In the 1980s, punk rock was hitting its stride—just in time to take on Republican President Ronald Reagan. One seminal group even named itself after the president—Reagan Youth.
Obviously, we’re in a much different era now—but one punk band has risen above the noise floor for a decidedly different reason than outwardly thumbing its nose in the direction of the White House. As The Guardian notes, Priests, a Washington, D.C.–based four-piece, were unwittingly caught up in the viral conspiracy theory known as “Pizzagate,” a since debunked tale of a child-sex ring inside the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria supposedly involving Hillary Clinton herself.
But enough people believed it that it even lead one to shoot up the restaurant with an assault rifle.
So the punk band has reason to rage—because the band’s rhythm section work at the restaurant.
Of course, when their latest album, Nothing Feels Natural, dropped, it was assumed by some to be a response to the incident and a slag at the Trump presidency (there’s a song on it called “Pink White House”). In fact, notes The Guardian, they started working on the album in 2014, long before the Trump-Clinton circus got underway.
But that hasn’t kept the band immune from conspiracy theorists at shows. As bassist Taylor Mulitz recalls, a fan at a show in Arkansas wondered out loud if Pizzagate were actually true. “I told him, we can tell you firsthand, we work there, it’s not true. We kept having this conversation with him, and he actually said: ‘I don’t know—I mean, is the Earth flat or round?’ I was like: ‘The Earth is round!’ These are the people we’re up against. There’s no sense of facts or reality, and at a certain point you have to throw your hands up and walk away.”
Listen to “Pink White House” below.
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