2008 was a big year for the members of Los Angeles-based band No Age [ tickets ]. They released their sophomore full-length, "Nouns"--an album of arty punk experimentation that landed on many critics' best-of-2008 lists. They toured the country at a frantic pace. They caused controversy on a national television show (more on that in the interview below). And they even snagged a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package. At the end of their fall tour, No Age guitarist Randy Randall found time to talk about touring, the group's penchant for playing unusual locations, politics, and what he thinks about LiveDaily's parent company, Ticketmaster, among other topics. You're currently out on the road. How's the tour been going? Any highlights you'd like to share?

It's been good. We played an awesome show in Chicago at an independent, not-for-profit space. There was so much crowd surfing going on and everyone was having a good time. A lot of really good friends hanging out together.

Is it challenging to leave your native Los Angeles and play music in unexplored territories?

We've done quite a bit of touring over the past two years, so we've become friends with people in a few different places. It's important to play the right kind of place--a place where they really foster the community. People know that that particular space only puts on really good things. So even if you're a band that hasn't been through a town a lot, the place you're playing sort of vouches for you.

No Age is known for playing in unconventional settings. You played the Los Angeles River a while back, for instance. What's the oddest or most unique place you've ever played?

I feel like one of the more fun shows we did was during South by Southwest. We played on a bridge at four o'clock in the morning. There was maybe a thousand people on the bridge and it felt like it was going to break and people were going to fall over. That was definitely a pretty wild party.

What do you enjoy about playing at these types of locations?

I think what it does is break up the expectations of the audience. You're not sure what you're going to see. You don't know how you're supposed to act. There are no set limits or rules, necessarily, about what's possible and what's not possible. What's exciting for us as a band is we get to explore a moment in time that we all share together. We have to make it all up--not make up the music--but make up the experience. There's no "We're going to come on stage with lights, a smoke machine and a PA. Everybody's going to stand there with their drinks." It feels like you're going to create a real-life experience.

You have a close relationship with the Los Angeles venue The Smell. You've even said The Smell helped shape the band that No Age has become. Can you explain that?

Having a venue like The Smell to play at, you really get access to an audience with a very open mind. Everyone is just excited to hear new music and to hear different things. So being able to play a place like The Smell has helped us develop the music on our own, and not necessarily music that people are going to like. We weren't really pandering to anyone other than to ourselves and our friends. We weren't trying to sound like something that we weren't. We just wanted to play for ourselves. The Smell was a really nurturing environment.

The band's done a number of cover songs. What do you enjoy about playing covers? How do you decide on which songs would work well as No Age songs?

I think the covers came out of people wanting us to play longer and not really having enough songs to play longer. So we had to come up with something to play for an encore. When we went to Europe, we didn't know they want you to play for an hour or an hour and a half. We thought it would be fun to play some cover songs. The cover songs just came out of songs we liked and bands we liked. We just thought, "Oh, that song would be a great song to cover." So we just looked at it like that. Really, it's just for fun. It's a lot of fun too when the audience knows the songs and you can get people on stage to sing it with you. Tonight we're in Boston and we're going to play a GG Allin song, because he's from the New England/Massachusetts area. So we're hoping we can get a bunch of kids on stage to sing some GG Allin songs.

Let's talk about some of your influences. There are the more obvious ones--great punk bands such as Bad Brains--but there are also more surprising ones. I'm thinking of fine artists like Charles Ray and Chris Burden that you've mentioned. How have these fine artists had an impact on your music?

Those two particular artists really pushed the boundaries of their art form. They weren't just taking things as the status quo. I think many of the fine artists that we have cited as influences were influential in the way that they thought about their art and their mediums, the way they interpreted it and executed their art. It's something we try to keep in mind--not to just go down the expected path and follow the status quo. You have to interpret everything that you do. You have to look to find more meaning in what it is you're doing and the process of it.

I have to ask you about the now-famous incident on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson where you wore an Obama shirt and were forced to remove it for the taped live performance. What's your take on the whole incident now that it's close to two months later?

