Chad Stokes Urmston has a lot on his mind lately. The frontman for State Radio (and formerly for Dispatch), Stokes has given a great deal of thought to what is wrong with this world, and is very much active in his efforts to fix it. 

    Since the inception of State Radio, the band have taken their message across the country several times over. In the leadup to the 2004 election, the band played almost 40 shows in swing states in an effort to have their voices heard. Although the fans went out to hear the music, they would leave with a renewed impetus to register themselves to vote, and then to cast that vote. During that time, Stokes also became familiar with the life of Camilo Mejia, a conscientious objector from the Florida National Guard who was jailed for refusing to return to Iraq. Stokes immediately leapt to Mejia's defence, and the song "Camilo" is a heartfelt defence of a soldier's right not to fight in an unnecessary and unjust war.

    State Radio have also played a number of shows to benefit the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, and are also no strangers to the environmental arena.

    In amongst all of this, Stokes was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions for us.

     GR: Firstly, to get our readers a little more acquainted with the band, I'd like to ask you about where the name came from and  how you guys got started. 

     Chad: State Radio used to be a song of ours, and it was about the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia.  It was about he used the media to control and alter events in his country.  So isntead of taking a name like that and trying to reinvent it into something hopefully more liberating than an iron fist media.

    And how did the band get started?

    The bassist Chuck [Fay] and I played in different bands, and actually his band opened up for my own band, so I got to know him through that.  Then our drummer, we had a mutual high school friend.  So we just started -- I was looking for a drummer to complete the trio, and [Mike "Mad Dog" Najarian] revealed himself.  

 I like the reggae-rock crossover feel you have.  That's something we could stand to see more of.  Who do you consider to be primary influences on your sound?

     I grew up listening to tons of Bob Marley, and Zeppelin, and Jethro Tull.  And then, a little bit of Cat Stevens, which gets a little bit more into world-type music.  And then, the formative high school years with Nirvana and Sublime coming out, it was something I always like the roots reggae, and listed to a bunch of Gladiators and Freddie McGregor and some of that Ska stuff.  I sort of had a leaning in both directions, and band that swung that way a little bit -- like the Clash, they weren't afraid to let their influences really pronounce themselves in their music, and I always liked that and wanted to do that in whatever musical project I'm in.

In addition to that Milosevic reference in the band's name, there's an obvious political direction to a lot of your lyrics.  Are there particular events that you feel have shaped the message of the album as a whole?

 I think the invasion and subsequent war with Iraq is something that's pretty close to the... it's omnipresent in most of the songs.  In a bunch of songs it's clearer than others, but I feel like the United States' role in disrupting the Middle East has a huge impact on us musically because it's on our minds.  It's such a tragedy in our time, so I think that, and the overall themes of corruption of authority are pretty pervasive in our music.  

Speaking of the lyrics, a lot of the messages for individual songs seem to have to do with the inherent good or evil within people.  Would you agree with that statement?

Yes.  I think at the core, we're optimists, so I hope that's true.

Is Mr. Larkin somebody real, or is he an archetype who stands for a lot of people out there?

He's real.  His name wasn't Mr. Larkin, but it is a real story.  My girlfriend worked at a nursing home, and my grandfather was at that same nursing home, so I spent a good deal of time there.  There were all sorts of amazing stories, some good, some bad.  So that's true.

As I understand it, you recently came off a tour, and are planning to be touring again starting next month.  Do you have some interesting stories to share from tours that you've had?

We've had some good ones.  We just played at the Boston Garden, following a Bruins game.  We did a relay race between the second and third period, against the Ice Girls, in front of a packed Garden crowd.  First of all, it's crazy to be on the actual ice without skating, and it's a legendary space, so it's very exciting to be out there.  Our bassist hasn't skated too much, so he was walking around on the concrete with his skates even before we were to take the ice, drinking beers and we ended up losing to the Ice Girls. 

But it was a great moment.  That was a pretty singular moment, pretty surreal. 

    Sounds like a lot of fun.

    Yeah, it was really fun.  Mad Dog and I played hockey, growing up and in high school, so it was a thrill for us. 

    Taking a look through the State Radio website is that you have a link to the Green Party of the United States.  In what ways do you personally, and as a band, work to keep things Greener?

    Well, we have a diesel van, so we have all the biodiesel sites in the country are dotted on our atlas, so we're always jumping around trying to go off the beaten path so we can go to these farms that have the 100% biodiesel, so we can fill up our van.  Other than that, we just try, like anyone else, to promote. 

    Sometimes we'll have environmental groups at a show, so people can know what's going on and know what's going on and be informed about the different decisions that are being made politically, that affect the environment so much. 

    And we're hoping to convert our van so we can completely run on grease.  If we ever upgrade to a bus, you can buy energy off the grid from WindPower.  I hope eventually we can get to that point.  I'm not sure if you can do that with a van or not.  We probably could.

    I would imagine so. 

    Yeah, I'll look into that.

    One more question for you - is there somebody in particular you think would be a good person for us to feature in the magazine?

    Have you heard of the Rx Bandits?

     I haven't.

    They're great.  They've got a good message, and they're good guys.  They're a great band. 

    We'll definitely have to take a listen out for them.  Thank you for your time, and have a great night.