The Bad Penny (beta)

“You have to be really cognizant when a band says, ‘We’re not political.’ We don’t have that privilege anymore.”
-Truculent’s Dan Timlin

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As The Bad Penny nears the 50th installment of our On Tyranny series, we began to worry that our conversations with musicians, enriching as each and every one of them has been, might begin to become redundant. But then we connected with Dan Timlin, a musical and intellectual genius who opened entire new doors of thinking about the destruction of democracy in America in a hyper-informative interview he so graciously granted us last month.

We’ll even go so far as to say that, if you read only one installment in the On Tyranny franchise, this is it. Timlin spoke with us shortly before the release of Born for the Gallows or the Wheel, the latest album by his avant-garde project issued via Strange Mono Records. Interspersed in the below conversation are clips from the record to provide you with a soundtrack of sorts and to assuage you through something of a master’s-course-level class in music, psychology and politics that Timlin presented to us.

For starters, I want to start off by saying how much I appreciate you participating in On Tyranny.  

I think [the series is] great. More people should be talking about [Authoritarian America]. Burying it, especially when you’re in any kind of DIY scene or any sort of underground music, you can’t remain anonymous [and apolitical] anymore.

Another participant in this series, Brett Bradford (Scratch Acid, Suckling), just called me before we started our conversation and said, “You know, man, I’ve tried so hard my whole career to just be political with my music, because I want to appeal to everybody. I don’t want to limit my crowd.” But now, it’s just impossible to do it. You can’t be that way anymore. I approached a punk band recently and said, “Hey, do you want to participate in this series?” And they said, “We don’t talk about politics.” It’s like, man, we’re so beyond the point where politics were simply contained to political matters. They’ve infiltrated every aspect of our lives.

The skinhead scene wasn’t originally a fascist scene. It was just a bunch of working-class people. It was all about class war and getting recognition for being working class. Then it got co-opted – just like a lot of metal and punk scenes do. The far-right extremists see an opportunity [in] kids [who] are angry. Any sort of reactionary politics feeds on that anger [and demonizes] the New World Order of the Jews or immigrants or whomever, so they can spread their hate propaganda. So, in the ‘80s, the skinhead punks got co-opted. Now you see it more and more with any kind of extreme expression.

You have to be really cognizant when a band says, “We’re not political.” We don’t have that privilege [to be apolitical] anymore. It’s too pervasive in every level of society. Even if you’re doing watercolors of ducks, people will say, “You’re promoting the global warming/ false science [lie by depicting] nature.

I’m in Boise, and there was a push here to use water-blasters to erase chalk writings that school kids made in chalk on the pavement that said, “All Are Welcome.” It’s like, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Yup, and that [further pushes] the Overton window [rightward]. Just because it’s a positive message, somebody who’s really right-wing assumes it’s anti-Republican. That’s how far gone they are now. I’m in Philly and was raised as a Quaker. It’s not a super-common thing around the country, but the Quakers have always been pretty good, on the right side of things. They’re all nonviolent, but even they have recently started to push back more on these things that normally they would say, “It’ll sort itself out.” They just got in trouble for harboring some people that ICE was looking for and blocking some ICE [thugs] at the courthouse. Even these institutions of regular, run-of-the-mill Democrats are starting to realize that their movement is getting co-opted. There are so many Republicans that are wolves in sheep’s clothing and driving the Democratic Party more and more leftward.

I seem to remember Trump rallying support in the Quaker community in Pennsylvania during the last presidential election cycle.

That was the Mennonites. They’re kind of like the Amish – they can’t vote and don’t technically have citizenship. They’re in this weird gray area. There’s a huge Amish community here. They’re total isolationists. They don’t use any technology. They don’t really want anything to do with what they call “The English,” which is basically the rest of us Americans. The Mennonites are religious extremists. Trump and the MAGA people really tried to infiltrate them because they thought it was more of an Evangelical situation, like what you see in Boise or in the Midwest. Chick-fil-A is owned by Mennonites [fact check: They restaurant chain is owned by a devout Southern Baptist family], and they lobby for Republicans. There’s not much of a difference between Mennonites, evangelical Mormons … it’s all that same: “family values,” “traditional conservative” bullshit.

