Built To Spill’s Doug Martsch Explains How He Ended Up Opening For Bernie Sanders and AOC

Doug Martsch does not make political music. The man behind over 30 years of Built to Spill jams—he founded the band in 1992 and has been the only permanent member ever since—has never made himself a standard-bearer for any sort of cause. But when Bernie Sanders tapped him for the ongoing Fighting Oligarchy tour, in which the 83-year-old senator is making several stops across the American West to promote his anti-Trump, anti-Musk agenda, Martsch happily obliged.

A proud son of the Gem State, Martsch and Built to Spill lent their talents to Sanders' Nampa, Idaho tour stop, a date that also featured a guest appearance from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They shredded through a 45-minute set featuring songs like “Carry the Zero”, “Liar”, and “I Would Hurt a Fly” before a local doctor, state representative, and labor union president took the stage. Eventually, AOC and Sanders emerged, making Martsch think that they’d be well-equipped for his line of work in the rock and roll space.

GQ caught up with Martsch after the gig to talk about his own ideological leanings (shaped by Martsch getting really into Noam Chomsky in his twenties), Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty’s NFL future, and whatever the hell is currently going on with American politics.

GQ: First question is a logistical one. How did this all happen, man? How did you end up in Nampa, Idaho with Bernie Sanders?

Doug Martsch: Someone from his staff reached out to our booking agent maybe a couple weeks before the event, to just check and see if we would be available and if we were interested. I was pretty excited about it, but I checked the calendar and it looked like my band members weren't available. I reached out and told them about it, and they were really bummed that they weren't going to be able to do it.

That was the end of it for a minute. Then a friend of mine told me that we had to do it, so I reached back out and checked to see if [the band’s] plans could change at all. They were both able to! Our bass player was supposed to be in Brazil, visiting her boyfriend, so she just changed her flight, and the drummer, her thing was not as hard to get out of.

I’ve been to Idaho but I’m not familiar with Nampa. Can you paint the picture of that town for me? What are its political leanings?

So maybe like 30 minutes outside of Boise, there's a couple little towns, Nampa and Caldwell, right next to each other. I get them mixed up a bit. I don't know the difference between them too much, it’s all kind of farm area. There's a pretty big Hispanic community in those places—and Idaho in general—but I think it's pretty concentrated in those areas. I know there's been a lot of cool people that have come out of Nampa, a lot of people that have played in bands and stuff, they've grown up in Nampa. So, got some hipsterish things going on.

But you know how it is, there's nowhere that Trump won 100% of the vote. Even in the reddest of red places, there's people that are going to want to come see Bernie. There’s all kinds of people everywhere.

At this point, Doug, 55 years into living in America, how would you describe your political views?

Well, I have a couple older siblings, they're quite a bit older than me, and then my mom got a divorce, moved to Twin Falls, and started a whole new life. Where she grew up, Rupert, [Idaho], everyone around there is really conservative and stuff, and her family was. But when she moved to Twin Falls—which is also super Republican and stuff—she got a job at [the Idaho Department of] Health and Welfare.

So, when I was growing up, she was working in Health and Welfare and really just got turned on to—she became a Democrat, a liberal, just a really compassionate person. She wasn't an activist, and she was never in your face about it or anything, but she was always just compassionate. When the news was on or whatever, she would get pissed off at the Republican senators. I think I just always picked up on her vibe. To me, that's the thing, it's just about compassion, and having that sort of an attitude in your brain about people. I don't know. That's what it sort of boils down to in my mind.

So, yeah, I sort of always had that. Then I gravitated toward punk rock when I was a teenager, people in that community, learned more about leftist politics, and then I got older and got into some Noam Chomsky and things like that. I've always had a little bit of an interest, and it got more and more as I got older, and there's been times where I didn't pay much attention. Since the whole first Trump administration, I just followed a lot. That's kind of basically my feelings. My band members are also very liberal ladies. I don't know why they are, but they are.

I was curious to know how discovering Chomsky impacted your political ideologies. I assume that's overlapping a little bit with the transition from Clinton into Bush, is my math there correct?

Yeah, definitely. I feel like it was around that time. It was when the movie Manufacturing Consent came out. I can't remember exactly when I discovered that. His stuff is way more deep into foreign policy on a level that you don't even think about anymore, because things are so extreme. We're just talking about keeping a democracy. It seems like the concerns of Noam Chomsky—I don't know, those things almost seem like—we can't even touch those things anymore. We just have to deal with this horrible stuff that's going on.

Right now, we're part of the axis of evil. We're on Russia's side about everything! I think those guys are so far gone from the foreign policy world that Noam Chomsky was criticizing. It seems like a really benevolent, great system compared to what is going on right now.

I definitely relate to the idea of choosing not to pay attention. What is it about Bernie Sanders specifically that made you get off the bench, so to speak?

