The Bad Penny (beta)

“We were brought up in a loving home that encouraged peace and equality. The more we educated ourselves on those values the more we realized that we were being indoctrinated to believe that Israel is the sole protagonist in this conflict and that any other opinion is a betrayal.”
-The Crotches

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As regular or even semi-regular browsers of The Bad Penny‘s On Tyranny series may have noticed, we tend to shy away from presenting interviews with participating artists in text form. That’s principally due to the sensitive nature of the series’ overarching theme – how fascism and authoritarianism directly damage musicians and other artists both professionally and personally. Typically, we opt for video, as that artistic medium captures the seriousness and emotional intensity of the subject more powerfully than written accounts.

Enter The Crotches. Germinated and anchored by three brothers, the Tel Aviv garage-punk band departed from their home country roughly two years ago and settled in Las Vegas.

The punk squad – who were conscripted to serve in Israel’s military – made the tough decision to leave in large part because of immoral actions taken by the Israeli government, which is controlled by war criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with his Likud Party. Additionally, the musicians are anti-Zionist.

What follows is the entirety of The Bad Penny‘s conversation with Crotches frontman/vocalist Alonzo and guitarist Amitkes, who answered our questions in tandem – and with a truly admirable degree of transparency and courage.