I’ve always been involved in organizing. In Trump’s first term, I was just like everybody else: “This can’t happen. This is insane.” And then [we were hit with] the realization that, “Oh my God.” A lot of people on the left are rightfully critical of all U.S. Presidents, because they’re complicit and basically figureheads for the CIA and Wall Street. I always avoid the term “deep state.” I prefer “corporate hegemony,” [because it encompasses] Obama with [his] drone [strikes] and Clinton peeling back the [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] law. When it comes down to it, the bottom line of any capitalist politician is to protect capital at all costs. It’s just that Trump is more blatant about it.

You can’t underestimate the power of the populace to put themselves in a state of denial. I’ve been reading this really great book called The Denial of Death[by Ernest Becker; it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974]. It’s not a political book, but it is a good way to kind of understand people’s mindset. It talks about how the human condition, in his view, is based around this innate instinct that we all have to deny the reality of death. He [argues that] the denial of death is what keeps people – soldiers – charging into battle while people around them are dying because they think, “Well, it won’t be me. He’s getting shot, but I’m gonna continue to go because we have this societal structure of heroism.” 

A hero for us is somebody that transcends and puts themselves above society. His [thesis] is that this denial of death is an evolutionary defense mechanism that we have because, if we if we weren’t able to repress this constant anxiety and fear of death and the effects that it has on us, we wouldn’t be able to function and get through life and reproduce and be efficient creatures. So we develop this way of separating ourselves from reality. When people die, we think, “Oh, I’m not afraid to die.” It’s like, why not? Why wouldn’t you be? In a binary world, you’re either alive or you’re dead. If you consider life as a success, then death is the greatest failure. So why wouldn’t you, even on a fundamental level, be afraid of it? 

This concept of the denial of death and the denial of trauma and the way that our brains function to filter out these hard realities that we’re faced with in order to preserve our own survival, that idea itself, it applies to how fascism and the idea of fascism can be so alluring or important to people. It takes hold. Using America as an example right now, you have a population of people that have been severely traumatized throughout all their lives. In the last 30 years, [we’ve had] September 11, Columbine, all the school shootings, mass-shooting events, serial killing, Katrina, genocides, war … all of this stuff. 

And it’s not just a picture in the media or images on a screen now — it’s pumped directly into our phones. So we’re constantly in a hunting state. And that’s in conjunction with the way the algorithms are programmed. Even YouTube videos about music are all designed to hit you and get your emotions going, whether they’re good or bad. The YouTube algorithm treats “thumbs-up” the same way it treats “thumbs-down.” People in the comments [sections] hating something get prioritized just like people who love it. It’s all the same to them, because it’s “engagement.”

When you’re living in a state like that, your brain is always turned on. They call it “the hide-and-hide.” You’re always in this state of alert, always being stimulated. And the way that your brain instinctually protects you from that constant state of adrenaline and being activated is by repressing and denying feelings and anxieties that normally would [cause you to] be, like, “Hey, man, this is horrible.” Instead, you’re like, “That’s just another [thing.] I gotta go to work today.” So it’s not a “hive mind” but a “hide mind.”

It’s very Pavlovian, isn’t it?

Yeah. I don’t want to say that there aren’t sociopaths and people that are bred to be this way. If you look at the corporate hegemony or the amount of billionaires … like, look at Elon Musk. He’s the richest person in the world, his father owned sapphire mines, his father beat the shit out of him, trained him to be who he is today, and is a Nazi supporter, all that shit.

[Elon] was bred or groomed or whatever [to] be a sociopath who sees everything as a means to an end. They like that trauma, because trauma stored in your body, and the generational trauma they inflict on their offspring is their way of getting primed to be able to accept what you and me would say is irrational. Like, “Why would you hoard trillions of dollars?” You can’t use it all. You might as well put it out there. They’re living in [that generational] trauma. They go through the suffering that’s inflicted on them, and it rewires their brain to accept these irrational things as truth or reality. It’s hyper-capitalist indoctrination.

You see it in kids that are raised like in ultra poverty. They accept their surroundings, like that their houses will always be filled with rats, that they will never have hot water, that they will only eat twice a week. They accept that as real and totally rational, even though for us it’s irrational, right? It doesn’t make sense that these kids should grow up that way or live that way or deal with having an opiate-addicted parent. But the trauma has rewired their brains. So it’s the same base function or the same process [as with sociopathy, but] it’s just on the other end of the spectrum.

Man, you are the most knowledgeable person I’ve talked to about this topic for this series. Do you have a background in psychology or economics?

