Bad Religion

From Musician Dictionary

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Bad Religion

Bad Religion is a punk rock band that was originally formed in Southern California in 1980 by Jay Bentley (bass), Greg Graffin (vocals), Brett Gurewitz (guitars) and Jay Ziskrout (drums). This band is often credited for leading the revival of punk rock during the late 1980s, as well as influencing a large number of other punk and rock musicians throughout their career.

They are known for their erudite, socially conscious lyrics delivered melodically and often adorned with sophisticated vocal harmonies referenced in album liner notes as "oozin aahs". Bad Religion songs deal with matters of personal as well as political responsibility, and despite the band's moniker, deal more with freedom than atheism.

The band has gone through a large number of personnel changes throughout its history, singer/songwriter Greg Graffin being the sole consistent member. The lineup departure with the largest impact occurred when Brett Gurewitz, Bad Religion's other main songwriter, left in 1994. Gurewitz rejoined the band seven years later, invoking a return to form for the band, as the albums in his absence had not been as well received.

Bad Religion continues to record new material and tour around the world.

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

0-9

21st Century Digital Boy

1. Outro lyrics: Cat's foot, iron claw / Neurosurgeons (Greg often sings neurofuckingsurgeons) scream for more / Innocents raped with napalm fire / Everything I want, I really need / 21st century schizoid boy / 21st century sofa boy / 21st century digital boy / 21st century video boy (The first part was stolen from King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man").

2. It is about drugs and about Brett's family (he had rich parents who spoiled him so it's kind of autobiographical) and was inspired by Hetson's comments on Nintendo. As regards including the song on STF, Brett said they did it because Atlantic said they didn't "hear a single" in STF and thought the song was a hit so they asked the band to redo it. Brett commented "since we were selling out anyway I didn't see any point in arguing". Brett says he prefers the ATG version. The outro of the ATG version has a guitar solo behind the vocals and Brett explained that on the STF one they forgot to do it and he thinks this may be one of the reasons that the old one has more energy. On the other hand, Hetson said that they re-released 21st century to improve it. According to him Brett wasn't happy with the ATG version (!). Jay said the exact same thing: " (we re-released the song) because we were playing it every night since 1989, ’90. It wasn’t that we weren’t happy with it. I was thrilled with it. I thought it was a great fucking song. Brett just happened to think that we were playing it better than we played it on the record. He just thought it was the one song of his that had a snowball’s chance in hell of being popular. I think one of Brett’s quests as a song writer was to write a pop hit. That’s hard to do when you’re in a punk rock band. He always thought that song could be a pop hit, and he fought for it to get on the record and to be a single. I eventually got tired of saying “that’s not what we do.” That’s what he wanted to do when he was a member of the band at the time and we all went “well, OK, if you feel that strongly about it, we’ll put it on the record.” We have a very democratic process which is that if 3 members vote one way, then it’s going to happen, unless one member feels so strongly about it, then we all just concede and say “that’s cool.” Greg (Graffin) said there is better drumming on the STF version and added: "Stranger than Fiction was a weird record; it was our first major-label record. We knew that a lot of new people would be hearing it, and so we just wanted to make sure that there was something from our history on there that showed that it was still relevant today."

3. A Swedish band called Charta 77 made a Swedish version of 21st Century... and called it something like "det tjugoförsta århundradets digitala grabb" or something, and Paha Uskonto (the Finnish Bad Religion bootleg band) covered it as well (called it Digitaalimies). They made a true English cover too on their live album "Hel!". The British CD single included Leaders and Followers, Mediocrity and a live version of American Jesus. It carried a sticker with Bad Religion's logo as seen in the single's sleeve and in the single itself. It sold 15,000 copies very quickly for a country which has always ignored Bad Religion. It was also released as a (very cheap) picturedisc which also included No Control, American Jesus and We're only Gonna Die live. This release exists in CD version too: on the cover there is the same spacesuit that appears in STF, and there is a sticker pointing out that the CD "Contains previously unreleased live versions of.." etc. etc. The actual CD has the crossbuster on it in traditional black-red-white. And it exists in 12" version in white vinyl.. There was also a UK 12" promo with Incomplete and with the UK tour dates printed on it; and a UK CD single promo which has a yellow sleeve with reviews of Stranger than Fiction printed on it -these are from the N.M.E. ("their finest album to date"), Kerrang ("seek out this dizzying disc at all costs") and Q Magazine ("beating The Clash hands down at the subversive former and Sugar at the melodic later"). In Germany, there were two different single Cds. One contained live versions of American Jesus, No Control and We're Only Gonna Die (from Palladium in L.A., 7.30.1994). The other one had Leaders And Followers and Mediocrity, and American Jesus live (same gig as above).

4. Alternative Press said this songs is considered by many Bad Religion fans to be their Smells Like Teen Spirit.

5. As for video clips, when it first came out in Against the Grain, they did a video for it with live footage and some images of helicopters and stuff. It was shown in Headbanger's Ball back then. When it was re-released with Stranger than Fiction, they did a video in which a toddler was staring at a TV screen while Bad Religion were on the TV (although it is known that to get the toddler to stare at the screen, the crew filming the video had to play a videotape of Barney). And then there's this guy (Burt Haggith, a big Bad Religion fan) who came accross yet another video of 21st Century Digital Boy in the internet. It is made up of images from the Japanese Manga Film Ghost In The Shell so it's full of futuristic gun fighting. Someone just put the song over that vid cause it fit the song, however, the video does look like it goes with the song. And there is one part where someone in the video seems to be singing with the lyrics.

80 percent

NME published an interview with Greg in which they asked him about some declarations Greg had allegedly made (to the NME) saying that 80% of his fans were complete idiots. He replied that he never said that. He said that his words had been taken out of context and that what he had said is that in any random sample of the general population you'd find that 80% of the people are complete idiots. When they guest-starred in Bruce Dickinson's radio program in England on 2.21.1995, they talked for a while about the 80% issue. At one point they were explaining that Jay got beaten up as a kid for being punk and Bruce asked "why?!". Greg's answer was "I told you Bruce: because 80% of the people are idiots". Then they played Incomplete and Infected live in the studio (released on the Infected 1 and 2 singles) and Greg sang "let's talk about no-one, someone, 80%".

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

A Walk

The A Walk video was the first from The Gray Race and was first played in 120 Minutes. The CD single came with a The Gray Race sticker and it has Cease (album version), Leave mine To Me and Change of Ideas (both live). The sleeve is a picture of a snare and someone about to walk into it. The video was directed by David Bragger. At California Angels baseball games, when a batter is walked, they used to play (maybe still do) A Walk on the loudspeaker.

Against the Grain -the album

Cover for Against The Grain

It was released on 11.5.90, which is after Bad Religion's 80-85 was released. It was the first 100,000 seller, and showed how quickly they were growing. Bobby: "That was where the harmonies really started to take off. It was a good album, more experimental, and showed the potential the band had songwriting-wise. It brought out a lot of Greg and Brett's own sound and style". It's my favorite album ever and it has come first in almost all the Bad Religion surveys I have seen. Everybody loved it when it came out. That's when Roy Bittain (keyboard player for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band) walked into Epitaph headquarters and told Jay and Brett that they should re-release the album and he would produce it and he would re-write the songs. They laughed their asses off for a while and told him to leave.

Accept

They have a song called Bad Religion on their 1995 LP Death Row (Pavement Music 15006).

Against The Grain

The album most consistently voted best Bad Religion album by their fans. In 1998 it was number 30 in Alternative Press' Top 90 of the 90's.

All Good Soldiers

Brett: "It's an anti-conscription song and an anti-war song". In 1996 it was one of Brett's favorite Bad Religion songs.

All Our Yesterdays

A bootleg of a 1983 concert in which they only play stuff off of Into the Unknown (It's Only Over When... and The Dichotomy).

All Star

in 1999 All Star asked artists to list their top ten anythings (as opposed to the traditional top ten best albums of the year) and this is what Greg Graffin came up with (published on 12.12.99):

All Star

Top 10 Things To Spend Your Entertainment Dollars On: 1. Guns, Germs, and Steel paperback edition, a book by Jared Diamond / 2. The Professor and the Madman, a book by Simon Winchester / 3. An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, a book by James Randi / 4. Rushmore, the movie starring Bill Murray / 5. Amadeus, on DVD / 6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Life of Brian on DVD / 7. A Neotropical Companion, 2nd ed. , a book by John Kricher / 8. Everest IMAX adventure film / 9. The Ground Beneath Her Feet, a book by Salmon Rushdie / 10. Consilience, a book by E.O. Wilson.

Along the Way -the song

Greg seems to have sang "I refuse to abuse what is kind to abuse", also "...what is kind to the muse" and "... to defuse". The muses are a part of the pantheon of Greek gods and other deities. There were twelve of them, all women, and each was a patron of one of the arts. The Muse is 1)a source of inspiration and 2)a state of deep thought or dreamy abstraction. The Webster's dictionary defines muse as any of the nine sister goddesses in Greek mythology presiding over song and poetry and the arts and sciences; source of inspiration; a guiding genius. It has been voted best Bad Religion song.

Along the Way -the video

There are two different versions of the video, both put out by Tribal Crew and Epitaph. In one the sleeve is a cool pic of Greg and Brett playing live and in the other one there's a picture of someone but it's hard to see who it is. The audio on the video is from one show in Bremen, Germany, but the video is from many different shows on that European tour. Greg said he likes that about it. In 1996 Greg said he hadn't watched it since 1989.

Along the Way -the video

According to Arvind Karman, who was at the Ogden Theatre gig in Denver on March 27 1999, after the boys played Along The Way, Greg mentioned that there was a video released by that name and said that it was made by some European film students as a project or something. Greg said that it wasn't made to be sold or anything, but now he hears that they've been selling it for money in the states, and Arvind thinks he said that they haven't seen any of that money.

Alternative music

Jay: "what IS "alternative" right now with Nirvana selling 4 million records? What is "alternative" anymore? Is "alternative" strictly a numbers thing? If you don't sell more than 100,000 records, are you considered an alternative band because you're not selling that many?".

Alternative Press

Against The Grain was number 30 in Alternative Press' Top 90 of the 90's. It also said that 21st Century was considered by many Bad Religion fans to be their Smells Like Teen Spirit.

American Jesus

According to Brett, he wrote all the music and the lyrics in the chorus, while all Greg wrote was the verse and bridge lyrics. The chorus says: In god we trust / because he's one of us / break down, cave in / we can redeem your sins / strong heart, clear mind / and infinitely kind / you lose, we win / he's our champion. The guys from Loss, who did a cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion, didn't know the chorus lyrics; they only got the most obvious lines right and made up the rest. At the end they keep repeating "one mission, one god" while the main vocalist repeats three times the bit from "he's the farmer's..." to "he's inside me". There is a 7" single but no CD single. There are two promo CDs, one of which (released by Semaphore Records from Germany) includes Skyscraper and is extremely hard to find.

See the Video for American Jesus

American Jesus

The song was played during the Winter X-games on ESPN2 as background music, and MTV used to use the opening of the song during their Extreme Beach Competition show.

American Jesus

According to Jay the song was prompted by something George Bush said about how the USA could not do wrong in the gulf war because Jesus is on the Americans' side. But then Greg said that it was interestign for Jay to say that when he didn't write the song.

American Lesion

Graffin's solo project/album. Pete Finestone: "I am soooo proud of him [Greg] that I almost feel embarrassed. A release [A.L.] full of recriminations but also cognizant of his own shortcomings. You need to get it". Greg gave three solo concerts playing the AL songs in November 1997: at the Knitting Factory in New York city (November 4th), at The Haunt in Ithaca, NY (Greg's hometown) (9th) and at the Viper Room, Los Angeles (12th). In addition to A.L. tracks, the L.A. set also featured acoustic or piano-backed renditions of Struck A Nerve, Punk Rock Song, God Song, etc. The show itself was phenomenal, regarding the performance, and detestable, regarding the audience involvement and seeming lack of interest. Greg was the opening act for a band called Nickel Bag, whose singer is purportedly a backup singer for the Rolling Stones. There developed a ludicrous buzz on the street that the Stones were going to perform at the Viper Room (which holds 250 people) unannounced. Needless to say, the place was packed and nobody was there to see Greg's acoustic set. Those who did participate in the show enjoyed it thoroughly, despite the disinterest of the other patrons. Pete Finestone was there, thrilled to see acoustic renditions of Get Off and God Song. On 1.5.1998 the American Lesion Cybercast was going to be broadcast through the internet to let everyone hear this A.L. L.A. gig, but it didn't happen. The cybercast of the show was originally going to be live but had been cancelled due to technical difficulties. On April 27, 1998, there was an AL show at CSUN (California State University Northridge, where Greg had studied back in the days). There were a few die-hard Bad Religion fans, but the majority of the people there had no clue who the hell he was. The show was awesome as usual. Greg played a few requests from the audience.

