Few people are likely to find fault with the word "Preoccupations," the new name of the band formerly known as Viet Cong. It wasn't even their idea. Credit goes to Chad VanGaalen, who presented the band's members with a long list of prospective names. Amidst a sea of jokey suggestions, "Preoccupations" stuck out. If it does eventually cause a controversy, the band would like you to direct all complaints his way. "He's the one to blame for this one," frontman Matt Flegel tells Pitchfork over the phone, somewhat jokingly. "At least if someone not in your band names the band, then you can just throw the responsibility on their shoulders, you know?"
The name "Viet Cong" had attracted criticism since the band released its 2014 Cassette EP, but it wasn't until the beginning of 2015 that it began to impact their ability to play music. In February, they were scheduled to play a festival in Melbourne, Australia, only for the promoter to say they couldn't be booked because of their name. In March, the band was supposed to perform at Oberlin, but the show was eventually canceled by the promoter following protests from a part of the student community.
The actual Viet Cong were a notoriously brutal insurgent group that terrorized Vietnamese citizens during the Vietnam War. To the protesters, the idea of appropriating that name to describe moody, tense post-punk was hideously crass. At first, the band pled ignorance. "When we named ourselves, we were naive about the history of a war in a country we knew very little about," they said in a statement. "We now better understand the weight behind the words Viet Cong." In September, they formally announced plans to retitle themselves. The new name finally comes as they've finished a sophomore record, the follow-up to last year's self-titled debut, which is due out before the end of 2016.
Preoccupations aren't the only band in recent memory to change their names due to public outrage: Dead Girlfriends (now Default Genders) and the Morning Benders (now Pop Etc.) are among those who felt the fire of the internet's unblinking, judgmental eye. Here, there was a racial element at play: This was four white, Western-educated men naming themselves after a terror group that committed violence against East Asians halfway across the world. You can take the band members at their word, and believe them when they say they simply didn't know about the Viet Cong's legacy. (One potential explanation: The members of Preoccupations are Canadian, and despite the population of Vietnamese who emigrated to Canada as refugees of the Vietnam War, the history of that war is far less present in the collective Canadian consciousness than in America.) But it was also perfectly easy to see such ignorance as just another commonplace erasure of the Asian experience—in this case, a traumatizing experience that has affected (and continues to affect) many living Vietnamese people.
The band's history of facile explanations didn't help, either. I saw many quote a 2014 Impose interview where Flegel was quoted as saying the name came "from us being teenagers and watching movies. The Viet Cong were always the bad asses in movies." Such bad asses, those Viet Cong! It was extremely cool when they summarily executed thousands of Vietnamese citizens and indiscriminately buried them in mass graves.
The band hadn't even taken the time to present a semblance of a creative justification. Instead, they'd admitted their own thoughtlessness. In that same 2014 interview, the band's Monty Munro said of the name, "I’m not gonna be indignant if someone’s upset about it," and joked about being shot on stage by a protester. At the time, Munro said the extent of the protest was "emails and YouTube comments."
A popular counterargument was that many, many bands—amongst them Gang of Four (who voiced support for Viet Cong), Joy Division, Rapeman, Dead Kennedys, Anal Cunt, and AIDS Wolf—have existed without similar controversy. In this, the protest over Viet Cong revealed just as much about our modern era as it did the name's innate offensiveness. If Twitter and Tumblr and all the other instruments of the current discourse dissemination machine had existed in 1976, it's easy to imagine a more visible protest against four white British guys naming their band after brothels in Nazi concentration camps. Say what you will about the fragility of modern discourse, but it's difficult to complain about the increased incorporation of non-white, non-male perspectives—voices that have long been absent from mainstream narratives surrounding beloved artists. "We didn't used to care" doesn't quite cut it as a defense. And if the addition of those perspectives drives artists to be more accountable for their work, then more power to the process of democracy.
When we spoke, Flegel copped to all of the band's lapses in judgment. There's no reason to doubt the sincerity of his apologies without utilizing that annoying line of internet-dominant logic that insists people don't actually mean what they literally say, and that they're still to blame if they do anything less than fall on their swords and wiggle around to make sure the blade has cut up all their innards. I did sense a lingering bewilderment at how this played out—they certainly attracted criticism from people who'd never cared about them before the controversy, with its clearly defined sides, presented itself. To the surprise of no one, the band learned more from fans willing to engage with them in good faith, rather than tweet obviously self-interested judgment. But regardless of how many people actually cared, and who they actually hurt, they've decided to clean up their mess and move on.
