In case there's any doubt that Against Me! are the definitive punk band of the Bush-Cheney era, consider this: The Gainesville, Florida, band's furious anthems are so closely tied to the outrages of the past eight years — "Condoleezza, do you get the fucking joke?" bandleader Tom Gabel howls on 2005's "From Her Lips to God's Ears (The Energizer)" — that Gabel is worried about how they'll come off in, say, an Obama administration. "I don't know how the end of the Bush regime is going to affect the band," he says. But in reality, it feels like Against Me! are just getting started. In the past decade, they've transformed from solo acoustic project to underground punk faves to major-label rock contenders whose fans include Bruce Springsteen: They recorded their latest and best album, New Wave, with Nevermind producer Butch Vig. With its plus-size guitars and beyond-punk sounds (including a dance beat on one tune), it's their London Calling, or at least their Tim.

Against Me! have always had more in common with the Clash, the Replacements and Fugazi than with pop punk of the past decade. "Other than Green Day, who I consider a legitimate band, I don't really like any of it," says Gabel. "I end up identifying more with a lot of the indie bands out there, because the indie bands are kids who grew up listening to the Clash or [anarchist punks] Crass or whatever but don't care about proving whether they're punk or not."

The band has been on tour almost nonstop since the beginning — once playing so many shows in a row that Gabel had to be rushed to a hospital for exhaustion and dehydration. "We take days off now," Gabel says. "But we really just wanted to hit it hard, and we continue to do that. For us, it's always been 'Here's the music. Learn the words, come out and sing along.'"