American Lesion

On 12.10.1997 The Oklahoma Daily ran a positively glowing review of American Lesion by Heidi Holeman. This is the review pretty much in its entirety: "American Lesion is seemingly much happier than standard Bad Religion tunes, but his is a deceptive first impression of the music. Graffin's lyrics are characteristically critical of society and biting in nature…In reference to the album, Graffin said people who try to do something that isn't profitable, regardless of the emotional benefit it creates, become lesions on the placid surface of American prosperity. He goes on to equate our new national heritage with dollar signs and a trail of broken hearts…. Despite slow, sometimes acoustic ballads, this attitude is apparent throughout most of American Lesion. The rest of the CD is more introspective than we've come to expect from the Bad Religion frontman… Fate's Cruel Hand for example, is a slow, bluesy tune about desperation in the face of complete confusion. Another standout is the piano version of 'Cease' from The Grey Race. Obviously, this CD reveals a much more emotional and personal side of Graffin, much to the appreciation of fans. And, never fear, the band hasn't broken up, this is just a side project of tunes written in the past ten years". On November 3, 1998 (one year minus one day since the last NY gig) Greg played the Knitting Factory (New York city) again. It was an incredible show. Here's the entire in-order setlist: on acoustic guitar: Opinion, When I Fail, Shades of Truth (very uptempo, faster than on No Substance), Billy (yes, a Brett song; he said "this was written by a friend of Bad Religion's"), Dream Of Unity, The Fault Line and Punk Rock Song. On Piano: Back To Earth (he fucked up the last reprise, added an "oh shit" and when the song ended my fried Dave yelled out to play it again; Greg picked it up from where he screwed up, amazingly), Cease, Henchman (biggest ovation of the night for this one

truly amazing), Along The Way (someone shouted out from the audience "Along the Way" and Greg improvised it; He fumbled with the chord structure and mumbled something about the progression), In So Many Ways (incredible rendition of this in-itself incredible song), Predicament, Struck A Nerve (en encore, believe it or not). The words "American Lesion" appear in Tony Kushners play "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches", 1992. Prior and Louis are gay lovers and Prior talks about his lesions: "Lesion number one. Lookit. The wine-dark kiss of the angel of death (...) I'm a lesionnaire. The foreign lesion. The American lesion. Lesionnaire's disease".American Lesion is the name under which the Adolescents, Suicidal Tendencies and TSOL published their songs (copyright American Lesion music).

American Lesion

There's a promo for American Lesion which is pretty non-descript, no booklet, plain white rear insert that lists the things. And one that is simply the album with some golden writting printed on the cover that reads "For promotional use only. Sale or other transfer is prohibited, must be returned on demand of recording company". No singles or song promos were released.

American Youth Report

A compilation LP put out in 1982 by Bomp Records and distributed by Dr Strange. It was reissued 1991 on CD. It has We're Only Gonna Die.

Amerifucks, the

The bassist from The Amerifucks said that Bad Religion "lost it years ago." He said after No Control they went downhill and now they're at the very bottom. After a big argument with the guy he conceded that Bad Religion still "has it" but Brett sucks. They do believe that Bad Religion started punk up again when it was dying.

Anagrams

Libido Anger is an anagram for Bad Religion, and Greg Hetson is the Green Ghost.

Anathema

Band that recorded a cover of Better Of Dead that was released on the compilation for the anniversary of the Peaceville label. It's a slow, piano version with string.

Anesthesia

Brett: "Anesthesia is a metaphor comparing addiction to love. It also has a an open question regarding the fate of the female love interest". The Beatles' song You Never Give Me your Money, from Abbey Road, is where the line "12345678 all good children go to heaven" comes from. Charlie Manson used to quote this very sentence to his followers and even made them write it in blood after one of their killing sprees. A family member stated in an interview, "The Beatles were spokesman. They were speaking to Charlie, through their songs, letting him know from across the ocean that this is what was going to go down. He considered their songs prophecy, especially the songs in the so-called White Album". About the "delivery man" mentioned in Anesthesia: Steven Parent was unfortunate enough to be arriving at Sharon Tate's house just as Manson's "family" was. Squeaky Fromme and friends killed him before entering the house and killing the others (Voytek Frykowski, Jay Sebring, Sharon Tate and her unborn child). Yet despite the coincidences, Brett assured in an interview that there was "no deliberate Manson reference in Anesthesia". Anastasia was also the daughter of a Russian tsar at the time of the 1917 revolution. Some think she survived the slaughter of her family, escaped and lived a life of secrecy. In the 1970s, a woman claimed to be Anastasia and she did so until her death recently, but DNA fingerprinting has shown she was actually executed along with the rest of her family. Many have speculated about the possible link between this story and the song but, again, Brett hasn't confirmed this. A band from Northern California called Your Mother did a song about Bad Religion indicting them. The part that is played to the rythm of Anasthaesia says, instead of "all good children go to heaven", "All harmony makes big money."

Anesthesia

In a show in Berlin (4.13.00) Greg announced Anesthesia saying "here's a song

we don't know what it means but...".

Ancient Chinese Secret

This was the name of the mail service Bad Religion organised so their fans could buy Tested cheap directly from them. The popular origin of the name is an ad for Calgon laundry detergent which used this catchphrase. The U.S. TV show Get Smart, which was a sitcom in the mid 60's, then capitalised on it. There was a character called The Claw (pronounced "craw" as in: "not the craw, the craw!", which he would say everytime he was addressed as the craw) and whenever he was to torture the secret agent Maxwell Smart, he was asked by his assistant Bobo where he learned the particular brand of torture. The Claw would reply "ahh Bobo, that is ancient chinese secret".

Anders Skip Peterson

Their guitar technician -for The Gray Race Tour at least.

Andy Wallace

The producer for Stranger than Fiction (also played Hammond organ on it). He has also produced Nirvana (Nevermind), Sonic Youth and the Rollins Band.

Answer, The

Greg said it was his favourite song in 1993. In the CD bootleg Classic Traxx Greg loses himself and sings "the man was banished something something he's a mockery, you know?". He then sings (as he often used to do, adapting the lyrics to wherever they were playing) "Amsterdam sits chocking on its discharge" because the song was recorded at an Amsterdam gig.

Approchability

Brian: "Well, it depends. I like to go out, I like to watch the opening bands, I like to go out in the crowd, and I don't have problems with people coming back either. The only thing is: if you're playing a show with 4,000 people and I'm out there and 20 guys recognize me, then it starts to get a little bit... a little bit of a pain in the ass. I like to be out there as long as it doesn't turn into a hassle. A hassle to me means that people are paying attention to me instead of SNFU or any of the other bands that we have with us. I'm not there to be recognized, I'm just there like anybody else, to sit out there and enjoy the music. And I'll talk to anybody who wants to talk to me, but when you get a bunch of people asking me to sign their front teeth and their pants and slapping me on the back, screaming about straight edge, it's not any fun for me to be there any more, so I go backstage and have a coke. I mean, that's how it works. But we're not hiding from anybody, and anybody who wants to talk to us can.

Aquarian Music Magazine

Mag from Jersey which featured a long interview with Greg about The Gray Race.

Argentina

According to Greg (on a radio interview in March 2001), the show they were supposed to play there in 1999 was cancelled because The Offspring didn't want to share the stage with them. He said they only found out in Brazil, when they were about to fly to Argentina.

Argentina, South America Tour

Bad Religion went to Argentina on 12th of april of 2007. It share the scenary with other local bands and made a wonderful and amazingly show.

Atlantic -the switch from Epitaph

Brett said one of the main reasons for choosing Atlantic from all the labels the band met with was that the president is a pretty cool guy and seemed to be genuinely enthusiastic about them, their lyrics, their politics and so on. Jay explained when they were looking for a label that people from certain labels were telling them in meetings that Epitaph and Bad Religion had credibility, but what they really meant was that they sucked and so needed Bad Religion to gain some credibility. The contract talks with labels were simple: Bad Religion presented interested suitors with their Epitaph contracts from Generator and Recipe, and demanded an advance equal to what Recipe had already sold. When they signed to Atlantic, that was 180,000 records in the US alone. Brett didn't license Bad Religion; he sold them outright. At first Jay couldn't believe it, but Brett made him realize what they had to believe, realistically, was that Epitaph could never do the job that Atlantic and WEA (Warner, Elektra, Asylum) could do.

Atlantic -the switch from Epitaph

At the time of signing, Atlantic promised to give Bad Religion complete creative freedom. Jay said Danny Goldberg (Atlantic manager) told them he didn't want to know, he just wanted to hear the final album, and everybody else just told them to go, have a good time and make a record. Brian explained that having been in major label situations where there was a lot of pressure for the band to change, he's amazed at how Atlantic seems to understand the value of not screwing with anything. Brian: "No one is sitting in their office going 'this one's gotta be a hit'. Or at least they don't say it to us". Jay said that "if Atlantic wants to play indie they better do what the fuck the band wants". Brian: " you get to a point where Epitaph and Bad Religion are both too big for five guys to run . You make a choice. Sub Pop wasn't interested...". Greg: "I thought we would bite the bullet together and show people that it was possible to transition to a major and still make great music, and be true to our original intent. But Brett leaving made me realize he had his own agenda.....I'm still not sure what it is though." Brett also voted to leave Epitaph but he claims the reason he did so was that the move required a unanimous vote and he didn't want to be the one who was later accused of "holding them back" for selfish reasons being that he owns the record label. He adds that "playing in the band, writing, engineering, producing and running the label all at once presented many delicate conflicts of interest."

Atlantic -the switch from Epitaph

Greg: "Brett's goal will be to show how much Bad Religion needed Epitaph. Our goal is to show how much Bad Religion supported Epitaph. In 1996 Hetson said they've never regretted leaving Epitaph.

Atlantic -the switch from Epitaph

Jay in 1997: "I wouldn't say that moving to Atlantic was the right move, but moving off Epitaph was. It became difficult for Brett and I to be out on the road, because while there we'd have to have meetings with distributors and record store people. You're out on a tour and having all these business meetings, and your going, 'This sucks'. Personalities started to evolve, because that's what success does to people. Success makes people have to kind of put their hand up and say, 'I did that.' And all of a sudden, you start running into conflicts of saying look we can accomplish this, and it gets a lot more difficult when certain people begin to believe that they're the reason for everything good happening [he's talking about Brett]. I'm not going to say any one person, because we were all doing it. A lot of that had to do with being on our own label (...) and it got to the point of saying maybe we need to have someone else doing this, so we can go back to being Bad Religion, a band, and not necessarily be responsible for whatever the version of success was for the individual". Jay also explained that while they were on Epitaph, for every 10 calls 8 were for Bad Religion. They were trying to sell other band's albums but all that the guy on the phone wanted to talk about was Bad Religion. So him and Brett thought if they got Bad Religion off Epitaph the other bands could thrive. Brett said he would have made more money if he had kept Recipe For Hate in Epitaph, but the band asked him to turn it over to Atlantic. In early 1994 Brett said "if it comes down to a vote, everybody probably has their own motivations. I did it strictly for the money" and he said he's not sure Atlantic could promote them better than Epitaph.

Atlantic -the switch from Epitaph

Jay:"I don't have more money in my pockets since we are with Atlantic. I made great money on Epitaph. We sold 250,000 records worldwide on a small label. We walked into Atlantic and said “we sell 250,000 records worldwide. Here’s our contract with Epitaph. Match it and we’ll go with you because we don’t want to deal with the everyday minutia of ‘gee, I don’t like that 8x10 as much as I like that other one.’” That’s work. “Can Bad Religion come play at my prom?” “No!” We needed someone else to do the everyday shitwork and let Bad Religion make music and make records".

Atom And His Package

This one-man band has a song called Punk Rock Academy that says "...and we fired the guy from Bad Religion because he sold punk rock out". However, Atom the man explained that "the line is 100% tongue in cheek, referring to punk's overwillingness to jump on anyone and call them a sellout. I have no problem with Mr. Brett or Mr. Graffin. I certainly think there are waaaay more serious issues to be concerned about than Bad Religion's record label".

Atomic Garden

Brett: "It's about nuclear proliferation". There's a videoclip (filmed and edited by Gregor Verbinsky) that can be found in the video Big Bang. Blender recorded a cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion, without actually knowing the lyrics to the song. During Atomic Garden in Las Vegas in 1999 Greg replaced Gorbachev's name with that of Slobodan Milosevic (that was in the middle of the bombing of Serbia).

See the Video for Atomic Garden

Atomic Garden

But the greatest thing about this song is that I (Roger) sang it, from beginning to end, onstage and with Hetson, Jay, Brian and Bobby playing for me.

