INTERVIEW: DISPATCH

Photo Credit: Tara Gracer

Interview by Margaret Corona

I spoke with DISPATCH’s Chad Stokes and Brad Corrigan on the opening night of their 10-stop AMPlifying Democracy tour, which Boston is lucky enough to host for two consecutive nights at MGM Fenway on October 18 and 19. We spoke about what’s inspiring Stokes and Corrigan most these days, the importance of understanding our ballots up and down, and the return of DISPATCH’s indoor touring!

Margaret Corona (MC): Tonight is the opening night for your tour. How are you feeling, and what are you doing to prepare for the big night in Green Bay?

Chad Stokes (CS): Well, we’ve got to think of a setlist. We haven’t done an indoor tour in a long time, since… 

Brad Corrigan (BC): 2017! I mean, a proper fall tour, yeah, that’s the last one! 

CS: That’s wild. And we have some new songs, and so that’s fun. And yeah, it feels pretty fresh.

BC: We also just looked at the schedule, and we have two-hour sound checks and two-hour slots to play, which is like…

CS: Oh, that’s what you were saying! It’s like triple recess! 

MC: That’s awesome! Wow. That sounds great. Are you in Wisconsin already, I’m assuming?

CS: Yeah, and we came from Las Vegas, which is so surreal, to go from 100-degree heat at, you know, Vegas, to like, Oh, this feels a little better!

MC: A little breezier, for sure. Yeah, that’s awesome. Okay, so I’d love it if you guys would tell me a little bit about what inspired you to create this AMPlifying Democracy tour.

BC: I think a lot of the idea was just, I feel like I’m fairly opinionated when I’m really chatting with people. I’m not that public about my opinions, but I honestly feel pretty uneducated, both locally and nationally, when it comes down to issues. So Chad and I and our team were talking about Ballot Ready in particular, and Chad’s nonprofit Calling All Crows, the work that they do to give people the tools to be educated. Doesn’t matter what you believe in, like, doesn’t matter what state you’re from, but to have a tool like Ballot Ready to enter in your zip code and learn immediately about the leaders that are on the ticket and the issues that are there, just like, if people just had more tools in their hands to learn, maybe we’d fight less, you know? Like, maybe we’d feel more empowered as voters and just think, Well, when I go, I actually can vote for more than two things on the ballot because I actually know about, you know, half of the other 40 or 50 different options. So anyway, for me, I think it was just very clear, like, our democracy is built on our involvement in it and our engagement and excitement about it, and I get excited about things when I actually know what I’m talking about.

CS: Yeah, I think it’s so easy in this climate to just receive sound bites from your own silo, and Ballot Ready really gives us a way to go deeper and to kind of understand what the issues actually are beyond just a few words and where our politicians stand. And so, I think what Brad and I want and what DISPATCH wants is just like less of a divided country. And, you know, I think when you talk to people, so much breaks down in a good way, you know, all these animosities or whatever. But if you just speak with people, and you know that everyone is struggling in their own way. And I think this tour is just about not being divisive, but just being encouraging and like, taking part in our democracy. Let’s not take it for granted, you know? We’re just days away from such a giant election. We want the people to own the democracy a little bit and to feel like that’s what we can do to have great representation, to feel seen and heard, you know, our job is to vote, and then all else can kind of fall in place.

MC: Absolutely. Yeah. So I know you kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, but music is obviously just one aspect of your social work. Brad, you’re the founder of Love Light + Melody, which is an organization that helps children in Nicaragua “thrive through education, music, art and sports.” Chad, you’re the co-founder of Calling All Crows, an organization that “creates campaigns that harness the power of music to address pressing social issues and to create long-term systemic change.” What are some of the leading things that inspired you both to create these organizations?

