Punk legends T.S.O.L(True Sound of Liberty) have returned with a new track, with an unconventional cover of the 2005 R&B hit “1 Thing,” by the artist Ameri. The single, which is available on online streaming platforms will be released as a transparent red, white or blue and w/ black and white silk-screened American flag on the reverse side, and will ship later this month.
Although the track is performed in a completely different musical style than the R&B original, this punk cover recall some of the grooves of the original song. The track’s music video features a variety of political images, ranging from images of the New York City’s former twin towers burning, to Osama bin Laden and presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.
Jack Grisham, the band’s lead vocalist explained that he enjoys listening to a variety of soul music, and that the song “1 Thing,” left an impact on him when it was released. He explained that while on the surface it may seem like a typical love song, that the lyrics could be interpreted much more deeply.
“I like go-go music and soul and anything that really moves. I first heard Amerie’s “1 Thing” in 2005, when it was released. Fucking infectious man, the way that groove keeps rolling, and she’s such a great vocalist,” Grisham explained in a press release. “The lyrics were your basic relationship trip but then it hit me, this isn’t just a song about some dude, these lyrics read like a song to a system or a government that’d been up to no good.”
This track reminded Grisham, who’s been outspoken with his politics through his work with T.S.O.L and on his own, of the consequences of US imperialism and its associated military conflicts. These issues inspired him to turn the R&B hit into a punk track, and use it to critique these systems of power.
“When she sang, ‘memories keep ringing bells’ I was thinking of the state of our union today, the turmoil in our society, and where we’d been before—I was musing on our involvement in the Middle East, Latin America, Vietnam,” Grisham further elaborated. ” I was thinking about the dirty deeds that this nation had been up to and then she sang, “why don’t you just admit it” and I realized that no one in power, not in this country, was ever gonna admit that we were wrong.”
Last year the band released their tenth studio album The Trigger Complex, which strayed a bit from the band’s traditional hardcore roots that they were known for in the 80s. This was a point of contention for some fans of the group such as mxdwn’s own Christopher Fastiggi, who compared the album to the work of a traditional rock act such as KISS.
“The album itself has more in common with KISS than it does with Black Flag,” Fastiggi explained in his review. “It simply has no binding agent that ties it together as a whole, and it feels more like a collection of rock songs than an album that tells a story.”
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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