Smoke or fire: "a lot o people are dehumanized.".

I ALWAYS LIKE BANDS even more when the people in them aren't assholes. Especially socially conscious bands, because it's nice if bands care about folks in foreign lands, but if they're dicks to their friends and family the whole enterprise rings of suspicion. I also relate to self-assured misfits coming to grips with life's never-stopping grinder and don't come out jaded, but rather stronger and courageous. Smoke or Fire has already suffered through some serious shrapnel. Their form of catchy anxiety comes out in their songs; the bottled-up fury, broken-out melodies, and galloping harmonies are obviously plugged into their hearts, not your wallet. Above the City, their debut, is a spanker--not too gritty or blown out, yet not processed and antiseptic. It's got that tingling charge of North Lincoln and that riot based on kindness of Strike Anywhere. Smart and socially conscious, but ready to party, here's Smoke or Fire.

How did you get 22 people in an elevator and have it break?

We got back to the hotel at South by Southwest and had been drinking for most of the day, and we ended up trying to find something to do. It was us and the guys from Against Me! and their crew. Somebody told us that there was a party on the 14th floor. We all jumped in the elevator and were going up. Every time the elevator would stop and someone was there, we'd tell them to come in. When we got to the fourteenth floor, everyone was running away from the party, saying the cops had just come. We told them to jump in. So, we ended up with 22 people in the elevator, and most of the people were so drunk that we didn't notice that the elevator had broken down until we slammed into the ground and dust fell all over us. We tried to pull the doors apart. We couldn't, but we noticed that the first floor was at about chest level to me. We were a good four feet below the first floor, stuck for about an hour.

No one had to pee real bad or anything?

It was more that people had to puke. There were some people that were really claustrophobic. You could barely even move. There was a pizza guy who was really upset because he thought he was going to get fired. He was on the phone fighting with his boss, and wouldn't give us pizza.

He actually had pies with him?

He was just going to make a delivery. He was not happy. There were a couple of people who were really claustrophobic and had to puke. I think if they had started puking it would've been a big ...

Chain reaction?

Yeah. So, finally the fire department came; they were not too happy.

Is there a direct link between the sentiment in your song "Culture As Given" to what historian Howard Zinn wrote in You Can't Remain Neutral on a Moving Train? After he was a bombardier during WWII, he came to this epiphany that America went there to fight fascists and it's supposed to be a good war, but he still bombed innocent people.

Absolutely. That's exactly what it's about. I went and saw Howard Zinn speak after 9/11, saying that when he saw the Towers drop, the first thing he thought of was dropping bombs on cities. So, from there, I wanted to write a song more like from the point of view of the person looking up and seeing bombs coming towards them and seeing their family, and regular civilians, and buildings around them being destroyed. A lot of people are dehumanized and you think of them as the enemy because their towns and cities may not look the same as ours--or just the way that they're perceived on television--doesn't mean that they're not human beings. When you think about how big a city like Baghdad, for example, is, and the fact that you're just dropping bombs and all of the innocent people you're killing, I think it's been so dehumanized in the media that I just wanted to write a song from the point of view of someone who that is actually happening to. I could never have that point of view, but I wanted to try.

What's the worst logistical tour nightmare the band's faced?

Which one do I choose from? The one that we ended up laughing about a lot, and still do, was when our van caught on fire in Alachua, Florida at a gas station. We thought it was going to blow up at the pump. There were two state troopers standing fight next to it, laughing at it.

Serve and protect!

The van had broken down three times that day. We were on the way from Birmingham, Alabama to Gainesville, Florida. The van kept breaking down, but we were playing the Common Grounds in Gainesville, where shows start at 11, so we were like, "We're gonna make it." The last time that the van died, we were rolling off of the road and hit a fire. It banged up everything underneath the van. So we pulled into this gas station to have a place where it could get fixed or towed. People all around were freaking out. We look out, and they're screaming, "Your van's on fire!" The whole underbelly of the van was on fire. We thought it was going to explode, but we ended up just getting towed to the show. It was 17 miles away, pushed it into a parking spot, and went on stage and played. We still made it. The next day, we just got a couple of new parts and held the rest of the stuff that broke underneath with guitar strings and duct tape, and finished up the tour.