Not really. I’ve always been really motivated. I have a lot of self-motivation. I was lucky enough to go to an alternative school where I could focus on my music, and it taught me a lot. It was a non-coercive, democratically run consensus school, so everybody had the same amount of say. Whether you were in kindergarten or in high school, we had all school meetings anytime something needed to change.

It was all consensus-based. There was no voting. It was a hippie school. I was lucky to be able to go there [thanks to] a scholarship because I had a single mom. A lot of [my education and insight actually] comes from her. She’s a therapist who works in prisons in Pennsylvania and Delaware. So she’s always talked to us about [subject matter like this]. I’ve always been really interested in psychology. I never wanted to pursue it, because it makes you really crazy. [We laugh.] But I’ve always been interested in, peripherally, trying to understand social dynamics and [how they intersect with musicians].

The main goal of my music is to say, “Here I am. Here’s what I’m doing.” And find somebody that understands and can relate to that. You’re sending this transmission and you’re looking for people that are gonna be able to pick it up and hit that wavelength with you, without relying on a speech. Specifically for me, it started as a therapeutic exercise when I was having feelings or emotions or thoughts that I really couldn’t verbalize or write down or assign words to. I was trying to reduce it to that purest form of, “All right, here’s a guitar melody. Here’s something hypnotic. Let me see if I can express how I’m feeling without hitting people over the head with it.” And I was shocked at how many people afterward, when they would hear [my music,] would be like, “Oh, that made me feel this way.” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s what I am.”

With the pandemic, I had a lot of time on my hands. I used to work at a moving company and was doing manual labor every day. That closed because I couldn’t do it during COVID. [Also,] I have ADD, and my brain races. I had to find something to do. So I got into [historian author] William Risch. He was a German guy who studied under Sigmund Freud and then started to get into psychiatry and psychology and, before World War II kicked off, when the Nazis were rising to power in Germany, was he was just a general practitioner.

He interviewed young men about fascism and got firsthand accounts of the mental state of those people. He wrote this great book called The Mass Psychology of Fascism. It’s extremely dry and long but has really great insights. It’s dated; he had some homophobic beliefs that I don’t share and I don’t think he would have now, but his analysis of young fascists at the time [is compelling].

When fascism was “born,” the main thing he kept going back to was that this fascist instinct accrues in people when they, at the same time, desire for rebellion and revolution but also need to be controlled and have a path laid out for them. They have these contradictions inside of them. They’re the people that are most susceptible to fascist ideologies and the fascist mindset.

That’s where the whole “Daddy Trump” thing comes in, right?

Yeah, for sure. Which is perplexing to people on the other side. They’re like, “What’s that all about? Why are they calling him ‘Daddy’ [and saying] ‘Daddy’s home’ and ‘Daddy’s gonna wear the belt.’” It’s because … we, as humans, always have this attraction to living vicariously. That goes back to [Dutch anti-colonialism writer] Ernest Dekker, this idea that our society is based on “the architecture of heroism.” We look at heroes as people we want to be, we want to rise up to, [and in whom we place our] hopes and dreams. To do something that will be remembered for. Just like we wish we were beautiful like the people we see on Instagram. And how we wish we were powerful like Superman and could fight crime and stop injustice across the world.

But we also relate to the Joker, who is the prime example of fascism. He [embodies the] idea of chaos and that “nobody can tell you what to do except me.” And that ties into Daddy Trump, where you take a figure who has endless resources. Obviously, a lot of his wealth is inflated … it’s all kind of ridiculous … but [he’s still] someone who has this endless resource of privilege. You use him to convey popular messaging. It’s worked for thousands of years: “They’re coming to get what you have.” The fear of the other, our tribe versus that tribe.

It’s always worked as a way to manipulate people, that urge to live vicariously through somebody else. It’s like, if you model yourself after Jesus, or after Trump, or after Stalin, you’re going to have to do less work for yourself, because somebody already laid out this blueprint of how to act, and how to be, and they got the goal, ultimately, so if you copy them, or mimic them, then you’ll get the goal, too. It’s not necessarily an evil thing, but it is a complex human drive that we all have subconsciously. If we see somebody do something, and we like that thing that they’re doing, we’ll do it, too.

So, I want to bring this back around to artists and musicians, because, with this series, I’m trying to focus on how they could be directly damaged by what is unfolding here. How do you think artists are going to be, or are currently being, affected?

