• Jared Castaldi

These four slashes became an international symbol for the band's relentless tour schedule, DIY-attitude, and revolving door of musicians.

Stewart Ebersole knows first-hand just how iconic these four bars have become. For the past 26 days, the 42-year-old former high school teacher has been traveling the United States in a Hyundai Sonata for one reason—to document Black Flag bar tattoos through photos and interviews.

What started in 2005 as an idea for a joke zine with four friends has since blossomed into a 350 page photo book, Barred for Life—enough for Ebersole to quit his full-time job, move out of his apartment in Philadelphia, and hit the road. And this is all without a publisher on board.

"This is definitely the most stable tour I've ever been on," says Ebersole, who, in the early 90's, toured the U.S as a member of Jade Tree band Railhed. This time around, there's no expectation of payment and no musical equipment—just Ebersole, some camera gear, and hopefully some subjects to document, whether it be a few young crusties with stick and poke tattoos in Syracuse, NY or 20 aging punk rockers scattered throughout Minnesota.

Ebersole brings Barred for Life to the Funhuse tonight at 9:30, with live performances from local bands Requin and Sickeversince. Next, he'll be touring down the West Coast, through the South, and back up to Philly—then it's off to Europe in December. He spoke to the Stranger by phone last week.

You mentioned that it's been four years since you first thought up "Barred for Life." How did the idea for the book come about?

I walked into a tattoo shop in Columbus, Ohio with five people with the bars and we started joking about how awful they were. I said, "I wanna make mine bigger" and this guy said, "Hey, I’ll do 'em for you," and it was like,"Hey, we could make a funny zine out of this." But the more I thought about it, nobody is getting rid of them, nobody's covering them up, why would you poke fun at people who are so committed? So I decided not to poke fun and make an actual book.

We never thought it would tour, so when I started figuring out the tour and sat everyone down, I was like, "I'm gonna do a month and a half across the country." Nobody else could do it. So I found someone who wanted to come alongside me.

In Minneapolis the other night we had 10 or 11 show up, it was awesome. We were driving around Minneapolis and someone would be like, "Hey, I know this person on the East side with one." So we would drive over there and they'd give us two shots of whiskey and some pie and then take some shots. Go to the next person and joke about it over iced tea. It's pretty much the craziest tour I've been on.

So, why the Black Flag bars? What do these four bars represent to you and the project?

I just had an interesting conversation about that actually. I was sitting with the drummer from a band that had a fair amount of Seattle fame, Steel Pole Bath Tub, and he's got them. We're sitting there talking and realize, if you take the words Black Flag or punk rock out of this, what you're left with is the fact that there is always, always going to be a portion of the population who does not agree with the standardized formula on how to live a life. In America, what is it? You go to high school, you do well, you go to college, get a really good job and get married, buy a house and have kids. But we're starting to see, it's not working. We don't have jobs anymore; we're shipping them all overseas. There's a portion of people who believe there's a better way to do things. Not everyone is in agreement with how things should work but at least everyone is out there trying.

In Detroit, we stayed at an anarchist commune. Not that it's the most efficient running machine in the planet, but they're growing a lot of their own food, they're bringing a lot of the neighborhood where they live up to snuff, people are branching out and buying houses. The neighborhood is really coming up. These people see that there's a better way to live. Urban farming…who would have thought it would be possible in Detroit?

We were in Minneapolis where we interviewed a lot of people who were over 40 that still had mohawks and liberty spikes and wear leather jackets, and you're like, "I didn't even know that shit's still possible," and they're like "I got this really great job in computer programming and they don't mind that I wear torn pants and studs."

So then superimpose the Black Flag bars onto these people and allow them to let that gel - this idea that Black Flag was a band who did things no one ever fucking thought possible. Touring the United States as a punk band? Yeah, right. Two years later, there they go. Having 30 members in a ten year history and still remaining a band? Changing their musical styles? To me, Black Flag is almost an irrelevant point now- Pettibon designs this thing, Black Flag kind of amplified it and gave it legs and now people are getting it tattooed- but not always to say, "Yeah, I'm a big Black Flag fan," or "Oh, that was the best band ever," but more so, "They did what was nearly impossible, they managed, they didn't always do it the best way, they struggled, they fucked up and it's a lot like me. I'm doing things that no one thought was possible, I'm fucking up, I'm a wing nut."

So we're all uniting on the Black Flag bars being the "Keep on Trucking" of the Y2K generation.
It's such a mixed bag of people. I don't even like some of them. I would probably want to fight most of these people if I saw them in the pit, but we all know where we're coming from.
It's a point of unity for a scene that has pretty much been atomized and become an anti-scene.
We want the best parts of Black Flag to be incorporated into the best parts of us and we just want to move forward and take it with us so we have this arm band. These four little bars say, "Hey, you know I might be 50-years-old and an architect, but you don't know what I'm gonna do, you don't know what I'm capable of."

That's some pretty heavy stuff.

It is. There's some heavy stuff coming from people that feel very weakened by where punk is right now. I don't have anything to hold onto anymore. When all that stuff falls away what do you have? You have a lot of disillusioned people is what you have. Really interesting, really awesome, really amazing people that just don't know what the hell to do with themselves - and I'm interviewing all of them.

Have the bars tattooed on you? Interested in being included in Ebersole's project? If so, come to the Funhouse tonight at 9:30 p.m.