I don’t know. I don't know if someone else would've asked if we would've gone. I don't know if it's specific to Bernie and AOC—those two just happened to reach out to us.

Got it. But generally speaking, are you a Bernie supporter?

Absolutely. Totally. Of course. He came here [to Idaho] in 2016, and I wasn't around for it, but a lot of my friends were. I was definitely feeling the Bern.

Did you get to interact with him at all?

After the event, they ushered us and a few of the other speakers—a couple of local Congresspeople, maybe some doctors—they took us into the hallway, and there are little sticky notes on the wall that say whoever it is. Everyone kind of stands in that area, and then they come out and just shake everyone's hands, and do a quick little photo op. That was it, just a handshake and a quick photo. They're like rock stars in a way, but they're just laser focused on this work that they're doing, and they have to be. Serious business. I'm sure they have some good times. I was really struck by Bernie. Just the physical power of his voice, how powerful his voice was, it's so booming, almost like a singer or something.

In the last presidential election, so many young men swung to the right. I'm curious why you found such a different set of beliefs and such a different path at that age. Do you have any theories on why the 18-to-25 demographic is going more Trumpland on us?

Yeah, I don't know. I guess just a lot of the rhetoric—I don't understand the rhetoric. I'm not a fan, of course, of Joe Rogan or any of those things like that. It means nothing to me. I have no idea. I just assume kids are lost. I feel like I was lucky to know the people I knew.

I don't know how much of it is stuff you're born with—just the way you see the world because of who you are as a person—or how much of it is seeing things or people explaining things to you. I really have no idea, really definitely depressing. I really don't have any clue as to why it went that way. Or minority groups now voting for him, a single woman voting for him, I don't understand any of it.

I've hated Trump since the ‘90s when I first heard about him in Spy magazine. I never could understand how anyone could think he wasn't a joke. The worst case scenario would be him. There couldn't possibly be a worse human being. That's the thing I think we all are struggling with, it's like, What is a fucking human being? What is going on? It’s the vindictiveness. The richness doesn’t really bother me as much as every other part of it.

Was this show the first time you’ve ever directly supported a politician?

Probably. We’ve done some benefits. There's a local politician, Paulette Jordan, that we played a benefit for, and we’ve done benefits for different little organizations like a local homeless shelter, a hospital up in Seattle. But yeah, I can’t think of anything like this at all. During the pandemic, when the elections were coming up, I did a few online performances, donated money to whatever, probably Georgia politics. But not much.

At this point, do you feel more compelled to get overtly political in your lyrics? Some of it has been very—like in “The Plan”—a little more coded. Are you now at a point where you're like, I want to take out the subtlety and just go for it?

Not really. My music feels really separate from politics. I want my music to be fun to listen to, and nice to listen to.

I hear you.

I feel like it's hard to do political stuff that's not beating people over the head. Every once in a while, maybe I'll have a line or something that's political, and it seems like it's effective, or it works in a way that's satisfying to my mind. But yeah, I'm not...I think politics.. I don't know. I guess if you feel like you're going to influence some people with it, then it's great. I just don't feel like we have that kind of reach or relationship with an audience. Our audience is mostly pretty sympathetic anyway. You wouldn't be listening to our kind of music too much unless you are a warm, compassionate person. I know that's an exaggeration, but it feels that way to me. If I felt like there was a community that I could speak to, and really, really fire some people up, I might feel differently. I just don't feel like we are in that position.

Well, how's the rest of life going? Are you still playing basketball regularly, or is that over?

That's over. I go shoot around a little bit, but my knees will get hurt if I try to defend someone.

I play in this weekly pickup run with a lot of director/actor/media types, and one guy brought a GoPro recently.

That’s great.

What really stands out is how stiff we all look on defense. No one can get into the stance at all.

Yeah. No one looks like it looks on TV at all. I can't even imagine what I actually look like out there. Oh my God.

That's a theory I developed in college. When I’d be sitting around watching basketball with my friends, we'd be like, I think watching the NBA makes us worse at basketball. Because they make it look so easy.

Exactly. Totally.

Are you following the playoffs at all?

Yeah, I don’t really care too much. Maybe here and there I’ll care about someone—or I just want someone to lose—but for the most part, I'm just rooting for whoever's behind so that we can have a fun, exciting series.

The only other thing I wanted to ask you about, sports-wise, was Ashton Jeanty. Do you have any thoughts about his NFL prospects?

Well, I've never really followed BSU. This year though, I caught the third or fourth game, and they talked about him and how he was breaking all kinds of yardage records. I like him. Football in general, I've only recently started paying attention to it, more the NFL. I do like football a lot. I grew up loving it and then just stopped. There was a basketball strike maybe 10, 15 years ago. The season started late. I started watching [the NFL] a little bit, and then more each year. Now, I pretty much will watch whatever I have time to watch.