If you know anything about punk rock, well, anything beyond The Clash and the Sex Pistols, then you know who Crass is and how influential they were to the punk rock movement. The movement itself was important, especially to those who were immersed in it, but Crass also had a profound effect on the direction of the movement as their content targeted political ideas, icons, and practices. Needless to say this also made them quite a controversial band, but in the end that’s kind of what punk rock is all about. If you’re not being controversial and pissing off the powers that be then you might as well be a boy band, right? Crass also spearheaded the DIY culture of punk. After having issues getting a The Feeding of the 5000 pressed because of, you guessed it, controversial material, they started their own label and put out the record along with numerous other releases. Well for those of us who missed the good old days when Crass was still playing shows we now have our chance. Steve Ignorant is about to embark on his “Last Supper” tour playing Crass songs from 1977-1984. The tour starts in NYC on March 10th! Before hitting the road we were able to talk with him about the upcoming tour. You will find all tour dates posted at the bottom of the interview. Enjoy!

OOPM: How does the political world of today compare to what you were speaking out against when you were singing for Crass 30 years ago?

Steve: Not that much different. When Crass were in our hay day, we had an arch enemy who was called Margaret Thatcher who was in league with a guy called Ronald Reagan, and they were sort of easy targets at that time, certainly for us English things were really really really bad. Then a few years ago we got supposedly a new labor government in which was run by a younger man, and I think that everyone thought that him being younger and not from the war generation that there would be new ideas and a new approach to politics and that didn’t happen. Now what we’ve got is another young guy who think the same as Margaret Thatcher, so the whole thing has gone around in circles. It seems now-a-days that people are better off when in fact they are not. I would say it’s exactly the same, there is a new nuclear industry trying to be started in this country, so off we go again. READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP »»