Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007)

by Dan Ozzi

“Looking back at it now, [Florio] was doing the same thing we were doing to Anti-Flag—punching up,” Grace says. “If I would have just ignored it and kept my head high, I think it would have had way less of an effect. I self-perpetuated it and manifested it in a lot of ways, because I let it get to me.”

“I got really fucked up on drugs while we were touring for As the Eternal Cowboy,” she says. “A lot of that came with the Fat Wreck Chords scene. There was just a lot of fucking cocaine going on at Fat Wreck Chords at that period of time. It was not major-label people giving us cocaine. It was indie-label people giving us cocaine.”

“At no point was my secret end goal to get all this money and buy a mansion,” she says. “It was: ‘I will be dead. I will be dead by twenty-eight. I’m not going to live very long. I’m going to run this into the ground. I’m going to explode this, because there’s no other way it’ll survive. The only thing that’s going to keep us going is this constant inertia and constant momentum.’ That’s it. Just run it into the fucking ground, and I’d rather have the explosion.”

It concluded: “The revolution was a lie!” The dismissive lyrics rubbed some fans the wrong way, including former tour mates Rise Against, who would pen a song the following year called “Architects,” which fired a shot squarely at Grace when it asked, “Don’t you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire? Somewhere deep down, I know you do.” When asked about it in an interview, Grace countered, “What’s Rise Against’s revolution? Is their revolution that a bunch of people are gonna start coming out to their shows and make them really rich? Because that’s been done a million fucking times before.”

As for the concept of “selling out,” the heated debate largely faded from punk circles. To sell out, there has to be someone looking to buy. And after 2012, major labels were less willing to spend money on bands in this vein.

I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t change anything about my career or my life. The only thing I wish I could go back and redo, and I’ve talked about this with Hoppus, is that I wish I could go back and soak in the moment more. It went by so fast. It was such a blur. Things were happening so quickly. And the things I thought were important back then turned out not to be important. And isn’t that just life, right?

Against Me! was our generation’s Fugazi, and I think that’s what hurt the heart of that scene—this underground network of venues that were thriving because Against Me! lifted a whole scene up, because their songs were so fucking good. So when that was happening, I felt bad for them. We were on tour and they were being jerks to us, but I still felt bad. I understood they were lashing out at us because of the growing pains of what was going on.

Enjoying your moment can be challenging, too, though. Active appreciation is very difficult. It is. But here’s my encouragement: With some frequency, go out with your people—your close people—and go: Isn’t this great?

Looking back, is there anything you wish you’d done differently? AM: One thing I do wish now, especially with Caleb being gone, is I wish I’d enjoyed myself more. I wish I’d soaked in more of the sun in Santa Monica, I wish I’d gone for a run every morning on the beach.

It ultimately just doesn’t matter. Unless you’re really gonna release it yourself and sell it out of your own van and not touch any of the greater system, you’re just using the system or the system is gonna use you. So what does it really matter?

How many albums were in your contract? I think we had three and an option. So, following Vheissu, we made a twenty-four-song, four-EP concept record. Which labels just love. They love ’em! Any label, even indie labels. [Laughs] They were all themed around the four elements, and they’re themed sonically as well as lyrically, and it was out there. I think maybe, even though it wasn’t discussed, we were like, “This is how we get out. We make a fucked-up concept record and the label’s gonna be like, ‘What the fuck is this?’” And that’s exactly what happened. I think Rob, in a way, thought, “If they write twenty-four songs, there’s got to be at least one single, right?” And there wasn’t. But I think he fought for us for as long as he could, and once we got to that concept double album or whatever, he was like, “Yeah, I can’t keep fighting these battles. This is not worth it for me anymore.” So

If you could go back and give yourself any advice, what would it be? I’d tell myself to enjoy it or calm down. But how do you calm down when you’re in the midst of all this stuff? There’s no time. When you have downtime, you just want to sleep.