Exclusive: Extinction A.D.’s New Video Is Every Punk's Political Nightmare

While plenty of latter-day thrash bands have come and gone in a blast or recycled riffs, Long Island, New York’s Extinction A.D. have remained determined and powerful. The band’s unique flavor of burly, groove-heavy crossover thrash has made them stand out among the crop of American bands trying to play loud and fast with no unique character. Now, the band is preparing to make their UK debut with a series of shows, both headlining and in support of Harm’s Way.

“We’ve actually had two false starts making it overseas,” says guitarist and vocalist Rick Jimenez, “and this is our first time with Extinction A.D. getting over at all. It should be a good time, we’re super excited to play with Harm’s Way.”

To usher in these shows, the band have also created a new video for the track In The Wake Of Uprising from last year’s Decimation Treaty. Not only is the song a punishing mid-paced stomper, but the video, created by Pieter van den Berg, is also a terrifying look at a situation that many punks, metal fans, and enemies of the current political system consider all too real. Between performance shots, the viewer sees Rick dragged into a room by faceless goons, held down in a chair, shown some really nasty medical equipment, and...well, you’ll have to watch below.

“I think we’re on a very slippery slope with limiting human rights,” says Rick. “It’s getting to the point where that balance of freedom and security is getting really crazy, making sure people live in fear. As humans, we have to be vigilant. We need to have inherent rights. Then, we dispute what counts as such, but we’re heading towards a 1984 lifestyle, and it’s getting scarily close.”

The kidnapping and interrogation themes in the video touch on this feeling of the concept of Trump’s America, where people can be held against their will for any reason. Was that the intention?

Initially, the song focused on hiding behind an authority structure. The police structure, the court structure, even the political structure. They make the rules to bend the rules and then enforce those rules. That’s so fucking frightening. I don’t want to exaggerate with words like dictatorship, cause you don’t need to go that far to realize we’re in a crisis. You don’t need to say Trump is the second coming of Hitler to notice him as a crazy, egotistical psychopath that makes people frightened.

With the video, we kind of wanted to mirror this while turning the intangible aspect of the song into a more visual-based thing. At any point, people are starting to come down more on humans on what you can or can’t do, say, or express yourself. It’s really hard to do this when you don’t have a true democracy, but you gotta do something to make your voice heard. We obviously have a huge police problem and authority problem. So at any point, somebody can be physically restrained from something that’s a human right but can be viewed into something it’s not from the required voice. We wanted to captivate that struggle. You have to fight like Hell to keep it, which is crazy to imagine in fucking 2019. It’s not 1995, or 1992, or the Reagan era. It’s fucking insane that we’re going back in time with issues, and it’s just scary as Hell. This is coming from four men. Imagine thinking that from a women’s point of view? I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it.

You’re playing the UK for the first time later this year. Is there something about British fans that is unique or special?

I feel like music fans outside of America are way more open, way less ready to focus on the negatives. Much more open to just enjoying it, rather than trying to appear smart. Leaving America is always fun as a band, and just that much easier. I feel like people from Europe in general are always appreciative for a band to come over there, even though a band like us isn’t exactly the biggest name. People are just excited for us to come over. Also, playing to new people is cool. We’ve done a ton of American and Canadian shows, but we haven’t played overseas yet, so we’re going to be playing to entirely new people. It’s exciting to see where that goes.

Why do you think American fans are more closed off overall?

It’s American culture to be so insular, and American culture is all about being number one, whereas anything else outside of America is suspect or inferior. It’s a strange thing, especially in the grand scheme of the world, in that America is this infant. It’s an immature, relatively new structure and culture compared to ancient East and older European cultures. I guess it’s kind of that snotty, 13-year old thinking everything they do is great, and their parents can’t know any better than them. There’s so many worldwide successful world entertainment industries and properties that come from America, so Americans think they are the be-all end-all of the world. It’s easier for an American band to travel and be appreciated than even a Canadian band to travel and be appreciated. I just think it’s a byproduct of the self-centeredness of the American culture. It’s just such a fucking strange concept, especially with the political climate today. Hopefully this is more of a growing pain than the first step in devastation.

Check out the video for In The Wake Of Uprising Below:

Extinction A.D.'s Decimation Treaty is out now on Good Fight Music.

Make sure you catch the band live for their first UK shows at one of the following dates: