Local musicians have joined forces against Amendment One, the controversial North Carolina constitutional amendment that’s up for a vote on May 8. Tonight, Mac McCaughan, Superchunk frontman and co-founder of Merge Records, takes the stage with The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle and Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright to raise money to help strike the amendment down.
Assistant Diversions Editor Allison Hussey talked to McCaughan about the benefit and why he thinks this is a cause worth fighting for.
DIVERSIONS: Why is defeating Amendment One important to you?
MAC MCCAUGHAN: It’s important to me for a lot of reasons, and it’s probably the same reasons that it’s important to a lot of other people. In the larger context, you’re talking about an attempt to actually put something into the constitution of the state — put discrimination into the constitution of the state.
In other words, it seems different than a law or a ballot initiative or something like that. And I think that North Carolina is a special place to live, and people live here for a lot of different reasons. But I think one reason people live here is because it’s a progressive place and it’s a great place to live.
I think it’s important to me because the idea of Amendment One is putting discrimination into the state constitution, and it will hurt a lot of people. And as one Republican said, it doesn’t hurt anyone to vote against it, but it hurts people to vote for it.
So, to me, why would you put something in the state constitution that hurts a lot of people? Specifically families, children, women — there’s nothing good about it. It’s poorly written — overreaching. And even the speaker of the House in the state who is a Republican and who is in support of the bill, even he says it will be repealed within the next 20 years because it’s so backward-looking.
DIVE: How did the lineup come together?
MM: One of the scary things about the whole thing is that a lot of people don’t even know — not only do they not know what Amendment One is, they don’t know that it’s on the ballot on May 8, because a lot of people don’t pay attention to primary elections. Obviously, they do to the elections in November.
And so my wife and I hosted a fundraiser with some other people a few weeks ago in Chapel Hill, and it kind of just dawned on me how soon this was happening and how little knowledge there was out there about this issue. So I thought, well, I don’t have a lot to offer in terms of fundraising, but one thing I can do is play music and call my friends who play music.
So I called John Darnielle — I think I even emailed him that night — about the idea of doing an event. And he was into it, as I knew he would be. I got in touch with Greg Cartwright a bit later.
My initial idea was just to have a show, and then we started talking about ways we could raise money. One was this idea that, if you pay $100, you’re guaranteed that your request gets played at the show.
Then once we started talking about it even further, we started saying, ‘Well, let’s make it a little bit different than a normal show and have all three of us on-stage at the same time.’ Just kind of trading off songs instead of having it be one person plays for 40 minutes, now the next person plays for 40 minutes — that kind of thing.
Just try to make it a different event so that people feel like, not only are they supporting a good cause, but they’re getting to see a special show.
DIVE: Where will the money that you’re raising go?
MM: It’s going to a group called Protect NC Families. The money is to be used for basically two goals: one is to get out the vote, another is to educate people about what Amendment One really is and what it will do to people if it passes.
The main tool in doing that is TV ads obviously, and that’s super expensive. But we live in an area where I think people are fairly well-informed politically, and kind of know what’s going on. But that’s because we’re served by radio stations, The Independent, The News & Observer. I think the further flung you get in the state, the more expensive it is to reach people and let them know what’s going on, because TV is the way to do that.
DIVE: What can people do if this is an issue they care about?
MM: I think that people get the word out any way they can, talk to people. Use social media to get the word out about the election, about Amendment One.
If people go to protectncfamilies.org, you can buy yard signs, you can learn about volunteer opportunities and that kind of thing. I think there’s a lot people can do that the campaign can instruct them on how to get involved.
Amendment One Show
Time: 8 p.m. tonight, $20
With: Mountain Goats, Greg Cartwright, Tara DeFrancisco
Location: Motorco, Durham
Info: motorcomusic.com
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