Australia

Both Punk Rock Song and 21st Century were popular singles. During their 1997 dates they appeared in Recovery (TV show) singing Come Join Us (on 16.2.1997) and on Rage on 15.2.1997. The following is the dialogue of the interview after Bad Religion played on Recovery (they opened the show) on Australia's ABC TV: "Q: How come it took you so long for you guys to get here?" "A: uh.. well actually we fear the dingo" "Q: you fear the dingo.. you've been together 17 years and you have never set foot on our shores before" "A: This is the first time and let me just say I think we're comin' back" (Big cheer from audience). Since 1992 Triple J (youth radio network) conducts a poll called "The hottest 100" over Xmas. It's just a poll of what listeners reckon is the best song of the year, and they count down the top 100 in February. In 1997 (for 1996) Bad Religion made 63 with Punk Rock Song, and the previous year with 21st Century Digital Boy made 76. Over 250,000 people voted, and it's supposed to be one of the biggest music polls in the world.

Autographs

A guitar shop in Ithaca had a Gibson SG "autographed by Greg", except Greg doesn't think he ever signed it.

Automatic Man

It is about the danger of not thinking before acting or more concisely, complacency in general.

Available stuff

Rare tracks: news from the front, markovian process, leaders and followers, mediocrity, universal cynic, the dodo, punk rock song in German, waiting for the fire, runnin' fast, every day, (unknown song from '82), acoustic version of do what you want / covers by Bad Religion: noel, do they know it's Xmas?, joy to the world, silent night, fuck Christmas, I saw the light, we're a happy family, johnny b. goode, louie louie, rock n roll, ridin' the storm out, problems, takin' care of business, tom sawyer, girl from ipanema, give punk a chance, nervous breakdown, (four songs by The Cars, including moving in stereo), (Germs song?) / Bad Religion covers: were only gonna die (covered by Sublimes, Trippin Daisies and Biohazard), 21st century digital boy (covered by Charta 77), chasing the wild goose (covered by No Empathy) and all the covers by Paha Uskonto and from the tribute album Fuck Hell...

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

B

B-sides

Greg never listens to the live b-sides on Bad Religion's singles because he thinks they are all flawed: "the people who mix most live things try to add too much audience (...) they try to make you feel like you're there. That's not my intention, and it doesn't interest me" (see Tested liner notes).

Back to the Known

Recorded at Pacifica Studio in 1985 with Brett producing. Tim Gallego played bass and both Gregs and Pete filled out the band. There is a 7" version with a black and white picture of the white house on the cover. And a 12" with the logo and the symbol and what P. Finestone called "frogger footprints". The original release was one-sided and although it says 1984 on the record, it came out in 1985. Distributed by Suite Beat

a California company

and pressed in the UK, like the first How Could Hell Be Any Worse albums. The back cover has a pic of the US capitol building, pretty much like the cover of the 7" bootleg.

Bad Religion -the first E.P.

Recorded at a small studio in Westlake, run by Jay Ziskrout's drum teacher, out of his garage. They took their tapes to Goldstar Recorders (which is now gone, but they were the best in Hollywood) for mastering. Goldstar sent the masters on from there to a place called Greg Lee for the two-step processing. The receptionist at the front desk of Goldstar was Johnette Napolitano, who back then was just a wannabe singer and a fellow punk (with dyed purple hair and all -she became famous with Concrete Blonde). Bad Religion gave her a copy of the EP and she was so impressed that she asked them to have her boyfriend (Jim Mankey) produce their next album; she assured them he would get them studio time and stuff. Brett and co. took the masters to a record plant and had 500 made up and then Brett went to a little distributor called Jem Records (which is now also out of business). Jem was based in Reseda and was also an importer. Brett met with a guy over there who bought most of the records from him. Then they realized that the snare drum was mastered too high, and with each snare hit, the record skipped. However, no one else seemed to notice, and Jem Records, who could tell just how good Bad Religion were, happily distributed the EPs to all the record shops in the area. Brett and co. also brought records directly into stores. They would drive to Moby Disk or Middle Earth and drop off two or three or five records. It came out in 1981 (many people think it was 1980 because of the "80-85" comp). When they came to press up another batch, this time of 1,500, they had the flaw fixed, only for a new one to appear. As was typical for the day, the band had a message scratched on the run-off groove; on one side was written, "We're not Bad Religion..." on the other "... you are". They called down to make sure that the message would be etched into the second pressing, but to their horror, the records came back with "We're not Bad Religion..." "Ellipsis U R". With only 2,000 pressed, the EP remains Bad Religion's most collectable release, and with only 500 copies correctly inscribed, the first pressing will inevitably fetch even higher prices. One of their fans back then was Bobby (Schayer): "The EP was phenomenal! I like it because of the fact that at that time, every band in LA didn't sound the same, and the record was unique. What separated the band was that Greg had a really unique voice, that made a big impression on me". Brett had borrowed about $1,500 from his dad and with that money he hired a graphic artist to design the 7" sleeve and, according to him, also a logo for Epitath. With the success of the EP, they were able to pay back the money they'd borrowed for the pressing, and still have enough left over to record How Could Hell... The 7" itself has pretty rare pictures (never published anywhere else as far as I know) and folds out to the size of an album cover. The lyrics are copyright 1981, but "The Original Bad Religion" 12" re-issue states that it was "previously released in 1980 as a limited edition 7" e.p." The 12" has remarkably different mixing, compared to the 80-85 mixing. There's a lot more reverb on the entire mix, especially the drums, which are a bit louder. And perhaps most remarkably, there's a heavy delay effect on Greg's voice throughout the record. The end of Slaves, when the song falls apart and Greg groans, "Ahhaahhh" goes on a lot longer than on the cd, and Greg's screaming is cut off.

Bad Religion -the name

Greg: "in a lot of respects very small interest groups can be thought of as bad religions too, because they definitely prescribe ways of thinking". Greg called Greenpeace a bad religion despite being himself a member of the organization.

Bad Religion 80-85

They didn't put it out until 1990 because Chameleon Records owned How Could Hell.... Hetson's notes in it are incorrect in places. Greg and jay think he did that deliberately. Even the date on the back of the record is confusing. It says 1991, while ATG is dated 1990, yet the former came out first. There is a punk compilation with the same cover.

Bad Religion Dictionary

A dictionary with all the big words from Bad Religion's songs (on the web). Greg said it was "nice, a kind gesture".

Bad Times

Bad Religion's official occasional newsletter, which they send for free to all the fans they have in their database (built over many years). The last issue at the time of writing this (March 98) was number 7 which came out in October 1997. To get it, write to michele@badreligion.com.

Baseball

In the 11th round of the MLB players draft, Rex Rundgren, Todd's son, was drafted by the Florida Marlins. Also, The Angels play A Walk at their games.

Basketball

Although Bad Religion is basically a hockey team (though they do play music too) they play driveway basketball in Greg's frontyard in between recording songs and stuff. Greg claims to be 80% from the free-throw line. Jay says he used to play when he was a kid. Now he plays with Greg Graffin, "and pretty much only him, because he’s such a serious competitor. I just like to play anything against him". When asked whether he can take Graffin, Jay says: "we’re pretty much even. He’s got me on weight but obviously I got him on height. He can drive through me and I can just go over him. It’s pretty even".

Basque Country, the

A very punky country where Bad Religion are really well known. During a concert in a disco in the town of Oiartzun (near Donostia), during the Recipe for Hate tour, the floor where the crowd was standing gave in during the first or second song and dozens of people fell to the basement of the venue. Many people had to be taken to hospital but there were no fatalities. When on 4.4.1998 they played the Basque Country (Donostia) for the first time since the incident (different, bigger venue), they started the show with Recipe For Hate and Greg said "we'll start with the same song as the last time" with a cynical grin. When on 10.11.1998 NOFX played Donosti, Fat Mike started off the gig by saying "shit, it's the same place as the last time. Why don't we get venues where the floor collapses?". Greg was interviewed in the Basque music newspaper El Tubo and was asked about his awareness of the separatist movement in the Basque Country. He replied "yes, I heard some of you are Spanish, some are French, and some just want to be yourselves". Dream of Unity got to the list of hits of Euskadi Gaztea (the biggest radio station in the country) even before the single was released (over The Offspring, Foo Fighters and Spice Girls). A walk made it to number 4 and even It's Reciprocal (which didn't have a single or a promo) made it to their hits list. Hear It was number 24 in mid March 1998 (one month before No Substance was released!!!) and by late March it had climbed to number 9. In 1998 they were about to play in the disco Young Play in Hernani but the band wanted 4 million pesetas to play there and in the end it didn't happen. They did play at the Polideportivo Anoeta in Donostia, were Greg started the show by saying "hola vascos" and then he said "we´re gonna start with the same song as the last time" (the last time was the accident in Oiartzun).

Beatles, the

On Summer 1993 Brett said they were his favourite band.

Beatles, the -We Can Work it Out

It has the line "there is no time for fussing and fighting, my friend", which Brett used in You.

Beatles, the -You Never Give Me your Money

Song from Abbey Road. This is where the line "12345678 all good children go to heaven" comes from (although The Beatles sing 1234567 -Bad Religion added the 8).

Benefit concerts

Hetson in 1994: "We'll play at every benefit that interests us, wherever we find a good cause to defend".

Best For You

According to an interview with Jay in 2000, Jennifer Finch and someone else form L7 played guitar on it. Toast recorded a really bad cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion. The Catalan band Torra-Ska (fronted by Adrià Serra) did a much better live version of it.

Better Off Dead

The missing bit says "so if you're looking for a patsy..."(patsy is American slang for a scapegoat). Brett: "Better off Dead is not a love song. It's a song about personal responsibility".

Better Youth Organization

They are on a BYO compilation called Someone Got Their Head Kicked In (which was sort-of re-released as the CD Someone's Gonna Get Their Head to Believe in Something) with 7 Seconds, Youth Brigade, Jughead's Revenge, Adolescents, etc.

Beverly Hills 90210

This is a revolting series

you know it, right? After the opening credits they have their commercials then come back and have the opening scene with additional credits (guest stars, writers, etc.). In the final eposide of this 10 year teenager drama (5.17.2000), all this was set to the tune of The New America. They played a good chunk of it, at least the full chorus and one verse.

Bible, The

During a gig someone threw a French bible on stage. Greg read some of it and said "I'm sorry, I speak French but I don't speak bible".

Big Bang -the video

Videotape of live performances from 18 different shows off the Against the Grain Tour. Filmed, edited and produced by Matthias Kollek and Thorsten Bach. Released on Tribal Video. Includes the promo video for Atomic Garden.

Big Takeover, The

An amazing music magazine. Issues number 28, 29, 32, 33, 36 and 40 all have an interview with Bad Religion (the longest interviews you've ever seen). They were featured (but no interview) in many other issues e.g. 25, 30 and 31. The editor Jack Rabid is currently (as of March 1998) writing the first Bad Religion book ever (at the bands request). He is also meant to write the liner notes for the re-release of Into the Unknown should that ever happen. He has called Bad Religion "the hottest band that we humans still have" and this is a man who knows every band that ever existed. The address (for past issues, subscriptions or anything else) is 249 Eldridge Street No. 14 New York NY 10002. http://www.bigtakeover.com

Biggest Killer In American History, the

A fan asked Greg at a concert who the biggest killer in American history was. He replied quite matter-of-factly that it was the US military. Hetson on the other hand said it is Edward Teller (mentioned in the song). Teller and Robert Oppenheimer spearheaded the Manhattan Project which created the atom bomb during the second world war. He preached how great the bomb was until his death and, unlike Oppenheimer, never had any regrets about it.

Billy Gnosis

The character in the song is supposed to be Brett (just as Billy from the song Billy is Brett). Notice: Billy Gnosis has the same initials as Brett Gurewitz. When in a show a guy held up signs requesting the song, they played a satirical 5 second riff from Billy Gnosis and then switched into another song. However, they played it in soundchecks, so they could have played it.

Billy

Billy is Brett. He is an ex-crack addict and the song it is deliberately autobiographical. On side 2 of all No Control tapes the song is listed as Bizzy.

Biohazard

They covered We're Only Gonna Die on Urban Discipline in 1992. Bad Religion and Biohazard also playr We're Only Gonna Die together on the Streets of America single with the Multimedia Track that was released in 1996. They played it together in New York's Roseland back in January 1994 as well.

Blenderhead

Brett said the song is about "how it feels to question too often and too deeply." There is a British band named after the song and another band (American) also called Blenderhead but, according to them, they didn't name their band after the song.

Board Aid

Bad Religion gave a concert in Big Bear for them. It was a one-time event. They played four songs off The Gray Race (before the album was released): A Walk, The Gray Race, Punk Rock Song and 10 in 2010. Also playing there were Unwritten Law.

