Junkyard Empire

As political unrest spreads throughout the U.S., most of our country’s musical resources are tied up in trying to forget. A precious few bands, however, remind music consumers why they should be politically aware

One such band has a member living and studying among us at Portland State. They have a compilation record coming out where they share equal billing with Willie Nelson.

You read that correctly: Willie Fucking Nelson. So how does a band with members living in Portland get name-checked in the same breath as Nelson?

By kicking ass and being Junkyard Empire.

I recently caught up with Christopher Cox, Junkyard Empire’s Portland resident, and chatted with him about the Occupy Movement, Cuba and cognitive linguist slash political writer Noam Chomsky.

On first impression, Cox is the last man you’d expect to be playing in a politically charged band. He’s a jovial man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a warm, inviting demeanor. When one reads the reviews of his band—one of which refers to Junkyard Empire as a band with “the rush of Rage Against the Machine when they still had something to say”—Cox is not the sort of man you’d expect to see on stage.

He is currently enrolled in PSU’s political science master’s program. Although that’s the subject Cox earned his bachelor’s degree in, political science was not on his mind when he moved to Portland. In fact, Cox ended up in our city almost by chance.

“I’ve been a professional musician for over 20 years,” Cox said. “I started when I was 16 playing trombone. My first gig was with Johnny Otis.”

That gig and several others landed Cox additional gigs on cruise ships, playing with several bands and traveling the world.

“It was your standard American awakening,” he said.

When that phase in his caeer ran its course, Cox enrolled in school at Sonoma State University, pursuing a degree in political science. It was there that his political involvement really flourished.

“I didn’t get really politically active until I was 32 or 33,” he recalled. “Things were getting crazy politically.”

The craziness that Cox speaks of started a chain reaction that would find Cox collaborating with other musicians in his newfound home in Minnesota’s twin cities. Cox joined a band that began as an instrumental act, which made it difficult for them to spread their political message.

Lacking a vocalist, the band expressed their view in liner notes and craft themes. And when it finally came time to find a vocalist, Cox and company knew it would be a daunting task. However, they went with the very first person who auditioned.

“[Brihanu] free-styled over Freddie Hubbard’s ‘Red Clay,’” Cox said. “It sounded like what Us3 was doing.”

Among the more interesting points of Junkyard Empire’s young but storied career is their trip to Cuba, that Communist island in the Caribbean has long been off limits to all but a very few select Americans. As part of a musician’s program, Junkyard Empire was able to travel to Havana, the country’s capital, and play shows at neighborhood art houses.

“We did a lot of work, research, just finding someone who could get us over there,” Cox said. “It was amazing. Crazy.”

A man responsible for bringing Audioslave to Cuba was the very person Junkyard Empire networked with to get over there. And Cuba, according to Cox, is unlike anywhere else in the world.

“The most phenomenal political thing I learned over there was from [a man named] Roberto,” Cox said. “I asked him, ‘Is it such here politically that people can go against the establishment?’ [Roberto] said: ‘There is no evidence that people are arrested for speaking out against the establishment.’”

Roberto went on to say that American CIA and FBI agents often act as agents provocateurs in Havana. In fact, Cox saw a couple of them later in the trip.

“We saw the same dudes everywhere,” Cox said. “They were all wearing Hawaiian shirts and tweed hats, talking in Southern accents.”

A short while after their return to the states, Cox and the rest of the band saw the seeds of a political movement being sewn on their native soil.

Junkyard Empire played the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minn., the city that the rest of the band calls home. It was there that Cox saw the beginnings of a movement frequently associated with the contemporary political climate.

“During one of our songs, ‘Rise the Wretched,’ 50–75 riot cops on horseback began pushing the crowd back. The crowd then surrounded the cops,” Cox said. “[It was the] most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen. Eight people are still facing prison charges because of those events.”

One participant is still red flagged by the FBI at every turn because of her involvement, according to Cox. And not long afterward, the Occupy Movement began.

“We want to see [Occupy] grow,” Cox said. “We’re helping plan the occupation of [Washington] D.C. right now. It begins March 31.”

Cox was rather less enthralled with Portland’s version of the movement.

“It was excessively unorganized here,” he said. “We’re so dismayed with the negativity and the infighting and the massive infiltration of the provocateurs.”

Despite Cox’s support of the heart of Occupy, he wants to make one thing clear:

“We do not see ourselves as endorsers of the Occupy Movement. It’s just one branch of a much larger revolutionary push. It’s really got to grow,” he said. “Spring is going to be off the hook. This movement ain’t going nowhere. They cleaned up the encampments, but that was just stage one.”

Junkyard Empire is ready to enter stage two.