"Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms." - Salman Rushdie



Reported Failure knows what Salman Rushdie means. Reported Failure fights. Reported Failure stretches what mainstream rock and roll is. We've seen it with their previous albums: "I Know You", a fight or flight response to being a teenager at the start of the new millennium; "Flux of the Run", a tragic examination of growing up and youthful idealism; "Disarm", a startling anti-war album from the midst of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; "Post-Grunge Catastrophe", a powerful criticism of the rock scene; "Darkness", a huge comparison of personal downfalls and political downfalls; and finally "Rome", an epic examination of God, what it means to love, and how to find peace.

Amid fighting, Reported Failure has changed. Most recently Reported Failure nearly split up. Bille Beckett departed on a Chris McCandless style journey away from "modern society." The band seemed to be over, but they have opened up in the first Reported Failure interview in over two years.

My first question goes to everyone and it is simple. Why are you here?

Billie: The short answer. Because of the music. Because I have more to say.

Vin: Yeah. When Billie left we had no idea what would happen. The rest of us were sort of in limbo. We thought about other projects and we tried to move on because as time went on it looked unlikely that Billie would come back, but we have been so dedicated to this band nonstop for years that it was hard to find something else.

Matt: At the end of the day we really have no real world skills and we've been doing this long enough that its all we can do.
Robert: And I've also been in other bands and done other things, but the greatest work of my career has been with these three guys and its hard to move on from that. For the months he was gone we all hoped Billie would come back.

Billie, I wont let you off that easy. We have to know, what happened when you were out on your own? What did you do?
Billie: What did I do? I wandered. I slept. I met people. I played my guitar a little bit. I searched more for the answers to life's questions and I tried to get away from the things that I despise about this world. I dont know what more you want. Do you want to know where I went? I went wherever the world took me. Washington. I got over to Minnesota. I decided to go South. I got to Texas. That was all within the first couple of months. Well then I actually met this guy who was looking for volunteers for a charity project in Africa. So I joined him and I went to Africa for about a month.

You went to Africa?
Billie: That's what I said. It was good. It was big. I found some of what I was looking for.

I guess, Billie, what I really want to ask is what happened to make you want to come back?
Billie: There are moments in our lives where we think what is best os to forget everything. We think what we need is a clean slate and to start completely over. I thought that I had reached one of those moments. But when I was traveling and I saw so many different types of lifestyles and humanity, I realized that my purpose is not to be a martyr for my own malcontent. My purpose is to share what I see and what I feel. Reported Failure has been how I do that. I saw so many things that made me angry or made me happy and I realized that it was selfish of me to want to see these things only for my own benefit. I needed to say something to the world.

Billie Beckett looks a little bit different from before he left. He is thinner. he wasn't eating the diet of a modern american while he was away. His hair is largely the same. His demeanor is a bit more intense. He seems less casual. He has a new tattoo on his wrist. It is a vivid, psychedelic looking lion with the word "Babirye" printed on it. The rest of Reported Failure apears unchanged.

So how did you come back in to contact with the rest of the band?
Billie: Well I got back from Africa and by the time my flight landed I knew I wanted to talk to these guys.

Matt: Billie called me up. It was maybe the middle of the afternoon. We all met up at Liberation Records later that day. There isn't much more to it. We hadn't talked to Billie since he left.

So did you decide right then to continue as a band?
Vin: Yeah. We jammed a little too. This was only a week and and a half ago.

one question I'm sure most fans are wondering is whether this will be the same Reported Failure?
Robert: I kind of feel like Reported Failure is always changing. I cant say whether from month to month we are ever the same Reported Failure.

Matt: Yeah. If you look at our past albums we've changed on each one. Our attitudes as we play live have changed. Our outlooks on the world have changed.

Billie: We're still the same four guys that have been in the band for awhile. But I've changed a lot even since our last album. Thematically anything we do is going to be very different from our recent work.

Vin: Yeah. I think also how anything we do sounds is related to what it is about. If the lyrics are angry the sound will be angry.