Bobby

Bobby Schayer's grandparents were Mexican but he's never lived there and can't speak Spanish. He's from Encino in San Fernando Valley and is the youngest Bad Religion member. He was one of the early Bad Religion fans and heard the first EP when it came out: "They were from the valley, and so was I; it was inspiring to know that if these guys could do it, anyone could do it". When Pete left Bad Religion in 1991 Bobby was just hanging around LA playing in various bands; according to Greg "He was wasting away in this terribly abusive band called 'Two Free Stooges', it was a shame (...) he's such a great drummer, he was a lot more versatile [than Pete]". he grew up listening to glam rock (Bowie, Sweet, Slade and the Bay City Rollers). One weekend, he saw The Ramones on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. Soon after, for his twelfth birthday, his sister bought him The Ramones' eponymous debut album and Rocket To Russia, and his fate was sealed. He began playing drums in 1980, but that was after he'd learned guitar and bass. His first band was The Questions, which he joined in 1988. Not long after he hooked up with The Two Free Stooges, which could've been considered a supergroup by membership alone. Most of the group had ties to Alex Cox (The director of such movies as Repo Man and Sid and Nancy), and the band sported former members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Porno for Pyros, the Circle Jerks, the Dead Kennedys, Thelonius Monster, etc. The only problem was their material. They did loungy and weird covers of The Cream, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, etc. Bobby says the frontmen (two guys) told a lot of racist and stupid jokes onstage and half the time people would get offended instead of laugh. Bobby stayed with them for about a year total, quitting and going back several times, as the line-up constantly shifted. They never put a record out but did three tours ("we knew people in the right places" says Bobby). The Smithereens were recording in LA, and stayed at the hotel behind the Central (now the Viper Room, the pub River Phoenix died in, owned by Johnny Depp). They got in the pub for a drink, and 'The Stooges' were playing. The Smithereens loved them and that's how The Stooges ended up opening for them. The Peppers took them on tour too, in 1989. Then they toured with The Dead Milkmen. Bobby says if he hadn't done that, he would have never ended up in Bad Religion. But that's probably a lot of bullshit. He already had a connection to Bad Religion, as when he had first started playing drums, it was Lucky Lehrer who taught him too (Lucky also taught Pete, he toured with Bad Religion and he was in Circle Jerks like Hetson). Hetson left a message in his answering machine asking whether he'd be interested in joining Bad Religion. The day he tried out for the band, Nicky Beat, who'd played with the Germs and a million other bands, was there; Colin Sears from Dag Nasty was there too, but Bobby got it because he knew every song. He had two days to learn songs, and he learned 25. He was third in the audition. He asked "what song do you want me to play?" and Jay said "what do you know?"; Bobby replied "all of them". They said "bullshit" so he went out and did it and Jay said "you're in". Actually they told him to come back the following day so Brett could hear him. The following day, after three songs Brett said, "OK you're in the band". Then, he asked if Bobby played chess, and he said, "Yeah, kind of" and Brett said, "OK you're in the band". Bobby once said he had also been in The Silly Joke Band, The Screech band, The Tammy Pon, The Monthly Cycle, The Montsanno Ride, The Feelies, The Tripes, The All-Out Underground, The Smock Sessions and used to be a roadie for the Dickies; but I'm sure this is not true. He is a big feelies fan. He's also kind of a punk historian; he has a photographic memory and his brain stores tons of dates and facts relating to the history of punk. He plays with his Zildjian Session Master drumsticks upside down (hitting the heads with the butt end). He also chops his drumsticks for extra grip (looking like scales).

Bobby

He lives in Seattle.

Bobby

Jay once said "Peter is amazing, but Bobby is a better drummer". He's also said that "Bob's got a twisted sense of humor".

Bobby

Bobby left Bad Religion in 2001, after the New America tour, due to a chronic progressive shoulder injury that will not heal. He was suffering from this shoulder injury and full-blown tendonitis and was in great pain after each show. He will never be able to play the drums again. These were Greg's words on Bad Times: "During the last legs of that tour, we also witnessed the last legs of one of the great punk drummers, Bobby Schayer. As you might have read in the news wires, Bobby sustained a career-ending progressive injury to his shoulder that finally sidelined him for good a couple weeks ago. We all miss him, and we have received hundreds of emails and letters wishing him well and hoping that his life will still prosper despite the inability to play drums. Thanks to all of you who wished him well during this difficult time".

Bomp

The label that reissued the Buried Alive (The Best of Smoke Seven Records 1981-1983) comp in 1995, containing the theme song (Bad Religion) and Drastic Actions; and another comp (Buried Alive 2) in 1996 containing Slaves. It also released the LP American Youth Report with Only Gonna Die. In 1983, after most of 10,000 copies of Into the Unknown were returned, they put them in the Bomp warehouse, because Brett worked there for a bit and was dating a girl from there called Suzy Shaw. Suzy sold most of the albums without telling the band. When they found out, they stopped it and Jay said only about 300 copies were left at that time. Suzy says that she only sold about 2,000 and that she had every right to do it since she did a lot for Brett and never got anything in return (Brett lived with her for free, she cooked for him everyday etc.).

Boltzman

(Mentioned in "Entropy"). Firstly, entropy is the amount of disorder or randomness in a system. A "system" can be anything. If your system is a small balloon full of air, then you can measure the amount of disorder in your balloon. Entropy is usually measured in Joules/Kelvin. It can be used in thermodynamics to determine whether or not (and to what magnitude) a process will happen all by itself, without any external influences (whether or not the process is spontaneous). All spontaneous processes result in an increase in the total combined entropy (or disorder) of a system and its surroundings. This is shown by the second law of thermodynamics. There are always more disordered states than ordered states, so disorder always happens naturally.). According to physics, entropy (sort of) gives time its forward direction because the entropy of the universe always increases as time moves forward. It is impossible to go backwards in time because it would decrease the entropy of the universe (which the second law of thermodynamics will not allow). In the song ("Entropy") Greg sings, "We're in a play of slow decay orchestrated by Boltzmann, it's entropy...". Ludwig Boltzmann was an Austrian physicist. Basically, he said that the entropy of any given state is related to the number of ways that the state can be acheived. If a state can be acheived in a lot of different ways, it has higher entropy than a state that can be acheived in a smaller number of ways. This is also known as "positional disorder." His equation for calculating entropy is: S = k ln W. S is the entropy of the state in Joules / Kelvin degrees. W is the number of ways that the state can be acheived. k is Boltzman's constant. It is 1.38 e-23 J/K (rounded). Boltzmann's constant was derived by dividing the gas law constant, R, by Avagadro's number. [8.314(J/(moles*Kelvin)] / [6.02e23 (particles/mole)]. The moles cancel and you're left with 1.38 e-23 J/K.

Boltzman

The second law of thermodynamics shows that all processes result in an increase in the disorder (entropy) of the universe. The entropy of the universe cannot decrease. So the song is connected to the idea that at some far away time in the far distant future, all will be disorder and the universe as we know it will have to come to an end. There will be no order or free energy left. So when Greg sings "We're in a play of slow decay orchestrated by Boltzmann," we know that we are slowly but surely losing the order in the universe as time moves forward. Eventually, all will be disorder. The universe will not reach equilibrium until this happens. There's nothing we can do about it. It's not a human issue.

Bootlegs

Brett said he wasn't against bootlegs of live shows but was against bootlegs of studio albums which he called "more a 'counterfeit' than a bootleg". Brian: "I don't mind bootlegs at all, except that in my case they show how truly shitty I can play when I'm jumping around". Jay: "anyone who goes to the trouble and expense of taping a show or making a T-shirt or bootlegging whatever has the option of choosing hundreds of bands of which they can bootleg; if they choose bad religion, I have to consider that a compliment. The only issue that I have ever raised with them is what they do with their profits. I have told numerous bootleggers that I don't mind if they sell products with our name on them if they give some of the money they make to charity. I don't care which one, choose one that means something to you, but give back a little something." There are around about 100 bootlegs of Bad Religion shows (but half of them only exist on tape and have never been released by a bootleg label). Several bootlegs which claim to be recorded in the U.S. include songs from the gig at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, 4.4.1992. This is true for the Christmas Show Bootleg 1994 (tracks 11-24), Promise of Prosperity and Classic Traxx. To top this, Classic Traxx contains the studio versions of Stranger than Fiction, Leave Mine To Me and Infected, with some crowd noises mixed under.

Bottom 12

Greg produced their album Songs for the Disgruntled Postman. According to a member of the band, The Gray Race was already pretty much written after the Stranger than Fiction tour.

Brazen Abbot

This band has an LP called Bad Religion but it contains no reference to the band at all. The lyrics are about religion being bad, that's all. The band feautres ex-Yngwie Malmsteen singers Goran Edman and Joe Lynn Turner and ex-Europe members Ian Haughland, Mic Micheli, and John Leven.

Brazil

they played a festival in Rio de Janeiro with Sex Pistols, Marky Ramone and the intruders, Cypress Hill and a Brasilian punk band called Little Quail and the mad birds. The last show of the Gray Race Tour was in Curitiba on 12.1.1996 (with Resist Control as support band). On 30.11.1996 they played in Sao Paulo the Close-Up Festival with the Sex Pistols too.

Brazil

In 1999 they were supposed to play three dates (November 19, 20 and 21) but they only played 11.20.99. Here's the explanation/apology from Greg himself:"I am sorry to report that we will only be playing one show in South America this time, and that is the show in Sao Paulo. This is due to the fact that the Offspring don't want us on the bill for their shows in Curitiba or Rio. In fairness, it is their show in those two towns and they have a right to decide who their opening band should be. The show in S.P. is a festival and the promoter decided that Bad Religion was a good addition to the show. I am sure that the Offspring and the promoter got mixed up in their conversations about adding us to the shows in Curitiba and Rio. It is a shame that we are caught in the middle of this mis-communication, but nonetheless, we are looking forward to playing our show in S.P. We are sorry to our fans in Rio and Curitiba who can't make it, but we will be back sometime in the next year. Sincerely, Greg Graffin".

Brett

Brett Gurewitz was brought up Jewish and became disillusioned with it when he was 9 or 10 years old. "I used to dare God to do things and he would never do that particular thing. 'o.k. God, if you dare, move this pencil' and I'd be in 4th grade, you know?". He is a high-school drop-out and a founder member of Bad Religion. He worked as a salesman for a record importer for a while. By the time they had finished and sold How Could Hell... he was working at the Chameleon label. He did another pressing of the album without the rest of the band's knowledge, sold them to Chameleon, and never accounted for the money (spent it on drugs). He always felt guilty about it, and part of what he wanted to do when he started Epitaph up again in 1987 was to make it up to the band. After Into the Unknown, he was forced to disband Epitaph, as the label was bankrupt, so he concentrated on his job at Chameleon. He also worked for his dad's company, which manufactures trash liners and other plastic items. He'd had jobs in business, but didn't have a real business background at the time of starting Epitaph. He did get a lot of advice from his dad, who has always been supportive of Brett: "I guess he was glad to see that I was recovered and not using drugs anymore. I went to him a lot for advice because he's a pretty smart businessman". By early 1987 he kept bumping into Greg and Jay in L.A. By now, he had put his drug problems behind him, and they kept asking him to rejoin. He was unsure, because Into the Unknown had been perceived by many to be responsible for the destruction of the SoCal punk scene; but time had passed and they were no longer considered traitors. Then Bad Religion had a show lined up in San Francisco, but Hetson wasn't able to play, as he was off touring with the Circle Jerks. Brett agreed to stand in for this one show, and he had so much fun he ended up staying on. Greg: "It really motivated Brett, and me too, that's why Suffer has so much life to it. Here was a bunch of guys that hadn't been together for a while, and then we find out not only do we have a better outlook on life and understand more about the world so we can write a little more lucidly, but we both sound better than ever". Brett had been working as a studio engineer and, with partner Donnell Cameron, set up his own studio in Hollywood, Westbeach (or West Beach) Recorders. It would also become the early home of the revived Epitaph. Some maintain Brett only rejoined Bad Religion because he saw the reunion as the best thing to relaunch Epitaph.

Brett

Brett says he personally recorded, mixed and produced every Bad Religion record while they were on Epitaph and functioned as Bad Religion's manager as well for the first 6 years or so before Bad Religion hired one for themselves. He said he ran Epitaph in its first three years without taking a penny in salary or record royalties for himself.

Brett

His last show with Bad Religion was on 30.7.1994. He was married to Maggie and they had two children: Max and Freida. A few years later he got divorced and Gina Davis, who had worked at Epitaph and been a good friend of his for a long time, became his girlfriend. Around about this time, in 1996, he started doing heroin again. Some blame Gina and her friends, who were all doing drugs. In early 1997 (I think) he left Epitaph and went into rehab. Over the following year he was arrested four times (for possession) and at the time of writing this (March 1998) he is back in rehab, only court-ordered rehab this time (he got arrested with 14 balloons of heroin) and Andy at Epitaph says he hasn't called them since one year ago. There are also rumours of an attempted suicide. When Claudia came up with the idea of setting up a Brett website, Gina told her Brett didn't want that ("it goes against his philosophy about always putting the spotlight on the bands and never on himself or even Epitaph"). Claudia abandoned the idea and Greg commented "I'm sorry for you but glad at the same time that Brett made a decision that I feel is upstanding and correct".