BC: I guess the getting older in our country and seeing like, Wow, just how privileged we actually are in terms of clean water and access to food and education, and even though our healthcare is so screwed up, access to urgent medical care, all those things that I thought growing up were just the norm, the more I would travel outside our country, you know, I just started to build perspective of, Oh man, I mean, I’m who I am because of the zip code I was born into, the family that I had, the money we had, the path toward all of those points of access for me, whether it was sports or school or anything that I did. So I didn’t intend to kind of fall into this story in Nicaragua, I just went for a weekend to work in an orphanage. I’d never been to this particular country. I’d never been to an actual orphanage. And when I got there, our taxi driver was like, Well, if you’re here for kids, there’s a greater need in the trash dump. And I was so confused by that because I was like, Well, maybe I misunderstood him, but he said, Kids with a greater need, I’ll just go where he goes. And so, sure enough, he took us into the city landfill in Managua. And Managua, at the time, was about the same size as Denver, wherever I grew up, so I’m just imagining, like, Oh my gosh, I know right where the trash dump is in Denver, by the airport. What if 300 families lived there in a township like they do in Nicaragua? Oh my gosh, look at all these kids. So, I don’t know, my heart and mind were really captured. It’s almost like a riddle, just a really sordid, heartbreaking riddle to see, Why are kids and families choosing to live in this particular trash dump? So from that point forward, yeah, it was just really motivating to stay there and figure out, Is there any way that, even though I’m from another place, how can I be a bridge between these two worlds and at least draw a light to it and see how we can help?

CS: Yeah, I think for me, I always loved music that was about something bigger because music has its own magic. And then, for me, the combination of social activism within music really just fired me up as a kid. And my favorite artists were the ones who were also out on the picket lines. And so I think I just wanted to be a part of that world, you know, listening to anyone from like Joan Baez and Billy Bragg up to Rage Against the Machine and, you know, I think, as for Brad and I both, it just was like, it was like, Whoa. What a confluence of two things that are, you know, to bring music in with the politics, or in with the messages to be part of this legacy that you know, Woody Guthrie or, you know, is always very alluring to me. So I think that’s where Calling All Crows, its inception, really began.

BC: I think there’s a natural bent, too, for Chad and I that it’d be hard to imagine our music without it. You know, like it’s one of the key ingredients. It’s a part of the why. Why make music? And what music do you make? I mean, I love that it’s all kind of interwoven and that it would just be like, I can’t imagine how we could be DISPATCH, how could we do what we do and try to separate those two.

MC: Yeah, absolutely. In addition to Calling All Crows, you are partnering with Ballot Ready, which I know you mentioned in one of the earlier questions, an organization that helps “tens of millions of people each year take informed action in their democracy” through “comprehensive education on ballots, elections, and elected officials nationwide” during your AMPlifying Democracy shows. I’d love it if you could tell me a little bit about why you picked Ballot Ready specifically to partner with you on this tour. 

CS: Sure, I think Calling All Crows was looking for something. And Brad and I were looking for something in terms of, like, What can we do leading up to this election? We have to do something. Through Calling All Crows, they really did most of the work and kind of vetting what would be useful for fans coming to shows, you know; How can we be part of this? How can we kind of amplify, like we say, but how can we amp up this democratic process, and how can we make it so that people coming to shows can activate into something? Because that’s not always an easy puzzle to put together. And there’s a few organizations like Ballot Ready, but Ballot Ready was just so, their interface and how you interact with them, it’s very easy, user friendly. Because we get people at shows, but then it, you know, it can be like, they can be on to the next thing really quick [laughs]. So it’s like, this is a really quick, easy way to just promote, and we’ll have QR codes at shows and stuff, and, you know, to just be like Boom, there you go, you know, and all of a sudden you have all this information that, you know, Brad and I have said over the years, we’ll go into the polls, and have 17 things in front of us, and it’s like, I’m just here to vote on two of these! I mean, I don’t even know these other names! So, it’s a way to get into the nitty gritty if you want. But it also helps you register to vote right away, you know, it’s just like, it’s very user friendly. And so we felt like it was a great model to take out with us.

