Outernational’s Leo Mintek Speaks OUT!

Interview with M.Alberto Rivera

Leo Mintek is the optimistic guitar player for socially conscious band

Outernational. A five piece from New York City, they are fronted by vocalist Miles Solay, with Jesse Massa on bass; Dr. Blum playing keyboards and doubling on trumpet, the band’s drummer’s throne is a transitional position, but recently filled by Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Chad Smith, who also produced the bands most recent release, “Todos Somos Illegales.”

Outernational use their time onstage to address more complicated issues rather than ink another unnecessary party hearty anthem.  Keeping in the vein of artists like The Clash, Fela Kuti, Woody Guthrie, and Rage Against the Machine, Outernational are motivated to be a voice for change. Musically mixing hard rock, world beat, and hip hop with strong hints of the Clash and Sublime, the band refuse to be contained to one style of music; easily transitioning from one style to another.

Outernational is currently knee deep in a national UStour in support of the new album Todos Somos Ilegales and the coming LP Welcome To The Revolution. Leo Mintek was good enough to take a few minutes to sit down with www.indiemusic.co, and talk about the bands most recent projects and Woody Guthrie’s long lasting influence.

M.Alberto Rivera: How did the band go about financing this release?

Leo Mintek: The new album Todos Somos Ilegales and the coming LP Welcome To The Revolution were funded together last spring – we used a website called Kickstarter which does something called Crowd Funding.  Basically fans donated to the project to make sure these albums could exist.  People went as far as writing dozens and dozens of letters to other fans and there’s a whole youtube page of fan videos where people talk about why they gave to Outernational and why the band matters: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF23A63F25B2D024D

MAR: Tom Morello produced your first EP, “Eyes on Fire.” Chad Smith produced and played on the follow up. How didChadbecome involved with the project?

LM: We had been recording songs with Tom Morello during the ‘Eyes On Fire’ sessions, tracks that we’ll be putting out soon as part of another project,  ‘Future Rock’.  This was all done with the maestro engineer Jim Scott, who’d recorded Rage, Audioslave and the Chili peppers in the past.  Both Morello and Jim Scott believed in Outernational and knew Chad Smith so they reached out and he was into it.  We became close friends and collaborators, we did a wild gig in NYC in 2010 and then we sat down and decided to make a full length album- ‘Welcome To The Revolution’.

MAR: What did you enjoy most about working with Smith?

LM: I think we brought the intensity out of Chad and in return he challenged every one of us to step it up – the musicianship, the passion, the strength in every moment, the unrelenting submission to the song. He’s one of the greatest living musicians and I don’t take it lightly to be collaborating at this level.

MAR: I know that Miles Solay is a really big Rage against the Machine fan. Who did you listen to that inspired you play socially conscious music?

LM: Personally as a young person I came up on rock and roll like Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix and as a teenager I discovered the underground local punk scene in my hometown, they played ska and used a lot of horns and we danced at every concert.  I was listening to bands like Dead Kennedys and Operation Ivy, I was reading the lyrics and at the same time learning the real history of the United States in an alternative high school.  My freshman humanities teacher used to tell us about when the US was bombing El Salvador in the 80’s… When Miles and Jesse told me to quit my old band and join Outernational, I knew what to do.  As soon as I saw the reaction to the band from real people in the streets and activists who literally get beat by cops and locked up for taking a stand, I knew I was in the right place.

MAR: You recorded Woody Guthrie’s “Deportees” last year. Are you ever surprised at how topical and contemporary Woody Guthrie’s music is today?

LM: I’m not surprised at all.  The contradictions and savage ironies of his time have only gotten more extreme.  Woody Guthrie’s music was about real people and life, and it was about what capitalism does to people, it was stories of ruined lives, of hypocrisy and it was about fighting back – fighting back together with the future in our sights. 

I’ll tell you on thing though; Woody Guthrie didn’t have all the answers.  I hate the song ‘This Land Is Your Land’.  No it’s not.  ‘From California to the New York Island’ is not your land.  The American dream is a myth.  The United States territory is based on the invasion and genocide of native peoples and the occupation of Mexico.  These borders are illegitimate and the true identity and history of people is global and overlapping.

MAR: If there was only one change you could help bring about with your music, what would that be?

LM: Be a part of a whole new generation and era.  An era like what people saw a glimpse of the 1960’s but much more and much different because it’s 2012 right now.  A Radical generation.  Let’s save the world from capitalism.  I’m not joking, this is a serious thing we are talking about.  In the short term I’d like to influence how a lot of young guys are thinking about women.  There’s so much mysogeny and dehumanization out there that dudes reproduce daily without even realizing it.  If you don’t consciously try to act and speak and think differently as a man, you are part of the problem. 

MAR: How has the new material been received?

LM: You tell me – go to http://outernational.bandcamp.com – listen to Todos Somos Ilegales as a full album – as a movie in sound.  If you speak both English and Español you’ll get the most from it.  If you only speak one, it will bring you a little closer to the other.  Enjoy the music, we worked months on it, from the songs to all the details of when to use the fuzz pedal or the accordion or the vox organ, what movie to sample, which guitar amp, who’s singing what on that chorus etc…

MAR: Do you have a favorite track from the new album?

LM: Listen to ‘We Are All Illegals’ – it’s an epic song we recorded with an army of trumpets and guitars, alongside Chad Smith on drums, Tom Morello on guitar solo and Residente Calle 13 on guest vocals.

Then listen to ‘Across the Borderline.’  We recorded it in Brooklyn at Daptone Studios where Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse recorded.  It’s all live to 8-track tape, I play lap steel, telecaster and Puerto Rican tres and we have guest vocals from Bob Avakian  – who is a whole other thing – you can check him out on two of the skits on the record, he’s the one sarcastically saying ‘I’m a self made man, nobody gave me nothing…’

MAR: What’s next for Outernational?

LM: We’re touring from NYC to Texas for South By Southwest in March.  We’ll be touring all 2012.  We’ll be releasing a new music video soon and dropping more music online this spring, not to mention the album with Chad Smith ‘Welcome To The Revolution’ coming later this year.   We’re trying to get out there, if you dig the band you should download and share the album, write to us on facebook or at futurerock@outernational.net and come to a show!  We’ve got this far because people cared and threw in, and that’s how we’re going to continue as well.