Zak Carter discusses the Rock the Revolution music tour to support Ron Paul and raise awarness for liberty issues, a list of bands committed to play in venues across the country starting in October, an opening for talented folks in the entertainment business to help in Las Vegas and Cleveland, and where you can go to donate to the tour (with remaining proceeds going to Veterans for Peace to help injured vets ignored by the VA).
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All right y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
And our next guest on the show is Zach Cruz Carter, my Facebook friend, and the guy behind the Rock the Revolution Tour 2011.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me on, Scott.
What in the world is the Rock the Revolution Tour?
It's a nationwide concert tour, all in support of liberty, freedom, with a really strong anti-war message.
That's what originally attracted me to Ron Paul.
So this is a concert tour in support of Ron Paul.
And there was a genesis of this, and it starts with his quote that, I always knew if there was going to be a revolution, you needed two things, young people and music.
And so that, and then I've heard people bouncing around the idea of, now we need a concert tour to spread the message.
But it needed somebody like me who had the time and the ability to work on it for 16 to 18 hours a day for free for a few months.
And we're getting on the road.
October 15th is our kickoff from Spanaway, Washington.
It's just outside of the Seattle-Sacoma area.
And it's going to be a lot of fun.
You can go to Rock the Revolution Tour dot com and read all about it.
We've got some great acts lined up, and we're going across the whole country.
All right, well, so why don't you tell us who's playing and some of the places where y'all are playing?
Yeah, you can go to our, it's all listed on the website, but we've got a core of three acts that are doing the whole country.
We've got Per Capita, they're kind of a punk rock surf band kind of feel with some really intelligent political lyrics.
We've got Rise Concise and Crooked.
They're a hip-hop trio.
They did a lot of the Ron Paul music back in 2007 that went viral.
We've got the Voice of Independence.
He's kind of a folksy rock kind of guy.
And then Jordan Page is going to do as much of the tour as he possibly can.
He's really excited about it.
He actually told Ron Paul about the tour the other night.
Really excited about Ron Paul knowing about the tour.
This is completely unaffiliated with the national campaign.
This is 100% grassroots effort.
And I couldn't have pulled something like this off myself.
I have regional coordinators all around the country.
Most of them have been in the entertainment business on the management side of things for years.
Some of them, going back to working with Aaron Russo, some people should pick up on that name.
A few of them are artists themselves and small business owners, but just an amazing wealth of experience that I've been able to pick brains to figure out how something like this works.
I'm just a former Army NCO that got kicked out of the Army for my anti-war beliefs, so I knew how to organize things.
I just didn't have that connection.
And I've been around politics a little bit.
I worked on John Dennis' campaign in 2010.
He's been a big help in this.
He's letting us use his political action committee as pretty much a piggy bank, so we don't have to rely on chip-ins for people who want to donate, because we're keeping all the shows free for the public to go to.
And I think that's really key to expose as many people as possible to an anti-war, pro-peace, pro-civil rights message that will be spreading freedom for free.
Well, I'm looking at the website rocktherevolutiontour.com.
It looks like you have a lot of dates set already.
Are you looking for more people to help and set up more shows and continue to expand this thing?
We definitely are.
There's two places where we don't have regional coordinators on the ground.
We have people helping from other areas on those cities, but Las Vegas and Cleveland, Ohio are the two places that we don't have regional coordinators actually physically in the city that are...well, we have people there, but they're not in the entertainment business, and that's really key to the success of this.
You know, it's great...
I love all of our...everybody's come forward to help, but, you know, we do need people who are involved in the entertainment business at all of our stops to make this successful.
They know the ins and outs.
They know the local talent.
Some of them are helping us bring in some of the bigger names.
I'm not going to drop any yet, but until I hear from the artists themselves, some of the names like Killjoy, they're a California band that had some success, and Ronnie North, he's also had some commercial success.
So, we've got a lot of regional acts also around the country that are going to be joining in when we get to their city.
Some of them are going to do a few acts.
J.D. Nero, he's doing a lot of really smart hip-hop.
He's up in New York City.
He's going to do the New England shows, and I'm really excited to sing.
You know, Mark Sambelius did something like this back in 2007, but, you know, so we're doing this...what he did, you know, taking it to another level.
My buddy Robin Kerner from the Huffington Post, who you've spoken with, he's going to be speaking at the kickoff, and I'm trying to bring him...talk him into coming along for the whole thing.
He's a great guy, a great speaker.
We've got...trying to work with the Institute for the National...well, I can't remember exactly what they're called right now, but they're a foreign policy institute that advocates, you know, for, you know, a peace solution, you know, an anti-war solution to our...variants instead of the foreign policy that we currently have, and so we're also looking for other speakers to come forward.
Also, a few businesses, if they could come forward and sponsor some of these events, that would be a big help in keeping it free for people to come to the shows, and we're also looking for...
Well, Zach, tell me, everybody, it's Zach Carter from rocktherevolutiontour.com.
How do people contact you and participate in this thing?
Yeah, if you go to the website and you click on the About, it will take you to the Daily Paul article that I put up on the dailypaul.com, and all my contact information is right there.
So, just go to rocktherevolutiontour.com and follow the links to my contact information, and I'm really excited.
You know, it's not just, you know, politics that changes the world.
It takes culture.
It takes art and music, and that's why I'm so excited about this, because it's bringing all of that together and putting it on tour for, hopefully, the whole world to see.
I'm excited about how big this thing has, you know, has already become, and we haven't even had our first show yet.
Well, now, you say they're free shows.
It's all planned to be free shows, but are you taking donations, and then, if so, where are you going exactly?
Yeah, we are taking donations.
It'll keep the tour going, and anything above that, we'll be going to...
Veterans for Peace has a really great outreach program to help vets who are being taken care of by the VA, like my best friend, JJ.
I've served with him.
He's come down with pretty nasty cancer, and his civilian doctor is telling him, you know, this is...
I don't see how this can be anything but DU-related cancer, and the VA...
I get emotional talking about JJ, but, you know, the VA saying, you know, no such thing, not possible.
So, we want to help guys like him as much as we can, and...
Yeah, good for you.
I'm excited we can make something like this happen, and thank you so much for having me on, Scott, and please rocktherevolutiontour.com.
Come to our sites.
We're kicking off here in the Seattle area.
We'll be doing the entire West Coast, and because, you know, the political calendars, it makes no sense to me, but because Iowa and New Hampshire are so important, and we're pretty much making a pretty strong beeline to Iowa and New Hampshire, but we'll be in Austin, and I hope to meet you.
I'd love to have you speak at the tour when we're there in Austin.
Well, I'm Scott at antiwar.com.
Get ahold of me.
All right.
Thanks very much, Zach.
Appreciate it.
Zach Carter, everybody.
Rocktherevolutiontour.com.
They're coming to your town.
