We strive towards a better world, but one can never do it without compromise. We can all change the world for the better, starting in your own little surroundings, together with people who believe in it, too. This way you can make it work and show others that it actually can work. That doesn't mean that everybody has to do it like you "or else..." If there is no compromise possible, then it turns into extremism, and I don't think that extremism ever added something positive to the world.

From what I see, nowadays punk and anarchy are still connected with "fast loud music by smelly drunk chaos-people" and, yes, I know I'm over-generalizing here. So when the occasional venue still describes us The ex as "anarchopunk" that's a real bummer, since it attracts an audience that expects a kind of music - which we don't play - and it keeps away another audience that actually might have liked it when they would have come. That's a pity, for both them and us.

In the 1960s, people like Bob Dylan, his music and words were a threat to the society and mainstream of the time. It shook people alive, and directly and indirectly things changed. But, as I see it, the change is never through the music alone. It's also the circumstances around the music that will cause/create the effect. And sometimes it's just strictly accidental that a piece of music becomes a form of protest.

Punk, and rock in general, is often very myopic. When people sing about "the world," they're generally focused almost entirely on the west and Europe. Sometimes South America. Sometimes Asia. But rarely Africa. The Ex, famously, is one of the few rock acts to travel and perform in Africa which, may be home to more musicians than just about anywhere else in the world.

We care about equality and democracy within the band and outside the band. For us life is about cooperation and solidarity, not about egotism, greed, or competition. This means that we prefer to work with people and bands that have a similar sort of mentality and attitude.

Ever since 9/11, the mood has changed quite a bit, and for the worst. The main cause for this change are the merchants of fear, who want to make us believe that Muslims are the new evil. By hammering on the assumption that all Muslims are terrorists who try to destroy the American society, they make people feel so very scared that some have accepted any kind of freedom-lessening measure, as long as it makes people feel less unsafe. That's not only the case in the U.S., the same goes for Europe.

We strive towards a better world, but one can never do it without compromise. We can all change the world for the better, starting in your own little surroundings, together with people who believe in it, too. This way you can make it work and show others that it actually can work. That doesn't mean that everybody has to do it like you "or else..." If there is no compromise possible, then it turns into extremism, and I don't think that extremism ever added something positive to the world.