Brett

He loves chess. Also, according to his old friend (and ex-girlfriend) Suzy, "he still seems to have superficial interest in science, at least when I talk to him. He did have a genuine love for all the Vonnegut books. I also taught him to love food. He still loves to find all the good restaurants and have some fun chewing down on unusual cuisines".

Brett -departure

Brett: "I left the band because of the hypocrisy. Atlantic is a terrible label". However, on an MTV appearance during the Recipe for Hate Tour he had no problems with the Atlantic deal -he was actually praising Atlantic. Brett: "one of the reasons I called it quits when I did was because I thought at the time Bad Religion was at the 'top of its game' and therefore I might be able to 'bow out' with a modicum of dignity". According to the current members of Bad Religion the reason Brett left was "his interest in selling records and not making them". They called him "A minor 5th". Brian said the only difference the departure of Brett had made is that Bad Religion doesn't have songs with the word "babies" in their title anymore. Jay said repeatedly that Brett's departure was the best thing that had happened to Bad Religion in the last 15 years. He also said Brett is desperately trying to maintain his punk rock image and that's impossible when you are a multimillionaire. Hetson commented about the atmosphere before Brett decided to quit that "there were some tense moments. There wasn't a lot of solidarity; the camps were divided. It was a little weird and awkward at times". The actual press release from Atlantic announcing the departure gave as sole reason Brett's will to concentrate on Epitaph and that is what all magazines published and what most people believe. Here's Brett telling the truth: "I didn't quit because I didn't have enough time, I quit because it was becoming unbearable for me to stay. We were fighting like cats and dogs. It's all personal shit, we just got on each others nerves (...) A band is a group of guys who are tight, love each other, have camaraderie, and that's why they go traveling around with each other, because they want to, there's a genuine bond, a genuine affinity. For me, I was going through the motions. It's supposed to be artistic, supposed to be about the art, how do you make something genuine and from the heart, when the whole things feels like a charade (...) I believe that I got on their nerves as well. So, I believe it was for the best. I definitely wish them no ill will, but I think we're all happier being apart". When Brett called Greg to tell him he was leaving the band he gave as the main reason an argument he had with Jay (Brett's first song with new band The Daredevils, entitled Hate You, was written for and about Jay). But in 2002, with Brett back in the band, he said that "Looking back, the argument with Jay was an excuse to leave the band. I was overwhelmed by how much was going on in my life at the time (...) I couldn't turn on the radio in 1994 without hearing something that I was involved with, I didn't know how to handle it. It led to my relapse. I went seven and a half years where I was clean, extremely clean, so when I relapsed, I relapsed on heroin. The drugs led to the band breakup and subsequent turmoil I experienced. I don't want to make excuses. I'm responsible for my own recovery, but when I'm on drugs, I'm an asshole. So there". Rumors, perpetuated by Brett himself, claimed that he was coerced into signing with Atlantic. Brett admits that "I acted like that's what happened. No one's perfect. I wanted the band to believe in my little company. I wanted them to turn their backs on the major offers. I did, however, have as much to do with the band going to Atlantic as they did, so it was complex emotionally." He only spoke with Greg 2 or 3 times during the two years following his departure.

Brett -departure

In June 1999 135 people voted on a survey carried out by The Generator. The answers to the question "should Mr. Brett Return?" were as follows: 41% said "Ayup, ayup. He's better 'n dat Baker guy they got now". 8% said, "No, I never liked him anyway". 26% said, "Isn't he going to jail for shooting h2o?" and 2% said, "Mr. Brett? Who's that?".

Brett -equipment

"I play a customised piece of junk with a duncan 59 pickup an esp neck a bad ass bridge and schaller tuners".

Brett -inspiration

"I'm inspired to write by all kinds of everyday life experience like having my ass tickled with a feather".

Brett -music preferences

He listens to The Beatles (on Summer 1993 he said they were his favourite band), The Beachboys, rockabilly, oldies, ska, blues, gospel, country etc. In 1988 he loved The Ramones (and Elvis Costello, like the rest of Bad Religion). He hates Rush and thinks Eric Clapton is god. After the release of the first Daredevils single Brett said his two biggest influences were The Beatles and Nick Lowe. He considers Marquee Moon by Television to be one of the very best albums ever. His major influences are bands from the old Skiff-label. In 1996 he said his favourite Bad Religion songs are probably Generator, Anesthesia and Infected. By late November 1996 All Good Soldiers was one of his favourite songs.

Brett Religion

Name given to Brett in the album Peace Thru Vandalism by The Vandals. Greg also calls him Brett Religion in the Big Bang video.

Brett vs Greg

When in early 1996 Greg was asked about his relationship with Brett, he replied that "Brett doesn't care about his friends." He then went on to elaborate about how Mr. Brett is now "Mr. Business" and doesn't have time for them anymore. He also made it sound as if Brett insinuated that they needed his label and would die without it. Brett e-mailed a fan calling Greg a "hypocritical back stabbing liar" and in another e-mail to another fan he said "I will never put myself in the presence of those ungrateful hypocrites ever again". A whole e-mail about Greg: "Greg panders to his major label record company at every opportunity, he also is a snob who looks down his nose at anyone who is not rich or powerful while ass kissing those above him and spewing socialist rhetoric in his lyrics and to fans. He also is scornful of his fans both publicly but especially privately. To him fans are "dollar signs". Greg thinks it's important to keep Bad Religion's ticket prices high and insists upon staying at 4 star hotels which often are not luxurious enough for him while Bad Religion's crew stays elsewhere. Greg talks bad about me every chance he gets including in songs which he plays that I've written. he has no problem earning bucks off my songs and lyrics while describing me as a calculating marketing man. I could go on for several pages but prefer not to. The only reason I'm paying you the respect of a response is that I'd like the truth about Greg to be known".

Brett vs Greg

After much mutual flaming, in late 1996 Greg met up with Brett and they settled their differences.

Brian Baker

Brian Baker got a rented acoustic guitar when he was eight, right around Christmas. During that same Christmas, his best friend (who would later be the guitarist in S.O.A. and the Faith and Embrace) got a guitar. They quickly formed their band, kind of like The Everly Brothers, but they hardly knew how to play. He has never not had a guitar since he was eight. He begun his career back in the early 80s in the DC hardcore band Minor Threat (which would become Fugazi). There he played bass by default, but also guitar when the band added a fifth member to play bass. In the mid-80s, when the Misfits split (around the same time as Minor Threat) Glenn Danzig set up Samhain, and Brian played at early jams and rehearsals, together with Lyle Preslar and Jeff Nelson. He was an actual member of the band too, for about 10 minutes. From there, Brian went on to the seminal Meatmen (for a few minutes too), before leaving to form Dag Nasty. The latter had close ties to Fugazi's Ian MacKay, who co-produced the group's first three records; eventually, however, Dag Nasty would move to Epitaph for one album. Brian's next step was into the majors with Junkyard, who released two albums on Geffen, before he finally joined Careless. He was also in Government Issue and other bands. In 1988 he was voted by Flipside readers second biggest asshole of the year (only surpassed by GG Allin), though he was also voted second best guitarist. The editor for Sold Out magazine voted him asshole of the year (over GG Allin!). He first met Bad Religion several years ago when Dag Nasty released their album Four on the Floor via Epitaph, although he had known Hetson since 1981. In 1994 he was working as a guitarist-for-hire, he had just finished a stint with Tommy Stinson's Bash and Pop and was working in a pool hall; the very same week he had been asked (and had accepted) to fill in for Peter Holsapple of R.E.M., and was preparing to join R.E.M.'s Monster Tour, he got the call from Bad Religion offering him the job. He considered R.E.M. one of the biggest bands in the world, but also considered Bad Religion one of the biggest punk bands in the world. So two days after Greg's call he phoned R.E.M. again to tell them he was joining Bad Religion, he packed his bags, sold his car and left the Hollywood bar scene to move to Washington DC. and begin his new career; or as he puts it "that's me in the corner, choosing Bad Religion". "Touring for 19 months with one of the biggest bands in the world isn't exactly a shitty offer, and I was absolutely blown away that these R.E.M. people even knew who I was (...) My best friend Nathan [ex-Careless] got the gig. After the Monster tour ended, Nathan bought a house and built a home studio in the backyard. He's happy. I rent a one bedroom apartment and record my songs with an acoustic and a boom box, but I am in Bad Religion. I'm happy". His first gig with Bad Religion was in a festival in Germany. Greg at a DC concert (4/96): "This is our new guitarist, Mr Brian Baker -don't you think he sounds a lot better than that other guy?". He says his only real influence, the one you can still hear when he plays today, is Captain Sensible from The Damned. He heard him and that's how he wanted to play guitar. He wanted to look and sound like him, and learned every single note he ever played. And according to Brian everything he plays to this day is a combination of Captain Sensible and Angus Young. He now lives in D.C. In 1997 he recorded an album with Ric Ocasek on vocals, Mellissa from Hole on bass and the drummer from Nada Surf (whose albums are produced by Ric). I think Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins produced the album.

Brian Baker

Brian says that if someone writes his biography the title should be "Arrogance and Affluence: the rise and fall of Brian Baker". By the way, his earliest childhood memory is falling out of the back of a convertible and cracking his head open at age 2.

Brian -equipment

"I'm wireless, but the wireless is plugged directly into the Marshall 100 W head. I have no effects of any kind. Nothing. I have two completely stock JCM 800 Marshall heads and they go through two Mesa Boogie cabinets. I know they have Celestion speakers, but I don't know how many watts they are. My main guitar is a completely stock '90 Les Paul Standard. It was a factory second and says 'Not for sale' on the back of the headstock. I got it in a horse trade a couple of years ago."

Britain

They have played Liverpool, Bristol, Wolverhampton, Edinburgh, London and Glasgow in the past, but they don't really like playing in this island. Their first concert was on the 4th of July of 1991 in London. During a subsequent concert in London Astoria they told the audience that they were cool but their country sucked. People there don't like (mostly don't know) Bad Religion, although their following is very loyal -two London shows sold out without even being advertised. The sell very little. Only the single for 21st Century... sold 15,000 copies (twice the amount of Stranger than Fiction albums sold) very quickly, because it was sold very cheap and the video was repeatedly shown on TV. Stranger than Fiction is the only album that got good reviews, presumably because the press was paid to do so. On Summer 1996 the whole UK tour (consisting of three concerts -London, Birmingham, Glasgow-) was cancelled and the excuse given in UK music magazines is that they were very busy tending to the media in Germany. Here's a letter that Greg wrote to a British fan that was complaining about the lack of gigs in his country: "I am well aware that there are a lot of devoted Bad Religion fans in the UK. However, there are a lot of devoted Bad Religion fans all over the world. It is very difficult each year to try and determine where we should play in the limited amount of time that we have. Here are some of the factors that weigh heavily against England in our considerations: 1) Poor record sales: this is probably because of the un-supportive SONY UK label. We have had awesome support from our labels in every other country, but the fact that we have sold 4 times the number of albums in Finland alone over the UK shows that we are not well-supported in your country. 2) Poor venues and promoters: we have had numerous problems getting decent venues, promoted properly. London seems to be the only consistent place to play with good venues and proper promotion. We have ventured outside of London on 3 separate occasions and each time saw very poor promotion and low ticket sales. The exception was Glasgow, where we will return when it is convenient, which had a wonderful reception and proper promotion. 3) Poor Press Coverage: the UK press is notorious for being arrogant and self-important. They have not ever represented Bad Religion in a favorable light (which is okay) nor in an accurate portrayal (which is not forgivable). We need a certain amount of accurate press if we are to do a proper tour. The USA leads the way in shortcomings in all of these categories. But we tour extensively in the USA because the payoff is so much more rewarding. There are a lot more people in the USA, a lot more Bad Religion fans, and therefore it is worth putting up with the shit from promoters, the record company, and the feeble press. The UK has a relatively low payoff. We could tour there for months and maybe increase our sales, but on a relative note.......the UK as a market is simply not important to us. I don't think highly of the British government nor the way the music industry is structured there. I cant think of a British music periodical that I would waste a moment of my time reading, they are riddled with inaccuracies and propaganda. (Incidentally, contending that the USA is no better is not a valid argument, it says nothing about the truth in what I am telling). In fact, the entire British music industry is riddled with old-school mentality, hype-and-bust ideology, and arrogant general ignorance of the way the rest of the world works. Sadly, this characterization also is pervasive in certain sectors of British society. The Bad Religion fans in the UK are important to us. They show surprising independence from the powerful compulsions of their society by liking a band as peculiar as Bad Religion. We would like to play shows for them, but given the current situation it is hard to imagine how we can do it. I could see playing a show in London, of course, and one in Glasgow, and I would like to play for our listeners in Ireland too. But I cannot see extensive touring in England, unless conditions change drastically. Thanks for your bluntness and concern. We do care about our UK fans and appreciate your intelligence. Sincerely, Greg Graffin". Terry, a British member of the Bad ReligionML decided to start a "complaining campaign" against Sony UK and asked all British members of the Bad ReligionML to write to Sony UK through him. He also explained the idea to Bad Religion and this is what they answered: Michelle: "Wow, that is great. I don't think it's complaining just asking for something you want and believe in". Greg: "I think a petition would be very useful, but of course, I would want Sony UK to know that it was from the fans and that we had nothing at all to do with it. So please exclude us from any of your communications with them. I believe that a part of my ancestry is from good ole Blighty, but also from Germany". Hetson: "Keep on bugging us to come to the UK. Get your friends to bug us too. The crap about the canceled dates last year was written by some lame publicist at the label. I guess we should be more on top of that but it's difficult during the middle of the tour when travel is hectic (...) We're down on the label who pressured us into the Brixton fiasco and wouldn't help with expenses so we wouldn't lose money, not our fans there". Ian Winwood deserves a mention since he is just about the only critic in the UK who likes Bad Religion. For example his review of Generator in Metal Forces back in 1991 said that the title track had more ideas in it than most bands have in an entire career. However, he gave a 2 out of 5 to Tested.

