of America. There’s very progressive elements. So obviously in South Florida, there’s a lot of people that organize there. Shut Down Elbit, there of course is the DSA, whether or not you like the DSA. You know, these are very contentious topics in leftist circles but they are there too. There’s like the Jose Marti Youth. I know that there’s also people organized with the American Communist Party. Once again, very contentious topics. My sect of “left” is that we are all “left”, you know what I mean? We all have the same goals. We just need something that’s better than what we have right now.
Sean: Going through the album, this song “Path of Havoc”, the first song that you wrote as a band, seems very nihilistic. It documents the suicide of society through capitalism. The rest of the songs you’ve written since seem very much like a call to action. Do you think things are f****** in a nihilistic sense or do you feel like there is still time for action?
Will: That’s really funny that you mention that also I don’t know how you figured that out—
Sean: It’s on Bandcamp in the description.
Will: That’s cool. I started writing the lyrics for that when we were like 20, I think he was 19 (gestures to George), I think I was 20. I just turned 24 recently so that’s an old song. I was on my political journey. I was becoming radicalized at that point and, at first, like you said, I think I was very cynical and nihilistic. But every other song is very revolutionary, very optimistic, and I think that obviously reflects my views changing. It represents the progression of my political journey because I write most of the lyrics but, yeah, that’s good that you caught that but, obviously, it’s an old song. The vibes have changed. We’re doing different stuff now.
Sean: This next question is for Stix. I know that you’re in five bands and that Will is in three according to your guys’ social media accounts. From what I can tell from listening, it doesn’t seem like your other bands are explicitly political besides this one. Do you think that’s going to change in the future at all with writing and stuff or do you think the bands are just separate projects?
Stix: I’d say for the most part the other band I have that speaks out about most of these things is Domain, which I play guitar in. It’s less in your face and as direct as this band. This band will cite some straight up theory in songs. In Domain, our singer writes a lot of things in a metaphorical way. He likes a lot of Lord of the Rings and a lot of literature and stuff like that. He will write about underdogs rising up and all of that, but it’s a little bit more subdued. In another project, 9th Gate, I was more political in the first demo. We have a demo out where there’s this song about police and ICE and there’s another song about the excess of waste in capitalism. I went through some life things and took the project in a different direction. But, to me, I play in five angry bands and I don’t think that any of them would disagree with anything this band supports. This way it might be a little more coded, it might be a little more discreet. But all of us stand for the same thing. All of us are angry for a reason.
Members of AGITATE (from left) George, Stix, David, and Will.
Sean: In the song, “The Facade Breaks”, you capture the visceral anger of being radicalized. What radicalized all of you?
David: So, it really came down to meeting Will and my other roommate who are both really radical themselves. They were just educating me and just being in the band helped. Part of the reason I’ve stayed in the band and on the road is giving new meaning to performing with educating people.
Will: I guess, for me, a couple of things happened a while ago. I was like 19. I was learning about all the terrible stuff that is illegal to put in your food in other countries but that we do it here and I started questioning, “why do they do that?”. It’s because of money. A lot of people will stop there and say “well, they’re just greedy.” But it goes a bit deeper. Eventually there was a point where I was living in Texas. Some things happened. I went down to Florida and I was living out of my car for 6 months but this very generous man and his family (gestures towards Stix) took me in for a little bit and that was another like eye-opening experience. I think just like, especially since 2022, I’ve been consuming a lot of leftist media online: social media, YouTube, forums. But getting involved, you know, going to protests, going to reading groups, study groups, doing mutual aid events and meeting people through there. I feel like you know you start doing that enough that it’s kind of hard to be complacent and be okay with what’s going on. I’m still on that journey and I feel like I’m still becoming more left and more radicalized everyday because the conditions just get worse every day.
George: Well, I, for me, it’s a little bit different because I think at this point I’m not as radical as Will or Stix or David. I grew up in a pretty conservative household as well. But I met Will and we started songwriting. We just started talking about the world. I really had to open up my perspective and listen to him and I do agree with a lot of stuff he says even though we’re not totally on the same page with everything. You know I really agree with what he says in these songs and what it means to him and for the band as well. I think being open to what he says is a big part of this band and our relationship.
Sean: That’s what it’s about, we’re all on our journey, I love that.
