Civil Strife battle for rock, family and good causes
There’s an expectation when you name your band Civil Strife.
You expect some chaos, maybe some political lyrics and a punk attitude. When I first saw Civil Strife perform while emceeing a benefit for the Knoxville independent community radio station WOZO, I got a little of all that.
What I didn’t expect is for the band to get better and seem to change drastically every time I saw them perform. Not only that, but the constant core of the group is a father and son, who seem to anchor each other onstage and off – even if there IS a little friction sometimes.
“Me and my dad have been playing together since I was 16,” says Civil Strife singer-songwriter/lead guitarist Alan Garcia. “The two of us are the most hard-headed people imaginable. My cousin said, ‘I’ve watched you two get angry with each other when you’re AGREEING with each other!’”
That edge translates as pure energy when the two are onstage.
It was four years after the two started playing together that the band Civil Strife was actually created. Preston Alan Kennedy combined his second name and his mother’s maiden name to create the stage name “Alan Garcia,” which is why not everyone recognizes that bassist Mark Kennedy and Garcia are father and son.
Kennedy played in the hardcore punk band Cryptic Faith in the 1980s. He’s been playing bass with the popular, nationally touring AC/DC tribute band Big Gun for a decade and has played with Civil Strife for just shy of 10 years.
“We’ve traveled the entire country together,” says Garcia, who often works the merch table for Big Gun gigs. “I couldn’t begin to tell you what all we’ve gone through together. Without dad there would be no Civil Strife. He’s the one who puts the coal in the engine. I write songs and jump around.”
Garcia began writing songs when he was 15 years old. He still performs some of those songs, although they surely sound somewhat different than they did then.
“I wanted to be a folk singer,” he says. “When we first started to play together, I wanted to be like Minor Threat. Imagine Minor Threat and Paul Simon together.”
Garcia says the band name came from watching the movie “Gangs of New York.”
“In it, someone says, ‘The country is being torn apart by civil strife.’ I brought up the name and six people said, ‘Yes!’ At the time, no one was using that name, and we made the logo with a company that is now gone. But the logo is a big part of it.”
Aside from the father-and-son core, band membership has undergone a lot of changes. When the last lead guitar player quit the group, a club owner where Civil Strife played regularly informed Garcia, “Now you suck!”
That was enough for Garcia to up his chops. The group has evolved into a power trio with Garcia’s guitarwork being a standout feature. The drum chair is now filled by local music vet Isaiah Mobley, and he fits in perfectly.
Civil Strife’s sound now has more of a 1960s and ‘70s hard-rock vibe than its earlier punkier sound.
But there’s also a new attitude. Fifty percent of all Civil Strife ticket and merchandise profits are donated to a specific organization or cause. Currently, the beneficiary is the Joy of Music School, which Garcia’s daughter attends.
“I’m studying business at Pellissippi State, and I’m a big believer in conscientious capitalism,” says Garcia. “I’m not a corporatist, but I believe in the free market.”
He says he finds it irritating when businesses ask customers to donate but aren’t actually donating themselves.
“You go through a drive-thru and they say, ‘Would you like to round that up [for a charitable donation]? I say, ‘Well, you’re making record profits; why don’t YOU do that?’”
Civil Strife may not be making record profits, but it has to start somewhere.
“I’ve gone from saying, ‘Civil Strife is a band’ to ‘Civil Strife is a brand,’” says Garcia. “I’m selling that logo, and the band is another thing the brand is based on. … I’m telling people, ‘Buy a shirt anyway. Some of that money is going to the Joy of Music.’”
To date, Civil Strife has released only two EPs and 15 tracks overall, but Garcia has an album in mind.
“I still think the album is a big part of the art,” he says. “I remember how special it was to get an album, hold it in your hands.”
He has a 15-year backlog of songs written that he’d like to get out. In addition, he’s writing a novel, part of which is posted on the band’s website.
And, he says, he still has plenty to learn. He’s a dad himself, and time has given him a more adult appreciation for his father’s knowledge.
“He’s been in the business for so long that to not listen to him would be stupid,” says Garcia. “There’s so much that I learned from him [early on] that I see clearly now. Now it’s like, ‘What am I missing now like I was missing then? What do you see that I don’t?’”
