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How do you reconcile anarchism and being on a giant corporate record label which supposedly manufactures arms? I realise you're reaching a lot more people than you ever could playing punk rawk, but aren't you in a way admitting defeat to capitalism by releasing records on EMI or whatever instead of Agit-Prop? Why not create your own collectively-run major label, like Agit-Prop but bigger, to get your message across to fashion-conscious youth?

If EMI or Universal manufactured arms we wouldn't be on either label. EMI used to be linked to Thorn who manufactured weapons but they severed links a few years ago (which is why they're not called Thorn EMI anymore). We signed to EMI/Universal not because we'd been co-opted into the "If you can't beat capitalism... join it" school of thought, but because experience had taught us that in a capitalist environment almost every record company operates on capitalist principles. Our previous record label One Little Indian didn't have the evil symbolic significance of EMI BUT they were completely motivated by profit. Our position (Chumbawamba) was that whoever we signed with would want us not for our ideas but for the potential profit, so we'd battle for a contract where we still had autonomy. EMI and Universal didn't offer us the most dosh but we did get short-term contracts where we still maintained control of everything from the production to the artwork. Everybody living in the US and Europe at this point in time is living with capitalism. The trick is to exist within it and at the same time try and find ways to bring the bastard down, which is why you get sabotage in the workplace - and one-off teachers who are paid by the state but encourage kids NOT to respect authority just because it's there. I have to admit that we were surprised that signing to a major label did actually take us into people's homes. We wouldn't be having discussions about politics with people in the US if we hadn't signed to a major. As for running our own label... I can't think of anything that we'd want to do less than create our own 'collectively run major label'. We wound up Agit-Prop because for years we'd given our labour to it for free and the label still lost money faster than a compulsive gambler with no credit limit. We reached a point where we realised that the only way we could make Agit-Prop 'work' would be to become more ruthless and business minded. We did the sensible thing and packed it in instead. The last thing we'd want to do now is run a business, which is what it would have to be to survive in a market economy. We've got bigger, grander ideas than become alternative capitalists. We want a world without money... I'm not saying that we think Chumbawamba can achieve that BUT we can at least bring up and debate the possibility. We do recognise that some independent record labels do exist successfully without ripping off their artists etc, and definitely applaud them. For years we saw how people like Dischord in Washington DC and The Ex in Holland could combine business skills and fair economic practices, and for years, with Agit-Prop, we tried to do just that. Basically we failed. And there's no blanket "all indies are the same as majors"...

I'm an Anarchist from Canada. My punk name is Patches so remember that! I had this fantasy in my head where I join an indie label and become a really big punk rocker who's highly respected like, say, Crass. Then I sell out and go to a major label but I hold on to my principles. My band hits it big and I become the Kurt Cobain of anarcho-punk. Then my band sticks it to the Man by teaching people about anarchist principles then I get murdered by a Christian fundamentalist. I never actually believed it could work, but then I found out that Chumbawamba did exactly that! My questions are: 1) Would you recommend other anarchists, who are adamant in thier convictions and cannot be swayed by money, to do what you did? 2) Is that even plausible? 3) Do you like Nirvana? 4) Is it pointless to spread Anarchism that way?

Well I think your fantasy has very little to do with what happened to Chumbawamba. Honestly. It misses out the arguments and airport lounges and weird scenes and shit gigs and brilliant gigs and Alabama 3 and the alcohol and love and fear and mistrust and bizarre people at record companies and the miming and the photo ops and the rock n roll. It's all a bit smooth. 1) As anarchists they can do stuff their own way, of course. 2) It's plausible (and possible) to be a lot stranger and wierder and interesting than we ever were. 3) I bought the box set a few months ago, which I was disappointed in. Made me realise how well-structured and cleverly-produced the albums are. Brilliant pop/rock group. Great sexual politics. Superb band. But have little sympathy for the angst-ridden junkie misery. 4) Spreading anarchism is a matter of first understanding what it means and how it applies to the world, to communities, to individuals. Learn about it, read about it.

What is your current relationship, if any, with Colin Jerwood and others from Conflict? Did you ever attempt to respond to their criticisms, particularly of your supposed link with armaments makers after your signing to EMI, or their publicly-stated feeling of betrayal? Do you ever feel any sense of remorse when seeing their continued troubles with the law and their consequent difficulties in putting together new material--do you feel as if you abandoned them at all?

Colin Jerwood is the father of my two children and the rest of Conflict pop round all the time for tea. I'm lying. I haven't seen, spoken or had any contact with Conflict for at least 13 years. When we played with them all those years ago they seemed like nice lads but I never really liked either their music or delivery of it. That's the brutally honest version. I remember Harry saying that they were a great band but I never got it. Boff says that Colin DJ'd for a while after Conflict but we never had close enough contact to know what they went on to do. When we signed to EMI they didn't have an armaments division; they'd parted company with Thorn (who produced arms) six years previously. If EMI had still been connected with Thorn we wouldn't have worked with the label. As far as we were concerned we were signing with out-and-out capitalists who were no better and no worse than Sony, Universal and all the other big labels. The debate that was to be had was whether openly working with a multinational would stop us from producing radical art. It didn't but the multinational refused to sell it. WYSIWYG was an album which dealt with globalisation, dumbing-down and the way absolute poverty is hidden under a shiny GAP label. This is the age of manufactured bands, we don't fit into the shut-up and sing ethos epitomised by Hearsay. Recuperation is always a problem. We weren't concerned with staying pure but we were concerned with staying relevant and not becoming complacent. We still feel we're part of a movement and when we sold records the movement received a cash injection, that was something useful we could do. So we don't feel any remorse towards Conflict or anybody else, signing to EMI didn't detach us from the real world or turn us into grinning fools, which is probably why our relationship with EMI was so fraught in the UK. We didn't know that Conflict are having continued problems with the police... what are they? I saw in an e mail today that Conflict just played at the Kebele Anarchist Centre in Bristol, I presume that means that they've conquered their problems with writing new songs. They can't still be doing the same set they played in the eighties.