So have you already been in the studio?
Vin: Yeah we actually booked the studio in Iceland where we recorded much of Rome as soon as we knew we wanted to continue to make music.

Wow. So how is your new material sounding?
Billie: Heavy.

Matt: Heavy and loud as fuck. We've only layed down a couple of tracks but thats the general tone.

Vin: On Rome there wasn't really any crazy guitar work; it was more ambient based. That's going to change.

So would you say you're working on a new album?
Vin: Maybe. We're considering changing how we release our music. We want to reach more people and abandon the traditional record label model.

Why's that?
Billie: Because its supposed to be about the music. Even though I'm not isolating myself doesn't mean that what I wrote in my letter wasn't true. I'm not interested in supporting the greed that I see in the world. We want to make this music for the people and not for our own benefit or the benefit of a record label.

Well you're currently under contract with Studio60 Records. How do you plan to work this out?
Vin: Well, were still just out of the gate after deciding to keep going so we haven't quite worked that out. We'd love to work with them because they've been a very kind label to us and they've given us creative freedom over our music. We now, however, also want some freedom over how our music is released.

Reported Failure is a forward looking band. I had a hundred questions about their previous work, but the band wanted to focus only on their most recent news and the future. They remain one of the most elusive contemporary bands. The questions of "Rome" will remain unanswered, but the band was surprisingly revealing about their futures and personal lives.

Billie, how has taking this leave from the world affected your relationships upon coming back?
Billie: I'm still figuring that out. I'm not living in Santa Cruz anymore. I might see if I can get a small apartment in a more rural town. My son went back to Seattle with his mother. I'm going to see them later this week, but that is still a very rocky relationship and I do not know whether anything has changed in these past months for her. My mother was happy to see me. Nothing has really changed with my band-mates. I just feel like I have more inside of me now. I have more radical things to say, so I guess what might change the most is how fans and the world views me.

What exactly are some of the things you have to say?
Billie: Well I said a lot of them in my letter. I'm going to say more of them with the music were working on. But I'm just very disenchanted with politics and social structure and expectations in the United States. I want to live in a country with a lessened income gap, one where discrimination based on race, or gender, or sexual orientation doesn't exist But even further I want to live where people dont define themselves by what they own or what socioeconomic class they fall in to, but by what they hold within themselves. Reported Failure has always been a little bit political, but I feel like our music is going to become more preachy than it has been before, and I dont know how people will react to that.

How much longer do you think you will be together as a band? Some of you have kids and spouses. How much longer is doing this feasible?
Matt: Honestly, I think we're in this for the long haul.

Robert: I agree. We've faced so many things that should have meant the end of our band, but they didn't. I dont know what more we can face.

Vin: We're gonna be washed up and forgotten by the time we actually call it quits. Haha.

Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles
Lyrics: Billie Beckett
Production: Vin Peters and Avil Hartman
Length: 8:02

Come clean with the will of all sinners
The sinners and slaves of the people who pray
Who pray to a God who seems to leave us

Foraging for new consummation
Contemplating the end of this battle between weak and strong
The weak belong where they kiss the ring of the king
But I do not belong

When we learn dont we learn to belong
right or wrong its all about where we go
And not what we love but who we know
Well it breaks my heart to know you
And to know where you belong

Break free from the path thats been laid
Come make sense of how to misbehave
If I am free am I still paid
To pay attention to a dying way

Fighting to own the future
Its all we've ever done
And its all we have become
Come clean of the bitch and run
Reconcile your sins with the western sun
Let the earth be free to everyone
Or kill me now so at least its done
I dont want to live without anyone
This is all I want the men and women to come along

Come take arms
Come take arms

I've seen so many men
And I've seen men live
I've seen them in the air and the water
But I've also seen them die
And when they scream
They scream "Let me go now"
It is a war
Sometimes it is hell
But for all the men I've seen
Not one couldn't ask themselves once
To be or not to be
Again
Again