Bad ReligionML, The

The Bad Religion mailing list, founded by Len Smith. The first issue came out on 15.1.1996. In early 1997 it had around 1,600 members and in early 1998 I think it was like 2,300. It came out daily until late 1997 when it became a bit more irregular. Since Joe Manis became the maintainer / moderator it has less members but is much more civil, friendly and interesting (and comes out daily once more (as of early 2000)). Joe also built The Generator, the first web-based guide to the list.

Brooks Wackerman

Brooks Wakerman joined the band after Bobby had to quit playing the drums forever due to an chronic, progressive shoulder injury, in 2001. When the band found out, they had booked a few weeks of rehearsal studio time and so they were all in LA, without a drummer. Thefore, instead of using that studio time for rehearsals, it became an audition session. The fifth person to try-out for Bobby's position was Brooks, who had been playing with Suicidal Tendencies, and the Vandals for a few years. His family is well-known in the percussion world, his brother Chad is one of only a few drummers to play with Frank Zappa's band. Greg says that Brooks was so good, they only had to hear him play one or two songs before they knew that he was "the best drummer we had ever heard". Greg asked him innocently: "do you WANT to be in Bad Religion, because we need a drummer for touring and recording and to be a part of this band, not just a temporary stand-in for Bobby?" Of course he replied with a big YES.

Brooks Wackerman

Technical stuff that drummers may want to know, from the man himself: "as far as my set goes with Bad Religion, i probably won't be using the ocpd (at least not the one with the vents in the shell); the sound is too thin, so i need something fatter. But i have another one thats a solid shell that i may use,but it'll probably be a d.w.snare. The rest will be the same a four piece with maybe an additional 16 inch floor,and it breaks my heart my to say but i'll be leaving the other half of my double pedle home,unless we break out reign in blood by slayer."

Brothers, The

Pete Finestone's new band. Formed in 1997. As of March 1998, they just finished recording an LP that they hope to put out on Low Blow Records (Pete's label). Pete: "The material reminds me of later Bad Religion stuff -melodic, great songs at slower tempos". All current Bad Religion members heard the stuff and loved it, and Pete wanted to get Greg to sing backups for the album, but apparently he had problems reaching him (in early 1998 Greg was extremely busy finishing No Substance and dealing with several other things) so it never happened.

Bruce Dickinson

Bad Religion were in Bruce Dickinson's radio program in England on 2.21.1995. They talked to him and played Incomplete and Infected live in the studio. Greg apologized for his sore vocals and explained he had just landed in England and hadn't been able to warm up his voice. Nevertheless, those songs made it to the Infected #1 single as well as several bootlegs.

Buried Alive

Buried Alive (The Best Of Smoke Seven 1981-1983) was a compilation put out by Smoke 7 Records in 1981 containing Bad Religion (theme song) and Drastic Actions (same versions as Public Service). Bomp reissued it in 1995 on CD and released Buried Alive 2 the following year, which contained Slaves.

Buffalo

They never play in Buffalo because they totally hate the place, at least Greg does. In a concert in Cleveland a guy in the audience said he was from Western NY and Greg replied "Thats too bad. cuz you see, western new york, buffalo in particular is the cesspool of the world. and every person who's been kicked out of every other respectable city ends up in buffalo. I guess cleveland was the closest 'big' city for someone from buffalo to come see us in..."

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C

Carl Sagan

He was one of the foremost astronomers in the world. Published nearly 500 scientific papers and articles and wrote or co-wrote over a dozen books, including Intelligent Life In The Universe (1966), The Cosmic Connection (1973), The Dragons of Eden (1977; Pulitzer prize 1978), Murmurs of Earth (1978) and Broca's Brain (1979). He used to teach at Cornell University, where Graffin studied/taught. Graffin was both a friend and fan of him

actually spent a weekend at his house. Carl died in the fall of 1996.

Cars, The

They have covered several Cars songs (at least four). Ric Ocasek (The Gray Race producer) used to be the frontman of the band.

CD-ROM

The single for Streets of America has a CD-ROM track with the promo video. It was all an idea of Dragnet, which Brian thinks is great "for people with computers, because it's kind of fun to play with. You know, we could definitely explore that a little bit further and do a better job of it, if we had time. But most of these things happen while we're on tour, so, you're on stage in Amsterdam and somebody is calling you on the phone, saying 'We're doing a CD-Rom, we need to know by 10 o' clock tonight whether this is OK', and then you're kinda like going back on stage, finish playing "Atomic Garden" and you say 'Do whatever you want!' and hang up the telephone. Everything had been real rushed for us, because we've been on tour for 2 years. And part of the reason why we're taking a little bit of a break now is to make sure that we can gain further control of these kind of things, because most of them don't come out to our satisfaction".

Chameleon

The label Brett worked in for a while. He did another pressing of How Could Hell... without the rest of the band's knowledge, sold the albums to Chameleon, and never accounted for the money. He used it to buy drugs. He always felt guilty about it, and part of what he wanted to do when he started Epitaph up again in 1987 was to make it up to the band. Then it took him four years to get the album back from Chameleon, to whom he had licensed it, at which point, he / they could place it on the 1980-85 anthology.

Change of Ideas

Greg's answer to a guy who proposed selectively killing those that destroy the rainforests, etc: "I can appreciate your disgust with people who terrorize the rainforests and other ecosystems, I too am angered by it. But killing key people will not reverse the course of mankind. In fact, killing each other is the very same destructive instinct that we have to get away from if we can ever hope to preserve our ecosystems. Changing political policies, or ousting bad leaders is only a temporary, unsatisfying fix, not the fundamental kind of change that we need... 'what we do need is a change of ideas'". Hetson in 1994: "There's a lot of opportunities for those who want to change something, to bring new ideas about. I think though that fear of change is still deeply rooted in aged folks: given that those in power are not youths, control on young people's activities will persist, and true freedom, authentic independence will be impossible to reach".

Charta 77

Swedish band which made a Swedish version of 21st Century Digital Boy and called it something like "det tjugoforsta arhundradets digitala grabb". It was one of three covers on a CD single called "6" (Birdnest Records, 1994 -BIRDCD058-). They made an English cover too on their live album "Hel!".

Chase, The

Movie which features Two Babies in the Dark. They play the full intro, and when Greg starts singing, they decrease the volume so the characters talk and stuff, but you can still hear it on the background, and in the end of the scene, the volume goes up again. Brett said the soundtrack to The Chase was not released by Epitaph because 1) he hated the final cut of the movie compared to the original director's version (before the studio got their hands on it). 2)The studio were total pricks and hard to work with and 3) Epitaph had no control over the album cover. Henry Rollins and Charlie Sheen are in the movie.

Chasing the Wild Goose

Covered by No Empathy in the CD single for Ben Weasel Don't Like It. Covered live by Jawbreaker. Also played live by Bad Religion (available in the CD bootleg All Our Yesterdays).

Chess

Brett loves playing chess; he used to carry his chess set around with him on tour. Once he was in London, trying to get in the US embassy, and they wouldn't let him in with his bag (the British are extremely paranoid with terrorism) so he tucked the bag under a bush in a nearby park. After getting a new passport in the embassy, he went back to the park only to discover that the police had closed it off; there was a Bobby holding his bag and asking whether it belonged to someone. Brett said it was his and the bobby grabbed him infuriated, "Do you realize how much you've cost the British Taxpayer?! You could have a bomb in this bag! open it!". And there was the timer for his chess set. It took Brett awhile to convince the bobby that it wasn't a timer for a bomb but eventually they let him go.

Chess

When they were trying Bobby out, Brett heard him play and said "you're in", then "wait! Do you play chess?"; Bobby went "Yeah, kind of" and Brett says "You're in the band".

Chicago Tribune, The

"For all its love of velocity, Bad Religion knows how to craft a memorable song... The band may play it smart, but their brainy pop songs also leave a few bruises."

Chimaera

The word has several meanings: 1) The chimaeras are a type of fish. The order Chimaeriformes (class Chondrichthyes, subcalss Holocephali) includes a number of fossil families as well as the living family Chimaeridae. The family Chimaeridae comprises about 15 species, with such suggestive names as ratfish, spookfish, ghostfish or rabbitfish (the latter's latin name is Chimaera monstrosa), i.e. they tend toward bizarre appearances. 2) The Chimaera was a mythological monster which breathed fire. The fore part of its body was a compound of the lion and the goat, and the hind part a dragon's. As the legend goes, Chimaera made great havoc in Lycia, so that the king, Iobates, sought for some hero to destroy it. At that time Bellerophon, a young warrior, arrived at his court. He accepted the king's proposal to fight The Chimaera, but before proceeding to the combat consulted the soothsayer Polyidus, who advised him to procure if possible the horse Pegasus for the conflict. Bellerophon mounted him, rose with him into the air, soon found the Chimaera, and gained an easy victory over the monster. After that he won several other battles always with the help of Pegasus, the winged horse. 3) Chimaera is a scientific term for a hybrid (spelt chimera in British English. Also called "graft-hybrid"). A chimaera is a tissue containing two or more genetically distinct cell types, or an organism composed of such tissues. It of chromosomes, affecting a particular cell during development and hence all its descendants. It can also arise from grafting. In relation with this: Geneticists call an individual which carries a macromutation that is of no benefit to that individual a "monster". It may be the third meaning that most influenced the choice of title, since the song talks about god creating an organism (a species in this case) with the most abundant smallest bits of matter, instilling them with affinity, blending up a recipe. So it is a very similar process to creating a chimaera, which has been done. For instance, plants have been cultivated which were made up of grafted tissues of different cell types or genetic origin. These were man-made chimaeras, and probably the name would come from the mythological monster. Probably the fish also got their name from the mythological monster. However, it is not unreasonable to think that Greg may have chosen the title with a second meaning in mind, either fish or mythological monster, as a play with words.

Christgau's Record Guide

Christgau's Record Guide (the 80's) is a book by a famous US rock critic rating hundreds of albums. He has entries for How Could Hell Be Any Worse? (gave it a B), Into the Future (gives it an A- ; he's referring to Into the Unknown), Suffer ( a B) and No Conviction (a B+, he means No Control, but he didn't listen real close because he quotes a typo in the text of the lyrics for Billy that's not sung in the song!). Since these typos appeared in Christgau's, they were perpetuated and have appeared in several other places.

Christmas Show 11.12.'93 + 8.1.'94 Los Angeles

Famous bootleg which includes live stuff plus Silent Night, Fuck Christmas and the four covers from the early 80s. The sleeve is a drawing of Santa Claus.

Circle Jerks, the

Hetson's band before (and after) he joined Bad Religion. Their original drummer Lucky Lehrer was the guy that got the first Bad Religion demo played on the radio in 1980 and he was also in Bad Religion for a while. Keith Morris sang backup in Operation Rescue.

City of L.A.

Power

A compilation picture disc put out by Flipside in 1990 which included Operation Rescue. It has songs from L7, Anus the Menace, Trash Can School, Paper Tulips, TVTV$, Creamers, Motorcycle Boy, Sandy Duncan's Eye, and Spiderbaby. It was compiled and produced by Joy Aoki. She did the artwork for Against the Grain. It was edited by Donnell Cameron, from Epitaph. There were only 2,300 copies pressed. It was reissued (in 1991, also by Flipside) as part of the compilation CD The Big One (still available from Flipside), which includes more bands than the original vinyl, like Offspring and Green Day.

Clash, The

Brian said their three first albums are some of the best punk ever, but "it's kind of hard with The Clash, because they made so much bad music too...".

Clawhammer

Jon Wahl and Chris Bagarazzi guest-starred in Recipe for Hate. In 1994 Brett said Clawhammer were the best band on Epitaph and maybe the best in the world.

Clerks

Movie (released 21.10.1994) in which Leaders and Followers is heard (in a different version) for a few seconds (when the main characters leave the burial).