Pitchfork: Where does the new name come from? What was the process of settling on it?
Matt Flegel: It was on a list of band names that our friend Chad VanGaalen sent us. It stood out for us, and it made sense. No other bands were called that. It's kind of been an issue finding a new band name—it's hard to find something that hasn't been taken. Obviously, it's been a long time coming, but really we started coming up with names after we finished recording this new record. It made sense to have a new body of work to give it some sort of context. A new band name with new music moving forward. It made the most sense to us; of course, a lot of people thought differently.
We didn't want to be too rash in the decision-making this time around, because we were to begin with. The backlash was totally fair, in all respects. We always had the intention of changing the name. I really couldn't care less what the name of our band is, and especially don't care about the band name Viet Cong to fight for it. I can speak for all of our band members saying that. It's secondary to the music.
Pitchfork: When did you first have discussions about changing the name?
Matt Flegel: The first time it became an issue, we were supposed to be booked for some festival in Australia and the promoters said they couldn't book us based on the name. This was at the start of last year, in February. I remember being in Heathrow in London, and telling the dudes We have to change this fucking name. That was the first time that we sat down and talked about it. It's been an ongoing thing since then. It escalated and became an issue that was overshadowing the music itself.
Pitchfork: The band's previous explanations of the name were fairly glib. There was one quote about how you'd picked it because the Viet Cong were bad asses in movies. In hindsight, do you regret that glibness?
Matt Flegel: We were pretty naive, and pretty ignorant on the subject. We know a lot more now. If we knew what we know now then we would definitely not call the band that. I personally didn't put any thought into it. We needed a new band name then. We were just starting off, and we were booking shows. It really just started out at a band practice, and we just went with it with no ill intention.
Pitchfork: When the band was announcing it was changing its name, you said you were talking directly with members of the Vietnamese community. What were those conversations like? Who were you talking to?
Matt Flegel: I don't really keep track of what people are saying online or social media. Anything I learned was face to face from people at shows, and directly from protesters, and hearing stories about Vietnamese refugees. We've never really read about that side of things; we didn't know anything about that side of the war. But it was an eye-opener, and it was great talking to people about it, hearing things directly from people who have had the experience of the terrible things coming out of the war.
It was always civil, and we met some great people because of it. We talked to fans of our band who are of a Vietnamese background. It's really helpful to have a face-to-face conversation with another human being that has family, or has been directly affected by something, rather than just hearsay on the internet. It's a different thing, going out and getting a group of people protesting a show. It was something I was fully in support of the entire time. I tried to talk to people as much as I could and learn as much as I could. I was impressed that people were getting together in real life to do something about it.
Pitchfork: Did this process influence the band's new material?
Matt Flegel: It put a damper and put a lot of stress on us but I don't think it affected the music as much as other things that happened to us did. It was an issue, but there were a lot of dramatic things that happened to us over the course of the past 18 months I'd say that overshadowed that. We're all living in different cities now. A few of us have ended long term relationships.
It's turned into our full time job, making music. At the end of the day, we get together and we write music and play music. Any outside things affecting that may be subconscious. Some are maybe more obvious, but for all of us, it was a heavy year. It was busy. It was hectic. It was getting a lot of attention both positive and negative. They both affect you emotionally. I don't know if that's going to come out in the new record so much. It's tough to explain. The sound of it is more optimistic, but maybe lyrically darker than the last one. It still sounds like the four of us making music.
Pitchfork: Is there anything else about this process you wanted to say?
Matt Flegel: We've learned a lot for sure. It was never our intention to hurt anyone, and it puts you in your place a little bit. It's embarrassing, but it's nice that we can continue on and change things and change mistakes. In a way, it's a nice way for us to come into making a new record—having a clean slate with a new band name. I think it's a little bit less pressure to make something that sounded like the last couple of records. You're less attached to certain sounds and certain ideas you might have gone with.