Being invited to go on a national television show within a week of one of the most influential and history-making elections ever, and to not somehow register your voice and use the stage as a place to say what you want on such an event, I felt like it would be irresponsible. I wanted to take that chance, to really put my support out there. So that's what I was hoping to do, and due to the short-sightedness of the FCC and the biased regulations of public airwaves--the way it was all interpreted--it came out the way it did. So I had to flip the shirt around and write "Free Healthcare" on it, which I hope is an issue that Obama is able to address in his four years. At least, make healthcare more affordable. Right now, I'm not insured. I think he has a really great opportunity to do some great things for this country and for the world. I'm looking forward to it.

Do you consider No Age a political band? Or do you see your politics and music as separate?

I look at politics in the same way any individual person would look at politics. I don't think we're different from any other people, whether you're an artist, musician, or you work at a grocery store. I think everyone has a right to be politically aware of what is going on in their country and to say something when they see something. When they believe something, they should speak out about it. So I wouldn't say No Age is a particularly political band, but I think as a person, you have to live your politics.

And one way you've done that is by promoting all-ages shows. You're a big proponent of them. Why are all-ages shows important to you?

All-ages shows are important because music has in no way a strict correlation with drinking or bars. I can understand that there's a moral regulation on the age of drinking. I can appreciate that. But I think in terms of just hearing music, that has no connection to age at all. It's not that music is only acceptable for people of certain ages. I think it's ridiculous to do that. I think that creates a divide among cultures and communities, and it's irrelevant. It's an irrelevant question to ask: can I get into this show? That seems like asking if you can get into a restaurant. You know, if you're under 18, you can't eat at that restaurant, or you can't go to this art gallery, or you can't go to this sporting event. I can't imagine, "I really want to go to this basketball game. Michael Jordan is playing, but damn, I can't go. I'm under 16." It just doesn't make any sense and it's really arbitrary. It's so closely tied into alcohol sales, and it excludes a portion of the population--and a portion of population that is so excited about music. When I was 18, that was one of the times in my life when music was most important to me. So I look back at those times when I wasn't allowed to go and see some of my favorite bands. I feel it is irrelevant and unnecessary to play those shows. And because of the commerce of it all, the politics of it all, we've been put in situations where we had to--well, not had to--but there are very few options left. So we'll try to take advantage of all the opportunities available to us. Sometimes that's a 21+ show one night, and then an all-ages show the next. To make ourselves equally available to the audiences out there.

Wrapping things up, is there anything else you'd like to mention?

Well, one thing I'd like to say is I don't know if I agree with the business of Ticketmaster. And I'd like to go on record as saying that some of the business practices that Ticketmaster supports aren't some of the things we want to align ourselves with as a band. I've paid my surcharges and overcharges for most of my life, but I think as a band, it's something that we're not really willing to support. To put more money into the pocket of Ticketmaster.

To you, what would be the ideal way for fans to see shows, to get tickets? Should they all be public, free performances?

That would be amazing if we were able to do it. But short of that--and bills need to get paid on our end as well--if we could design something similar to what the Grateful Dead did in the '60s and '70s. You know, you can print your own tickets. You can find your own venues. You put in your own PA system. You have your own infrastructure that you can set up across the country, run yourself, and do it yourself. I'd love to see that happen as No Age grows, to really support ourselves in an independent fashion. I think with our involvement with the All-Ages Movement Project--we're trying to unite these smaller galleries and venues that kids really run themselves. And that's what I meant being able to come into a community that you've never been in. If you're playing the Flywheel in Easthampton, MA, there's going to be a built-in audience for you already. They've probable heard of you already, and they can come down and enjoy the show for five dollars and it's all-ages. There's already a structure there. We may not have to rent our own PA, or build our own buildings. They may already be there. I just want to encourage people to look outside of the box and really seek out and find the cool weirdos in their towns, because people are out there doing it. It's not just the mainstream Ticketmaster shows. I understand people want to see Coldplay and Jay-Z, but there are a lot of awesome artists out there on the grassroots/DIY level that they can seek out and find. And if it's not there, that's all the more reason to go out there and start it. Not to be Field of Dreams, but if you build it, they will come. There's enough people out there looking for a voice of their own, or to make their voice heard. So if you can find a community space, a lodge, an art gallery, a basement, anything out there, you can make a space that is safe and comfortable for people of all ages. And all the money goes right back into supporting the community. It's not really profiteering. That brings up the hegemony of the one culture that's being pushed out into the world. We try to encourage individual, DIY communities, and we make an effort to go out there and find them and interact with them as much as we can. As we continue to grow, we hope to continue to do that.