Stix: I’d say that I grew an interest in political change at a very young age. I started going to hardcore shows and metalcore shows when I was like 12 and 13. I was listening to Rage Against The Machine and all that kind of stuff. But also where we’re from in Dade County is over 76% Latino. To my knowledge, all of us David, Will, and, I believe, George as well are descendants of first generation immigrants. We are the first of our families to be born here. I’ve always been very close with undocumented people. I’ve always been close with the working class Latino families. That’s what I’ve been around. That’s what I’ve lived my entire life seeing my Tia, seeing my family, seeing my friends, seeing them struggle, especially with the cost of living down South where multi-generational households are the standard in our culture. My grandparents live with my parents and live with their grandkids. That’s half a cultural decision, but that’s also half born out of necessity in this day and age. It’s unfortunate because it used to be something that was voluntary. Seeing things like that growing up my entire life it almost didn’t even feel like I was ever radicalized, it almost just all felt like common sense.
Sean: It doesn’t surprise me that it seems like common sense being able to feel and witness the cogs of capitalism crushing families first hand. In the intro song, “FTG”, the closing refrain is “when will it end?” — When do you think it’ll end?
Will: That’s kind of hard to answer but I think the first step is increasing America’s class consciousness. I think that’s the first step. Unionization has been steadily increasing for the first time in like 40 or 50 years. Really only in the past 10 years. But it’s not enough. I’ve worked in warehouses, moving companies, and construction and a lot of those people don’t even realize what unions can do for you. How they can help you collectively bargain. I think we need to see an increase in unionization. I think that’ll help bring around more class consciousness. I also think Marx said it himself capitalism brings about the conditions for its own demise. It’s just the way things continue going eventually, you know, we’re just going to force that necessity and start questioning like whether or not this system was for them or whether it’s for some investment bankers and private equity firms thinking about buying a bigger fourth yacht and we’re getting kicked out of an apartment for the fourth time in the year you know what I mean? So, I think that’s the right direction.
Sean: Speaking of class consciousness, I think you guys really explicitly call out liberals. What’s your guys’ stance on liberals and their perceived allyship?
Will: You know you could quote Malcolm X. There are also Mao quotes. I can’t quote any of them off the top of my head but I do know this for a matter of fact. Liberals, like the Democrat party, that’s the controlled opposition, the faux progressive party, the faux left, and they literally are enemies of the working class. Absolutely, they’re completely in the pocket of the people I just mentioned these investment bankers, private equity firms, landlords, multinational companies; they’re all buddies. They might disagree on a couple of issues like culturally or socially but realistically when it comes to materially what they agree with, what they support, they support the genocide of Palestinians just as much as Republicans do. They support imperialist projects all over the world just like Republicans do. They’re kind of like that person that gives you a smile while they stab you in the back whereas at least Republicans, they make it known they don’t like you so it’s, if anything, it’s even worse because it’s deceptive.
George: To piggyback off of that, I know that the No Kings rally was funded by the CEO of Walmart*, I believe. So, controlled opposition was a very good word to use there. I think liberals are like when you’re trying to talk to someone about politics and they are very spineless. They don’t really know how to rationalize their thoughts, it’s the most frustrating aspect, you know?
Will: I’ll say this too. You know your protest is not as subvertive as you might hope it is when the cops are moving security for you. You know, if the cops are kicking you out then maybe you’re doing the right thing, maybe you’re on the right side. Maybe you’re organizing with the right people if the cops are forcefully moving you away from an ICE detention facility.
Sean: Good shout out to LA! “Capital in decay, fascism in its wake.” Can you expand upon that?
Will: That’s the lyrics to a song on our first album, the demo, called “Abnegate.” It’s all about revolution straight up there’s a line “F*** reform”. Capital in decay fascism in its wake. I mean that’s what fascism is. Fascism is capital in decay. It’s when the conditions get so bad that regular working class people start to oppose the logic of capitalism. To start to oppose its tendencies because it’s very antithetical to people like us.
Sean: All awesome answers. Thank you guys again and I’ll let you guys get to the show.
*George had mentioned the CEO of Walmart funding the No Kings rally. We fact checked this after the interview and it is actually Christie Walden, a Walmart heiress, that was funding and promoting these rallies.
AGITATE went on to put on an excellent show. The lead singer Will took many opportunities during the show to preach the plight of the working class and rail against the ruling class. Their pointed lyrics and unabashed dogma is inspiring. I hope we can all take some inspiration from them and take part in direct action with the intention to organize the unorganized masses. Meet people where they are at, especially if it’s a basement show mosh pit.
Please support our fellow comrades and check out their new album Capital in Decay, available on all streaming platforms.
This interview took place on June 18, 2025 just before AGITATE hit the stage at an underground basement show in Roanoke, Virginia.
Leave a Reply