Coke

Brian drinks lots of Coke and has a jacket with a logo on the back saying Enjoy Coca cola.

Come and Join Us

They played it live in the TV program Recovery (on Australia's ABC) and that rendition of the song was released on the double CD Hits From The Back Door, featuring the best appearances on Recovery from 1997. Greg used to introduce the song with a short speech about cults and stupid people who join them. At the Cleveland show on the Gray Race tour, he asked after the speech if anyone was offended by his previous statements. One long-haired guy raised his hand. Greg told the security to let the man on stage. Greg talked to the man and then asked if there was any song the audience would like to hear. The man replied Skyscraper. Greg said ok. The band then went into Come Join Us. The man then took Brian's mic and began singing (very poorly I might add) along with Greg. After a few minutes, Greg made a hand motion, and two security guards escorted the man off stage.

Comedy Central

Greg appeared twice on Politically Incorrect (when it was on Comedy Central).

Contact addresses

Manager: Michele Fleischli, the Talent House, 137 W. 14th Street Suite 202, New York, NY 10011 // Greg: PO Box 4416 Ithaca, NY 14852

Contest

Yarone Goren and Grant Richardson won the Bad Religion contest held by Atlantic Records and got a limited snowboard, a snowboard jacket, two Bad Religion CDs and a limited edition vinyl. The questions that they answered correctly were "what is Greg's academic field of choice" (answer: vertebrate paleontology) and what bands Brian Baker had previously played in (you just had to name two).

Continuous tuning

"Song" which is really just Brett tuning his guitar and Greg taking the piss. It is featured in the Along the Way video and in the CD bootleg Unknown Infections.

Covers

Hetson: the point of doing a cover is not to make it sound like the original. If your band is going to do a cover, just do it your own way, just destroy it.

Crazy Taxi

A sega Dreamcast videogame which features Hear It, Them And Us, 10 in 2010 and Inner Logic (bonus track). It also has The Offspring. Look for it in the arcades. A bootleg of the 13.4.2000 show in Berlin lists 10 in 2010 as Crazy Taxi.

Crew, The

An album by 7 seconds that was mixed by Brett. His name is misspelled on the back (it says Guervitz).

Czech Republic

In 1996 they played in Prague (The Ministry) along with Jesus Lizard, Slut, Frank Black, Iggy Pop and Dog eat Dog.

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

D

Dag Nasty

One of Brian's previous bands. Brett is wearing their T-shirt on the sleeve of the video Along the Way (European version).

Damned, The

Brian said he'd nominate them for the best punk band ever award and acknowledges Captain Sensible as his greatest influence.

Danny Goldberg

The Atlantic guy who pursued and then signed Bad Religion originally. He isn't in Atlantic anymore. He used to manage Kurt Cobain.

Danny Heaps

Their current manager (as of December 2000) since earlier this year when Michele quit. He was Michele's boss, so they stayed with the same company.

Daredevils, the

Brett created this band after leaving Bad Religion. They only ever released a single with two songs: "Hate You", written for and about Jay, and "Rules, Hearts". Brett: "This is my creative outlet. It's not my business. It's something I do to keep my sanity. I'm not a rock star. I'm a record company owner". He wrote some material and said the first album would be out in 1998. The whole project came to a halt with Brett's problems with drugs and was finally abandoned for good when Brett re-joined Bad Religion in 2001. As to what happened to the songs he wrote for the Daredevils, I have no idea. In 1997 he said he was very happy with the new material and that it was much more hardcore than the single, truly in the spirit of old Bad Religion. In 2002 Brett was asked about the motivation for Hate You (about Jay Bentley, with whom he had a business-related argument that was Brett's excuse for quitting Bad Religion in 1994) and he replied that "That was uncool of me. I was being bitter." The flyers, ads, the single, the stickers, labels etc. for The Daredevils, mention that Brett is the former Bad Religion guitarist. Bad Religion used to play the Daredevils' two-song CD single before shows, between sets and after shows during some of the latest Gray Race concerts.

David Bragger

The director of several promo videos for Bad Religion songs.

Davy Goldman

The drummer on Into the Unknown.

Dead Silence

It was a fiercely anti-corporate punk band which is now defunct. They were a profane existence/MRR type of band where they are into real low door prices and against major labels. They put out a single entitled "How the hell could we make any more money?" or something whose sleeve was very similar to How Could Hell Be any Worse?.

Deadlights, The

The band cites Bad Religion as one of their main influences and Jerry was before in a band called Suffer.

Delirium of Disorder

Parts of the song come from Henry Miller's classic "Tropic of Cancer". Delirium is misspelled Dilirium in several bootlegs (e.g. Bad and Worst).

Demo, the

They recorded their first demo in 1980 at Studio 4. They handed it around to friends, including Lucky Lehrer. When Lucky was invited by DJ Rodney Bingenheimer onto his show on KROQ (Rodney on the Roq) he took the tape along with him and took the opportunity to introduce the listening public to Bad Religion. The tape would get quite a few airing on KROQ in the following weeks.

Demos

There exists a 7" called Generator Demos. It has Generator and Atomic Garden, both sang by Brett; the drums are replaced by a beat probably produced by a synthesizer. It would appear Brett recorded them on his own since he also wrote both songs. Also available are the demos for Fertile Crescent and Heaven is Falling. Rather than demos, these were recordings of the songs done for a single they put out with Noam Chomsky. The songs are pretty much finished, only not so well produced. All four demos are also found in the CD bootleg Unknown Infections. There are also demos for Infected, Marked, Hooray For Me and Stranger Than Fiction circulating (all sang by Brett) as well as a bunch of demos from Greg's studio, but these are virtually impossible to get.

Denmark

They played with Bob Dylan (!) at the Arhus Festival (6.15.1996).

Desktop theme for Win95

It has sounds, mouse pointers and cursors, screen savers, Dekstop Icons Wallpaper and everything for your computer to be totally of Bad Religion.

Destroy L.A.

Magazine which put out the compilation The Sounds Of Hollywood Fanzine 2 with Every Day and Waiting For The Fire in it. It then changed its name to Alternative Beat.

Details magazine

Every year the intellectual fashion magazine Details puts out a special issue that deals with musicians and musical topics. In July 1996 this issue contained an article which focused on Greg's life as a punker. It was actually an autobiography; the first time any autobiographical sketch had been printed about Bad Religion.

Devotos de una mala religión

A tribute CD that was released in 2000 containing Bad Religion songs played by Argentinian bands (and one Chilean). The title translates as "devotees of a bad religion". All the bands got together in November 1999 to present the CD in a well-know venue in Buenos Aires called Cemento.

Discover magazine

The photos in Stranger Than Fiction, aside from the cover, all were in Discover Magazines in the early 90's.

Divorce

Several band members saw their parents divorce as kids. By 1999 both Gregs and Jay had divorced their wives. After the first fight broke out at a show in October 2000, Jay said something like "Hey, go outside if you want to fight!" and Graffin said "If you guys wanna fight, get married". Maybe She Will, found on Graffin's solo album American Lesion, is a very explicit (and beautiful) song he wrote after his divorce.

DIY

Hetson: "I wouldn't label DIY as intentional, I would rather say that it was a necessity, especially during the eighties. At that time there were no big opportunity to get your music published, and thus bands produced albums on their own, or, in a lucky situation, had little labels to finance them".

Do They Know It's Christmas?

It can be found in the CD bootlegs Christmas Show 11.12.'93 + 8.1.'94 Los Angeles and Unknown Infections (same version).

Dodo, The

Song (by Greg) that was recorded during the "Ithaca Sessions", i.e. in the basement of Greg's home, together with The Universal Cynic and Punk Rock Song sang in German. It can be found in several singles and promos for Punk Rock Song (together with the other two tracks).

Do What You Want

Check <a href="eatbuy.html">this</a>. There exists an excellent acoustic version of the song, recorded backstage at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark 7.3.1993 by the Norwegian radio station NRK P3. There is also a video. The info at the beginning and end of the song is just like in the Land of Competition video, so it looks like it was done by the same people, but this one is really jerky and punk-looking whereas the Land of Competition vid looks like it was taken from the Along the Way footage. On Do What You Want the sound is perfect; it sounds like it was recorded at a high volume-it's a great video. In the Stranger than Pulp Fiction version of the song, Greg sings "my moniker is Brett and I'm rotten to the core". He often sings "my moniker is Greg" (e.g. in the All Ages version).

Don't Prey on me

The lyrics refer to Mark David Chapman, who shot John Lennon, and to JFK (Jack) who was rumored to have had an affair with Marilyn Monroe. By Hanson and Hester Brett thought he was referring to the main characters from the novel The Scarlet Letter. Later on he was made to realize (by us fans) that their names are not Hanson and Hester at all. He apologized for the mistake/confusion. The missing lyrics are "a bitter debate and a feminine fate / lie in tandem like two precious babes / while the former gets warmer, it's the latter that matters / except on the nation's airwaves / and custodians of public opinion / state fact after vainly discussing her rights / lay hands off her body / it's not your fuckin' life!"

Dr. Music Festival

It took place on 7.14.96 in Escalarre, i.e in the middle of nowhere, in the Catalan pyrenees. The festival included Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Blur, Patty Smith, Sepultura, etc., and other punk bands. It lasted for three days and Bad Religion headlined the third day. Greg invited a guy onstage because he was screaming in the audience; he got onstage, grabbed the mic and started calling Greg a fat, old, bald sell-out. At first Greg was joking (saying "I'd rather be fat than short" -the guy was short) but he ended up dragging him offstage quite violently (believe me, the guy deserved it).

Dragnet

A sub-label of Sony Europe. It distributes Bad Religion in Europe (Atlantic distributes them in the U.S.). On this subject, Greg has said "It is very very rare that a band gets signed to competing labels but it is also very very good for the artists. We are tickled pink that we have such great success on Sony because it illustrates a successful marketing plan that Atlantic feels compelled to improve upon. And when Sony succeeds we can put pressure on Atlantic to do better. It also gives us security if one label wants to drop us the other would love to pick up the territory. It also gives us flexibility in releasing albums and importing them if we have to. Its been a really good thing for us. If neither label works hard for a particular band .... then obviously its a bad thing to have two deadbeat labels. "

Drugs

At the time of setting up Epitaph, because they we were a partnership, what they did was pick an outside party as a co-signer on every check. Jay chose Brett's dad because he was the one person Jay trusted the most (because he was a successful business man, and Jay had spent many nights talking to him about what Bad Religion were trying to accomplish, etc.). But then Brett would go up to his dad and say, "Here sign this check, I've got to get money to this guy" and his dad would do it, and then Brett would go out and get drugs with it. All the money from How Could Hell... went because of his drug habit. The other band members were very understanding though. Jay: "It's just the music, you don't want to fight about it, you don't want to get legal about it, you just kind of go, 'Whatever'". Brett was a heroin addict and a crack addict. In 1989 he said "I think crack is probably the worst poison that has ever been introduced to human beings (...) I think there are people who can handle it and for the people who can handle it it's o.k.". In 1997 he said he had been clean for over nine years but a few months later that was revealed to be a lie when he left Epitaph and went into rehabilitation because of a two-year long heroin addiction problem. He is still (in March 1998) locked in the rehab center Impact in Arizona, but it's court-ordered rehab this time 'cause he got arrested for possession of 14 balloons of heroin. That was the third time he was arrested for possession since he went into rehab. When Bad Religion were in Santa Monica people were smoking loads. Greg realized this and said he also used to smoke weed when he was younger and that's why he got into music. Also on two bootlegs (U.S.A. 1993 and Classic Traxx) Greg begins Fuck Armageddon by asking "anybody have any hash?". Jay had also been a heroin addict and had been in rehab with Brett. He's completely clean now. Greg, Brian, Bobby and Hetson have never made any drugs as far as I know.

Drumming

Bobby almost always uses half beat hi hat and ride beats when he could definitely use quarter or eighth notes. According to some drummers I know, that is a strange thing to do. Pete did use eighth notes and sometimes quarter notes. On Tested only something like 3 songs use eighth notes, and quarter notes aren't exactly plentiful either, but he tends to hit the hi hat at the same time as the snare, which is quite uncommon. Also on Tested, there are a couple of times where he sounds like he is doing quarter notes, but really he is doing eighth notes, just accenting on the quarter.

Drunk Sincerity

A review from MTV Online: "on 'Drunk Sincerity' we see a man and woman, hot-and-heavy in the back of a car. We hear his promise of eternal love, we know she's been had. This simple scene reverberates longer than Graffin's own dozens of declarations of rotting humanity". Some magazine (I can't remember) said it was like an Irish tune played faster.

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

E

E-mail addresses

1. postmaster@Badreligion.com or michele@badreligion.com / ggraffin@badreligion.com / brianb@badreligion.com / gregh@badreligion.com / bobbys@badreligion.com / jayb@badreligion.com / Brett Gurewitz: Brett@epitaph.com.

