How much do you think your family has impacted the kind of music you like and play?
I got my music knowledge from living in their house. And they let me do whatever I want. My dad is an artist at heart and he couldn't let himself do anything otherwise. And my mom too. And they both love the fact that they can experience art and promote it. And Katie and Brian's parents are supportive too. But that's certainly a minority.

How political is your music and do you want to be more or less political or not involved at all.
I like that the politics is subtle in what we do, and that's also a part of the way I grew up. My parents raised me to be politically open minded but not in anyone's face. I don't mind dropping a hint here and there to get people to think about something.

So what do you think of this war?
Lately I have been really really angry. Not so much that we are at war, but I am reading lots of editorials in papers and hearing people call into radio shows saying things like "I believe in the military and my family has members in the military and I thinks its shameful for people to be protesting the war while my family members are off dying, they should be biting their tongue and praying for their freedom". I don't feel like I should be biting my tongue or that anyone should. I think it's a bad idea to badmouth the military that is doing something I would never ever do. I think it's a bad idea that they are there, but I am glad that they are there instead of me.

Do you think anything could have been done differently to prevent this war from starting?
No. I kind of have felt like it was inevitable from the beginning. From the first time I heard the president talk about it, I don't think it was ever a mystery to anyone that we were going to war. I think the only thing we could have done differently was to have a different president.

There's been popular support for the president and it has been for the last year and a half. The thing that he has done that is so bad for this country is creating the with us/against us duality. You're either with the president or you're anti-country. And it's anti-freedom, and it's not just anti-our own freedom. Then we not only don't respect the freedom that we enjoy, but we don't have enough respect for freedom to allow us to try and deliver to places in other parts of the world that don't have it now.

It's hard living with the media because it's the same way it's always been with the media here. I heard a long discussion on the Marc Steiner show on how CNN is following the fox model. Fox has never tried to be a legitimate media, and everybody in their right mind knows that Fox is ridiculous. The difference is that people don't generally feel that way about CNN.

I want to say that popular support is not the media's fault. I can't blame it on the media, because that's silly; people can think for themselves and they do. But I think a lot of it's the media's fault. The Washington Post is very pro-war. The Baltimore Sun is very anti-war but very badly written. And if you live around here and read the newspapers, you take the Washington Post more seriously because it's a bigger newspaper. And when you watch TV you watch CNN and MSNBC, both of which are leaning pro-war. And they show very little protest footage and if they do it's immediately followed by pro-troops protesters.

A quick synopsis of being in America these day:
I feel the same way I've always felt about being here: I like it. I have opportunities I wouldn't have elsewhere. I don't like the fact that I feel like what's being stuffed down my throat these days is that the only way I can say that I appreciate it is to agree with what its doing. It's doing things in the name of my freedom, but that's not what its doing at all. No one else's freedom is going to be gained here, except theoretically the people in Iraq who will theoretically be better off by us being there. But that's hard because a lot of them are going to be dead. And it's hard to be free when you're dead.

How do you feel about being in a band these days?
The band to me is an opportunity to do with my life what I wanted to do with my life. And I am achieving my goals now and I am doing my future goals now. I am making CDs I like, and meeting my idols and playing to packed houses to people who love what I am doing. And I am doing that at 22. And I can do that until everything else gets too hard and not feel too bad about it or at least change what I am doing. I feel like as long as I am doing music and listening to music than I'll be fine. I think this is the thing to do right now.

What do you want to do next?
I have the summer and fall to do what I want to do. I really get to tour and try to live touring. And quit my jobs now. We spent ten minutes onstage at Falconridge onstage last year and sold 200 CDs. This year we get an hour on the main stage as well as a few side stages. We can play more to the audience and we have a new CD. And so now were planning to be on the road, with a couple of days off at a time, from the second week of May until September.

We're doing good stuff and we're having fun doing it. For the most part it's really fun. We get to spend a week in Vermont, and hang it in New York and all these great beautiful places. And it's what I want to do, so it's good to enjoy getting to do it.

Pat is a senior at Towson University majoring in voice, you can reach him at: ptklink1@yahoo.com

The band, We're About Nine, is on the web. If you are in Maryland, Washington D.C. or northern Virginia you can see them in person fairly easily. Otherwise, they'll be touring along the east coast between Virginia and Maine this summer. This includes playing at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York state on the mainstage after being chosen last year as one of the top three new bands. If you can't see them in person, you can stream their songs from the web and then, of course, buy their CD.

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