What we’re seeing is the hegemonic consolidation of any resource that artists have to communicate. We see that with the conglomeration of streaming platforms: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc. At the end of the day, they’re all owned by two different companies. And those companies also own stock in weapons manufacturers. So they have the ability to silence any dissident voices, because when you draw it all back, fascism is the combination of the state and private capital. They are deprioritizing humans over AI, over these cost-efficient, made-up ambient songs, or whatever it is. They can create thousands and thousands of artists, keep all of the royalties for themselves, and promote it on their own platforms to make themselves even more money. It’s basically like insider trading. They’re prioritizing all that over true human expression. 

The root is more money. That benefits all these corporate oligarchs. All artificial music is created by a prompt. And that prompt can be catered toward whatever the oligarchs want it to be, right? So they can be “happy music for happy day,” “sad music for sad day,” whatever, instead of like a true human emotion. That transmission is now, basically, “Here’s a sad song by Pepsi,” blah, blah, blah. As artists, we have to be more creative. We have to operate with the tools we have available. Spotify and Apple Music, there’s no way around it anymore. But what we can do is try to lift up the culture of physical goods back to where it was. I think the CD killed a lot of that, because it was basically just a medium to be like, “OK, I got this, put it in my computer and then throw it away.”

We do see, more and more, that people are realizing the value of owning something. Because it doesn’t matter how many playlists or how many albums you have saved on Spotify, you don’t own any of it. You’re renting it. You’re paying rent for that music, whereas if you own it, it’s yours. I think people are really starting to come around to that.

As artists, we can really drive people to be like, “Hey, own a piece of this. This is a true connection.” And one of the ways we can do that is by trying to keep things accessible and not charge $35 for a record or $100 to go see your show. That’s another great way to get through: When you have companies like Live Nation that own 60 percent of the venues across North America … it’s only going to be another 10 or 15 years before they own 80 percent. And then 100 percent, [at which point] they [will] own all the venues and all the radio stations.

They’ll go to AI, because it’s cheaper. They’ll choose to prioritize whatever makes them the most money. The music industry has been that way forever. That’s what it’s all been about, even since Tin Pan Alley. But if we can try to protect our community spaces – because, eventually, that’s all we’ll have left – the better chance we have of battling authoritarianism in all facets of our life, whether it’s contributing to your neighborhood food bank or whatever. When we take the mindset that “This is a venue, part of our community, so it should serve the community and not Live Nation,” the more we can kind of do to protect that, the better.

Do you think there’s a potential that concerts might go away altogether?

I think so. I mean, underground concerts always happen. Russians would cut Beatles records, and they would have shows by getting around censorship. You can set up a show under a bridge and kids will come. That’ll happen. You might get shut down, but the kids will come. But I think that you will see less and less real concerts when it comes to pop or anything that’s popular, because it won’t be as efficient. Once they prioritize this sort of imaginary music or digital music … you already see DJ events can make more money than a Slayer concert. You don’t have to pay as much, you don’t have as much crew. So we’ll see more of that. There’ll be more control in all aspects. In authoritarian takeovers, state surveillance comes into play.

They’ll be, like, “Hey, there’s gonna be a rave.” Then [when you go,] they’ll scan your eyeballs, and they’ll know that you went to it, and that’ll be a flag on your [record]. And then when you do say something, they’ll use that against you or as blackmail. A lot of this shit is the economy of blackmail. That’s what religion is [too]. It’s like, “Hey, tell this priest all your secrets, because he’s going to purge you of your secrets.” But in reality, now somebody knows all your secrets, and they have something on you. So you better behave, right? In the surveillance state, you can’t buy a carton of milk without it being tracked somewhere.

We’re going to see that more with live music, and that’s going to turn people off. But the underground scene is always going to be there. Little shows will continue to go on. But it’s not scalable. And that’s where the issue is. If you want to make change, if you really want to have an impact, you have to get a whole arena full of people. So, I do think that you’re right: They’re going to start to limit that because they know that reach is what’s really important.

Go to Strange Mono’s Bandcamp page to pick up a copy of Born for the Gallows Or the Wheel. We recommend you snag the vinyl version, as it comes packaged with tuning diagrams and a manifesto written by Timlin.

Check out The Bad Penny‘s 45-part On Tyranny series, which The Bad Penny launched in the spring, here. Recent installments include interviews with Deaf Club, Cosmic Reaper, MyVeronica, Planet on a Chain, Necrofier, Cheap Perfume, Bobby Conn and many more.

This entry was posted on 10/19/2025 at 9:36 am and is filed under Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags Dan Timlin, Truculent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.