AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Democracy Now! On to now The Foremen, “When Hell Freezes Over?”

[The Foremen performing “Hell Froze Over Today”]

AMY GOODMAN: The Foremen, here on Democracy Now I’m Amy Goodman. And they are all in the studio. Welcome.

UNIDENTIFIED: Thank you.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Hi there.

ANDY CORWIN: Hi.

AMY GOODMAN: We’ve got Kenny Rhodes, Roy Zimmerman, Andy Corwin and Doug Whitney. Well, how do you come up with these things? Roy, you’re the speechwriter — you’re — speechwriter? You see, an election year.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: They come up out of me, really. Some songs sort of write themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED: You just can’t keep them down, is more of the question.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Yeah. You have to be there while they do that, unfortunately.

UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel one coming out now?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: That may be a song. I’m not sure.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I was just looking at your —

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Hope that’s all it is.

AMY GOODMAN: I was looking at your CD cover, and you’ve got an endorsement from Ollie North that says “a very weird group.”

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Yes, “Friends, this is a very weird group.” We did his show. He has a nationally syndicated, you know, commercial radio talk show.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re not allowed to mention that here.

ANDY CORWIN: I’m not.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: We didn’t. The word “commercial” is like anathema.

AMY GOODMAN: No, Ollie North.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Ah, I see.

AMY GOODMAN: Ollie North’s talk show.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: He’s a swell guy.

ANDY CORWIN: Quite the fellow, yeah.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: And he was he was quite the congenial host, actually. You know, the hour before and the hour after we were on his show, he was doing his usual vitriol. But while we were there, he was quite congenial.

ANDY CORWIN: And actually told us, “You know who else would like you? Gordon.” “Gordon?” “G. Gordon Liddy, he’d love you guys.”

AMY GOODMAN: Well, do you feel a song coming out of you on Oliver North?

[The Foremen performing “Ollie, Ollie, Off Scot Free”]

AMY GOODMAN: And you sang this on Ollie North’s show.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: He requested it.

AMY GOODMAN: He did? And he —

ROY ZIMMERMAN: He said, “What have you got on me?”

AMY GOODMAN: The whole thing —

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — he let you sing?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: No, there’s one line that he objected to. His producer told us that “Ollie would rather you didn’t sing the line about lobster and cocaine. Could you change that one?”

AMY GOODMAN: What’s that line?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: “Who knows the market price for lobster and cocaine.” So, instead, we sang, “Who know the market price for lobster and innocent civilians.” And —

UNIDENTIFIED: He was fine with that.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: He was fine with that.

AMY GOODMAN: And what’s the next line?

UNIDENTIFIED: We move into the chorus after that.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: International terrorists?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Oh, we just let the rhyme scheme go to hell.

UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, that’s right. The end of the song, though, the last lines of it, we just sang with our eyes closed, in case they really were our last lines. He’s an intimidating fellow.

AMY GOODMAN: The Foremen on Democracy Now! We’ll be back in just a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to The Foremen, and they’ve got some great songs that we’ve been playing over the last few months, and they have a new CD out, or cassette, whichever you want. It’s called What’s Left? And there are songs about San Diego, songs about Chicago, the two conventions, Republican and Democrat. And you’ve got a “Scorched Earth Day.” What’s that about?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Well, that’s a little spoken word bit that starts off the whole album. It’s not even us that performs it, actually. It’s our assemblyperson in California, Sheila Kuehl. Happens to be the assemblyperson of all of us.

SHEILA KUEHL: Good evening, Young Republicans. And welcome to the first annual Scorched Earth Day celebration, sponsored by the Sons of Conservatism, in cooperation with no one, actually. A couple of announcements before we get going with the entertainment: There’s a white Ford Fairlane in the Lexus-only section of the parking lot. Don’t get up: You’ve already been towed. Covert operations is having a bake sale. They don’t say where. And there’s a meeting Sunday of the Elitist Club, exclusionary chapter, xenophobic subcommittee, and no one is invited. OK, then, is the band ready? Good. Let’s give a warm reactionary welcome to The Foremen.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is Sheila Kuehl?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Sheila Kuehl is our assemblyperson in the 41st District in California. And as a matter of fact, she might be better known to your listeners as the actress who played Zelda on Dobie Gillis. Little trivial fact at this point, because at this point she’s quite the firebrand in the California Assembly.

AMY GOODMAN: That little skit, whatever you want to call it, was the basis of “Hidden Agenda”?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Well, yeah, it’s a thing I — I used to perform that myself at our shows, and there was a little continuation bit of that bit that sort of spawned the lyrics, I guess you’d say, for “Hidden Agenda.” Now that I’ve said that, you’ll hear that the lyrics are quite conversational.

AMY GOODMAN: This is one of my favorite on your CD.

[The Foremen performing “Hidden Agenda”]

AMY GOODMAN: The Foremen, “Hidden Agenda.” Well, Roy, you’re the lead singer there. What about your start? How did you guys all get together?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Well, we met in a nightmare of Pete Seeger’s and then got together at Brooks Brothers and bought our suits. Actually, I formed the group about — the idea is about to 10 or almost 12 years old now, when I came across a record by a group called The Wayfarers. They were like minor lights in the folk era. And they had matching suits and the whole kind of upscale look, and yet they were singing songs about labor and songs about how hard it is to be a miner and that kind of thing. You know, just the juxtaposition of those two things struck me as funny. So I started the group about four years ago to do just that style. And then we steer ourselves into political waters.

UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, it’s expanded since then. In fact, now I think we’re more about trying to turn listeners on, energize them and inspire hope in an era when voter apathy is rampant.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s why you’re all wearing these polyester plaid suits?

UNIDENTIFIED: Correct.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: That’s right.

UNIDENTIFIED: As your radio listeners can see.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, is anyone playing your songs?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Well, the —

UNIDENTIFIED: We are.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED: What do you mean?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: The label has been has been really good in trying to get them out there, but we’re a hard thing for them to know what to do with.

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah, I can imagine. I don’t mean people in their homes. I’m talking about radio stations.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, exactly. Well, they sent it out to all the typical radio stations. But they did a smart thing, I think. They sent it out with a 10-foot pole. And they still didn’t touch it.

UNIDENTIFIED: But true the form, we’ve been getting most of our attention on talk radio, oddly enough.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s not very odd. But you attack the Democrats as much as you do the Republicans, so you could say you’re equal opportunity —

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Maybe not as much, but somewhat, yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I particularly liked your song “Chicago (The Love Song to a Democrat).”

[The Foremen performing “Chicago (Love Song to a Democrat)”]

AMY GOODMAN: “Chicago (Love Song to a Democrat)” by The Foremen on their new CD, What’s Left? I like this stuff.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Thank you. Good.

AMY GOODMAN: So, are we the only ones playing it? I’m going back to this point now.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: You’re the only ones who like it.

UNIDENTIFIED: You’re just drumming that into our head.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: No, it’s just brand new. It just got released this week, this album. We have high hopes for radio for this, for this thing. Actually, really, you know, I’d like to hear “Hidden Agenda” and some other cuts played on regular old radio, you know, not just the friendly radio like Pacifica.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, really, how do you come up with these songs? I mean, what are you drawing from?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: You know, I subject myself to the usual news sources that everybody does, you know, and certain things will spark for me. I don’t have a Bosnia song. I don’t have a — you know, I don’t have an Oklahoma City bombing song. You know, certain things just don’t suggest themselves. And I don’t have a Dole song, because it would all be one note. But, you know, certain things like school prayer, for instance, or public broadcasting suggest themselves as songs to me.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, now that you’ve suggested public broadcasting, how could we not? I have to admit we have played this before, but it’s one of our favorites.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Good.

[The Foremen performing “Privateers of the Public Airwaves”]

AMY GOODMAN: “Privateers of the Public Airwaves” by The Foremen. You think you can get the singing senators to sing this song at the next Republican fundraising convention?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: It would be a kick in the butt. I don’t know. That’d be good. Sure.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know who they are?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: I’ve heard of them, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, they’re our new Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, also Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords. And just about a week ago at the Republican fundraising dinner, where Bob Dole said farewell — the next day he left as Senate majority leader — they sang their songs.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Swan song.

UNIDENTIFIED: Was this the same crowd that was in the production of 1776 about four months ago in D.C.? There was a one-night performance of that with a lot of congressional and senators in it.

AMY GOODMAN: I don’t know. But on this night, they raised $8 million. Have you ever raised that after singing?

UNIDENTIFIED: Wow!

ROY ZIMMERMAN: No, and we have trouble raising glasses.

AMY GOODMAN: So, where do you tour?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: We spend a lot of time in Washington, D.C., as a matter of fact. Seems like a likely spot for us. And we’ve gone to New York several times. We haven’t toured, you know, per se. We do like these little sort of surgical strikes and spend most of our time in Los Angeles.

AMY GOODMAN: You have an email address or website so that if people want to find out where you’re going to be, they can find out?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Andy, why don’t you spew that?

ANDY CORWIN: We have both an email address and a website. And if folks want to check out the website, it’s actually part of the Reprise Records website, links to a Foremen website. The address is all the normal http colon, backslash, backslash, www stuff, dot RepriseRec — R-E-P-R-I-S-E-R-E-C dot com, which will take you to the Reprise Records website, and then it links to The Foremen. If people want to email us directly, it’s T-H-E, the number 4, M-E-N. The4Men@aol.com.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you actually on audio on the internet, where people can hear your songs?

ROY ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, you can download a little — actually, you can download a little bit of that Ollie North show as a matter of fact, and hear what what his response was to our song.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you’re listening to Kenny Rhodes, Roy Zimmerman, Andy Corwin and Doug Whitney, who all together are The Foremen. So, what’s your favorite? What would you guys like to hear? We like to make our guests happy.

ROY ZIMMERMAN: I’d love to have you play “Ain’t No Liberal.”

[The Foremen performing “Ain’t No Liberal”]

AMY GOODMAN: And Democracy Now! is produced by Julie Drizin; our engineer, Kenneth Mason. If you’d like a copy of today’s show, you can call 1-800-735-0230. That’s 1-800-735-0230. Special thanks to Bill Wax, our director today, and to Mark Beavis. This is Democracy Now!