It’s White Flag’s World, We Just Live In It: An Interview With Pat Fear

Popshifter: How did that come about?

Pat Fear: We were playing in the Faroe Islands in 2003, of all places, and somebody mentioned a rock festival in Greenland. I said. “Okay, well tell them about us.” So I get home and the people from Greenland contacted me and said, “We want you to headline next summer.” Lo and behold, we did.

That was the weirdest experience of my life, I can tell you that much! We had one fourth of the population of Greenland in the audience. The weather wasn’t very good, which is normal for there, and people were saying that they came six hours by speedboat. There are no roads between settlements; there are only snowmobiles or water routes.

It was insane. The people were wonderful. One of the opening bands was all indigenous people from Greenland, in an all Deep Purple cover band called Peep Durple. It was unbelievable because they were great!

Popshifter: (laughs) That’s insane!

Pat Fear: Think about it, we’re in Greenland! (laughing) It was a two-day festival. On the Friday night, they had a fireworks display, which was probably the single most precariously unwise, dangerous thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.

They were the kind of fireworks you’d see at Disneyland or the Rose Bowl? They were being handled in the most cavalier manner. . . like basically being put into tin cans and lit—

Popshifter: (laughing)

Pat Fear: — and sent up into the sky. Like a crowd of people standing around a barbecue pit and shooting off professional, atom-bomb-sized fireworks. . . it was UNREAL! I’m like, “Okay, guys we need to live through this experience so let’s back away.”

Popshifter: (still laughing)

Pat Fear: It was all timed very specifically. This promoter kept running up to us and going, “We’re going to firework!” So he’s dragging us outside from where we were backstage and I didn’t know what that meant.

And I walked outside and it looked like a cartoon rendition of what fireworks look like, and I’m like, “What is this? Is this some kind of art thing?” And they lit the fuses and they blew up in the sky! No fire department. . . when you see these things here, there will be huge barriers. . . people were smoking cigarettes and drunk out of their minds.

Never mind being at a punk rock riot after a Ramones gig; this was dangerous!

Click to read more from Pat Fear on. . .

Dr. Demento & The Ramones
Causing trouble
The Malcolm McLaren Handbook
Battle of the Bands
White Flag Goes to Greenland
Those missing 22 copies. . .
Os Mutantes
The Shaggs
Motel Spaghetti
Gasatanka

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