BC: Yeah, just this morning, they said their voter guides are live in all 50 states.

MC: Yes, I was going through the one in Mass. today. It was awesome. Like, super cool. And like you were saying, it’s very easy to navigate, which is huge, I feel like, for a lot of people. So, yeah, I can confirm it looks wonderful. So, okay, so bit of a pivot here, and only a couple more questions. What would you say is inspiring you most these days, both on and off the stage?

BC: I think Chad’s a little further down the road on this as a dad. He’s got three kids, my wife and I have two. I think it’s this, this like responsibility. It’s this joy and responsibility now of moving through the world thinking like, It’s not about me anymore. You know, it’s about our family and the decisions that I make, and the things that I say and the things that I don’t say, have an effect on my kids and on our kids collectively. So, I think what’s really inspiring me these days is just thinking like, If we really had kids in the foreground, even with this election, imagine that kids mattered so much to us that we surrounded the debate floor with them. Could you really have two adults acting like we often do if we were surrounded by our children? Let’s have kids in the room when, you know, Netanyahu is speaking to Congress, let’s have the room flooded with Israeli kids, Palestinian kids, American kids, Black kids, brown kids, like, if our kids were everywhere adults are, I’m just fascinated to think, like, What kind of impact would that have for us? Because I’m not that thrilled to be an adult. I feel like we are so failing our kids in countless decisions and just in how shortsighted we are. So I think, you know, being dads is very motivating to think, How now do we live? How can we live, and what are we handing off, essentially, to the ones that we love that have our name? But also, like, I should be thinking about Chad’s kids in my decisions. I should be thinking about Nicaraguan families, Japanese families, Native American families, like, our collective kids are carrying this thing forward.

CS: Yeah, I’m inspired by a few things, I suppose. I’m inspired by the younger generation, you know, to borrow from Brad in there, but a little older, like, I feel like the millennials and Gen Y, Gen Z, get a bad rap. But I feel like there’s so many people doing such, such great things. Even in this world of tech, which we can disappear into, I feel like there’s young people doing and fighting for great things, and I’m inspired by that. I’m inspired about the idea that we might have a woman president. I’m inspired by the teachers at the schools that my kids go to. I’m in awe of the energy and the care that goes into there every day. And I was saying to Brad months ago one of the inspirations for this record was being in the hospital with one of my kids, and just the care and the attention that these nurses and doctors were giving him, this little boy, and then going right on to the next little girl, or right on next to the 85-year-old woman, and just, like, just incredible work. And so that’s when I went to Brad and was like, I got a few new songs here. We need to work like they work, you know, and, so, it’s just being inspired by other people, I guess, is the short answer. 

MC: Thanks for sharing that. Okay, my last question, how can fans get involved with your initiatives, both within and outside of the venues you’re playing?

CS: In the venues, we’re going to have someone there, just strictly talking about registering to vote, getting ready, how to dive into Ballot Ready. And then outside of the venues, you can go on our website or Calling All Crows, and there’s quick links to Ballot Ready too, and we’ll be putting up on our Instagram and everything, keep hammering it like, here’s how you can get involved in your own town, your own democracy and using Ballot Ready to educate if there’s that desire from people out there. So, really kind of jumping into the matrix of making sure you’re registered to vote and learning about the issues and what matters to you, and then voting on what then leads to casting your vote.

BC: Ballot Ready has 5,600 followers, and I think Chad and I believe if people saw this as the unbiased tool that it is, that that number should be, you know, what would be healthy in our country to see? Fifty-six million, maybe, on that? So yeah, just, we’re really hoping that people will see, like, Ballot Ready is for every person, everyone. It’s a great way to make your engagement count, to make your engagement thoughtful.

CS: It’s tough to complain about the country if you don’t take part in it. So I think that’s what this is, taking ownership of the potential of this country and of each other.

BC: Yeah. Well said, Chad.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.