Anti-Fascist Blues

The Zoo Crew just dropped the needle on a track that cuts right through the static, spinning "Anti-Fascist Blues" by Five Times August off the album Silent War for all you Zoo Freaks tuned in across the airwaves. This one comes from a songwriter who built his whole thing the hard way, starting out as a kid out of the Dallas area with nothing but a guitar and a stubborn streak. Brad Skistimas, the man behind the name Five Times August, kicked things off back in 2001 right after high school, recording his first self-produced albums like Say, Hover, and Audience of Zero and selling them out of Dallas coffee shops and local shows. He picked the moniker because his real last name felt too tricky for folks to remember, playing off his August 5th birthday instead. That early DIY approach set the tone for everything that followed, no labels calling the shots, just him booking his own tours and getting the music out there through sheer persistence.

Things started clicking when his song "Better With You" got picked up for MTV's Laguna Beach after a music supervisor stumbled across it on CD Baby. That exposure snowballed, with tracks from his Fry Street album landing all over the second season and spilling into other shows like The Real World, One Tree Hill, and Degrassi. By 2007 he made history as the first completely unsigned artist to get nationwide distribution in Walmart stores with The Independent, an expanded version of that earlier work. He hit the road hard that year, eight months out covering 43 states, supporting bigger acts while keeping everything independent. Press features rolled in from Billboard, Guitar Player, and USA Today, and he even showed up on FOX Business talking about the do-it-yourself route. The music found its way into commercials, films, and more TV spots, all without signing away control. Later he stepped back to focus on family and launched The Juicebox Jukebox, a children's music project with his kids involved, touring elementary schools with positive, character-building songs until the world shut down.

That shift is where Silent War comes in, and "Anti-Fascist Blues" sits as track eight on the twelve-song collection released in November 2022 after singles dropped through 2021 and early 2022. Skistimas has said the album wasn't planned as a full record at first; he wrote the songs in real time as events unfolded, arranging them in the order he composed them so the whole thing feels like a mixtape of those years. In interviews he described it as capturing what was happening, from regulations and mandates to figures like Fauci and Trudeau, mixing protest with songs of prayer and encouragement. The title track itself he called the most personal, the one that felt like a gift covering the whole situation. For "Anti-Fascist Blues" specifically, reviewers and the artist alike pointed to it as a withering broadside on cancel culture and the fury over what he saw as overreach, with lyrics that roll fast and sharp, nodding to the drive of Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues while updating the targets. He performed the title song on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for 35,000 people at the Defeat the Mandates rally in January 2022, and the videos for these tracks racked up hundreds of thousands of views even with platforms suppressing or age-restricting them.

In one conversation about the pivot, Skistimas explained how the children's music career got interrupted and he started questioning the world being built for his kids. He noted that nobody else seemed to be speaking out, including musicians he grew up admiring, so he felt he had a platform and needed to use it. Early on he made parody songs just to pass the time, but they couldn't cut through the anger at the new status quo. He told one interviewer he felt like he was either burning down everything he'd worked for or building something new. Six months into releasing these tracks the feedback turned positive and encouraging, with a sense of camaraderie that they were in the fight together. The album hit as high as number five on Amazon's best-selling charts, right between Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, and topped singer-songwriter and alternative lists on multiple platforms. He even sang the National Anthem for Dr. Ben Carson and President Trump at one point, and the physical copies on vinyl, cassette, and CD still move through his own site for folks who want the real thing in hand.

That independent streak runs all the way through, from selling CDs locally as a teenager to self-booking tours and handling his own distribution. The early albums were pure self-production, and the Walmart milestone proved an unsigned act could reach mass retail without a major label behind them. When the protest material took off with "Sad Little Man" hitting number one on several Amazon and Apple charts, it built on the same foundation of writing what he felt and putting it out without waiting for approval. Social posts and interviews show him reflecting on the censorship faced along the way, with platforms labeling videos misinformation even when they didn't name specific figures or treatments, and the warnings never spelling out the exact rules broken. Yet the connection with listeners kept growing, people sharing the songs at rallies and in their own spaces, turning the tracks into something they could take with them. One fan comment on a live version from London noted the respectful nod to the Dylan classic but with lyrics perfectly updated for the moment, and the recorded take stands as a favorite for many who dig the full-band go-go blues energy.

Listening to it on THE ZOO fits the freeform spirit the station carries, digging into deep cuts and stories that don't get airtime elsewhere. The song's lines about calling everyone a fascist until they're controlled, or making yourself a slave until you feel free, land with that classic rock edge of calling out the contradictions. Skistimas has kept releasing material since, including singles like Ain't No Rock and Roll and Liars, Cheats, and Crooks, while still offering the Silent War collection and earlier work directly. His start as a high school grad recording in the Dallas scene, building an audience through MySpace and early digital platforms before the big TV breaks, shows how that grassroots path can lead to something lasting. The camaraderie he mentioned in those first months of the protest songs mirrors how listeners find each other through the music, sharing the tracks that speak to what they lived through. Check the full story and grab the records at the Five Times August official website, follow along on the official Facebook, the Instagram, and the X account for updates straight from the source. Keep it spinning out there, Zoo Freaks.