2. Greg's email is currently (March 1998) read and answered (most of it) by his personal assistant, Treva. She doesn't take very long. Hetson takes anywhere between 1 day and 2 weeks, Brett -some say he doesn't even read his mail, others assure me they got a reply from him-, Brian almost never responds, Bobby replies quickly, Jay, if he answers, doesn't take long. In 1997 Jay was getting 40-60 e-mails per week and Greg hundreds. In 1998 they were getting 350 e-mails per week. In 1991 they were getting about 50 letters a week. Now they are receiving over 100 letters a week. They read them all (both snail mail and e-mail) but can't answer them all.

Early records

Greg regards them as being "primitive" but thinks there is still something unique to them: "...that I was able to deliver it honestly and without pretension. That's what I am still doing today, so I retain part of that, and I am happy about that".

Ecological collapse

Jay: "all Greg ever says in his songs is 'we are going to die -it won't be tomorrow but it'll be pretty fucking soon, so enjoy your life' ". Greg: "I am a happy guy. That is all that I really worry about. I have a very clear idea in my head about what's gonna happen to the human species just as I have a very clear picture what's gonna happen to the birds we hear twittering as well. Just because I think extinction is inevitable though doesn't mean that I can't live a perfectly happy life and share some of my happiness with other people and hope they share a happy life as well. So if you can be happy I think hope is an irrelevant issue. Just be happy with what you've got and you don't worry about tomorrow". Hetson: "I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. I am doing my best personally to be an optimist environmentally, but I don't think the mass of the world in general or the countries are doing what they should do. They are thinking about their own interest rather than the interest of the whole planet". Jay: "if everything goes the way it's been going for the past 25 years, basically all that will be left are maybe some tribes that live in Australia or something. Everybody in the big cities will eventually flee to the countryside and they will do the same that they are doing to the big cities to the country so basically there will be no place left to inhabit".

Eddie Vedder

In an MTV 120 Minutes interview from 1993 Lewis Largent asks Greg and Brett about Eddie Vedder's collaboration. Greg explained that Eddie sang backup on American Jesus and Watch It Die. Those are the only two places on that record that Eddie sings. In Watch it Die he sings the second verse, from "I saw a man" to "put to sleep". In American Jesus, only backing vocals. Greg said they came up with that idea because Eddie used to sneak backstage at all of the Bad Religion shows to try to meet the band, and that's how they met him. He used to come check out Bad Religion in San Diego, where he lived, long before Pearl Jam came to be. When they were doing the background vocals overdubbing for Recipe For Hate in L.A. it just so happened that Eddie was in town so they had him on the phone and invited him over. So he said ok and cruised over in his Mazda truck, but it was very spontaneous, they hadn't planned anything beforehand. On an early promo photo of Pearl Jam, around 1990-1, Eddie Vedder was wearing a Bad Religion T-shirt. Greg also says he would like to record a whole album with Eddie someday: "I would like to put together something out of the ordinary, but still really good". When Ten came out, Bad Religion went to Europe and played some shows with Pearl Jam opening for them in Germany. Jay: "We hung out and were all getting goofy. You know how when you sit down with someone, and your jokes are all the same, you have the same sense of humor, you do things that are similar? You just kind of connect. At the second show we played with them, he and I decided to go onstage, and see who could punk out the most. But I told him, "You can't climb up anything because I can't when I'm playing bass, so you have to do it at ground level.' He goes out there and does his thing, and I think, 'Whooo, it's going to be hard to top that one.' Then I go out, and during the first song I'm swinging my bass around and my strap breaks. My guitar had such momentum that it went flying to the other side of the stage, landed on the ground and went 'Whhhhooooo.' I just stared at it for a moment, stared at the audience, then looked at Ed. He just shouted, 'You Win!'". When they played Seattle Eddie went onstage with Bad Religion and sang a song, and people were flipping him off and spitting on him 'cause of course he's so popular he's hated by many self-righteous punkers.

Education

Greg said he was better able to make sense of his conception of the world after his education: "It opens new doors. It allows you to ask new questions along the same lines, unless your philosophy has totally changed". Brett on the American education system: "I am a lot more successful, a lot happier and a lot smarter and a lot more knowledgeable than the average person I know graduate in college. So that might say something, but I can't speak from first-hand experience cuz I didn't go".

Edward Teller

Known as "the father of the hydrogen bomb," and mentioned in the Bad Religion song titled "The Biggest Killer in American History":

"I think of Edward Teller and his moribund reprise

then I look to Nevada and I can't believe my eyes

It's time for him to die"

Read more about Edward Teller

Eläkeläiset

Finnish band (it means "Pensioners") that recorded a humppa version of American Jesus. The band was formed in 92-93 as a sideproject by an odd punk-ish band called Kumikameli (The Gum Camel) and has now become more popular than their "real band". Eläkeläiset plays humppa-versions of famous (and not so famous) pop and rock hits with drums (actually 1/4 of normal drumset), bass, organs and with an instrument called haitari. They´re quite popular in Finland (selling out the same venues that Bad Religion plays in in Finland) but more than that they are popular in Germany. They have also played in some large festivals like Roskilde and Hultsfred (Sweden). Their version of American Jesus is called Humppaava Jeesus (Humping Jesus) and it can be found only on the LP version of their record Humppamaratooni (publ.1997, released in Germany also under the name Humppa ´til We Die 2000 publ.1997). The song is extremely difficult to find.

Elvis Costello

Jay said that in 1988 if there was one band or musical person Bad Religion agreed on, it was Elvis Costello. He also said that when he writes songs they sound too much like Elvis Costello so he feels they don't belong to Bad Religion. Greg is still a huge fan too.

Empty Causes

1. Bobby sang backup on the LP.

2. "Purple Haze" is an old strain of marijuana that many musicians used for its up, energetic kind of high that also alters your perception of music. Jimi Hendrix wrote a song about it, which is probably more or less what Graffin is referring to in this song.

Encores

1. Back around No Control/Generator/Recipe, Bad Religion were still doing encores. Greg's usual response was "Don't you guys remember, we don't do encores...That kind of shit is for rock stars... You're just lucky we forgot to play a few". In the Stranger Than Fiction Tour (Santa Monica) they played their 'last' song, then Greg explained they don't do encores 'cause that's for fuckin' rock stars and he said "So tonight, we are not doing an encore". They played three more songs and left. The next night's show had no encore and it was that way for about 6 years. I have seen a whole audience shouting "bastards" in unison (a festival in Granada, Spain, April 5, 1998) because they weren't coming back for an encore (and had only played for 50 minutes). I asked the band to go back and play an encore but they didn't. "We never play encores". Brian called playing encores "a throwback to vaudeville".

2. Then, at the first Sao Paulo show on March 3rd 1999 they did play one: Fuck Armageddon. They turned on the lights and everything, came back out and Greg said "we usually don't do encores, but we'll play one more". And in the year 2000 they started playing encores regularly again. Greg said in a show on April 13, 2000 (in his usual taking-the-piss tone of voice) that "we used to do no encores back in the 20th century, but since in the 21st century we're running out of time, who knows, we may become extinct before we get to do an encore".

England

They don't usually play there. Judging from All Fantastic Images' lyrics, they hate England. Graffin: "We’re just fed up with it. They’re very self-important-and they’ve never been very kind to Bad Religion. There are a lot of English fans of Bad Religion, and we’d enjoy playing there-those fans are important to us. But the industry over there is really snobbish; we can’t get a gig. The promoters are all arrogant as hell-if you don’t have a fashion, they won’t really promote you. Brian: "Plus, I just kind of like the idea of having someplace that we hate. I mean, there’s not a lot of punk left in my day-to-day life. I think it’s a misconception that there’s anything about the English music scene that we’re supposed to follow. Most of the [bands] I like turned out to be Irish or Scottish". Graffin: "We’ve played in Scotland, and it’s wonderful. So it’s not the entire British protectorate that we’re attacking. Brian: "The ever-shrinking British protectorate. What do they have left? I think maybe a gas station in Fiminy. They should change the name to New Spain. I think what bugs me most is their insistence of using eight or nine syllables where one will do. 'Overtaking'. No, 'pass'. Ever single thing has to be more complicated than it really is. And don’t even get me started on 'shh-edule'." Graffin: "And they have to say 'innit' after every sentence to check that you actually understand what they were saying. Because you can’t understand what they’re saying."

Entropy

"Entropy, it's matter of course". They asked Greg whether this sentence is a pun. He answered that "'matter of course' is a double meaning, and all double meanings are jocular".

Epitaph

1. Brett was always the president of the label although in 1980 Epitaph was nothing more than a logo and a PO box and they used to store the records out in mother Graffin's garage. Greg and Brett sat in Brett's dining room and drew and came up with Epitaph logos. Greg still keeps a sketch pad at home of ideas he drew back then. Greg: "Brett and I were both into art (...) He was a better artist (at drawing) than I was, but I had good ideas. I drew the original tombstone, but it didn't say E, it was a gravestone that had a record in the middle of it, I made it all 3-D with a split down it. Brett thought to make slits in it so it makes an E, which was even better, and that stuck". Brett and Greg came up with the name while joking about the King Crimson song Confusion Will Be My Epitaph. Greg: "Epitaph, what a great idea! Because epitaph is in a sense a record of a lifetime; these grooves in the vinyl will be our epitaph". When How Could Hell... eventually sold around 12,000 copies (initially they had pressed up 6,000 only), the Epitaph "office" spread from Greg's living room into Brett's home as well. Not only did they personally stuff all the albums by hand, but to relieve the tedium, they sometimes wrote little notes on the sleeve or autographed copies. After Into the Unknown, Brett was forced to disband the label as it was bankrupt, so he concentrated on his job at Chameleon Records. When in 1987 he went back to Bad Religion and resurrected Epitaph, Jay was working in Epitaph too (working for Brett in a way). They would sign bands and immediately license them to Chameleon. Epitaph's debut unlicensed release was by L7, but it was the label's second record (Suffer) which was the first Epitaph distributed itself. It was in 1988 that Brett decided to give Epitaph a real try; to give it his full attention and take a systematic approach to creating an independent record company. Even though he had dabbled in the record business as far back as 1980, it had never been a systematic approach, nor a full time pursuit. In 1988 he made a plan for himself. He figured out his costs and what his projected income would be. He projected at what rate he would grow; determined how many releases he wanted to do per year and what it would cost him i.e. did cash flow projections. He learned how to do all of this from asking people, and buying books, and checking out books from the library. He didn't have a real business background, although he had worked in a few businesses before. Everything went far better than anyone could have predicted. In 1989 they put out No Control and sold 60,000 albums. Jay: "At the time you had two heavies, Alternative Tentacles (run by Jello Biafra) and SST (Black Flag's label), but they'd been around so long that they had a catalogue of like 900 records, so they could pretty much run their thing of being what they were. Then all of a sudden, there was Dischord (Ian MacKay's, of Fugazi, label) and Epitaph that were out there selling their records. Fugazi would put out a record and sell 50,000 out the door, and we'd be, 'Wow!' Then we put out No Control and sold around 60,000. It was funny, because even with no contact, we were playing this game from East and West Coast, 'How big can this get? How many can we really do? How far can we push this before something happens?'". With Generator Bad Religion actually signed a 60-page record contract with Epitaph, similar to the ones that the majors supply, and they shipped 100.000 copies. They didn't want to press too many albums, so Jay and Brett used to take pre-orders. They would call distributors two months in advance, send them a demo tape, and then get the orders, so they knew how many to press". Jay: "It was the game of balance. We'd give the distributors 60 days to pay us, and made sure the pressing plant gave us 90 days. We had to work it this way. If it was costing us $1.10 to make the CD, and we were pressing 60,000. Well, we didn't have the money. Every year the pre-orders would match whatever the year's total was for that album, and then chop on another 5,000 or 6,000. Even though these numbers are worldwide, I was just amazed". Eventually Jay quit Epitaph during the Recipe for Hate Tour, because the workload was too big to handle. Jay: "It wasn't fair for me to be working there and be away (...) It was harder for Brett, because he was away from the office and things were happening quickly. Obviously, The Offspring was just starting to take off...". Brett said all bands on Epitaph have one hundred percent creative freedom to play and say anything they feel. The band voted unanimously for leaving Epitaph, but Brett has later on explained he did it "because not to would have seemed self serving. I was trying to be unselfish. My policy has always been to put Bad Religion's wishes in front of Epitaph's and this was the final way of proving it". He still wishes Bad Religion had never left Epitaph. Epitaph's address was 6201 Sunset #111 LA CA 90028 in the 1988 reissue of How Could Hell..., and 22458 Ventura Blvd. Woodland Hills, CA 91367 in the original issue, the EP's and Into the Unknown.

2. Brett: "There is a certain aural unity to the label, but it is more a by-product of my marketing strategy than a result of what I look for in an artist. I realized early on that I don't have big marketing dollars or promotional dollars or artist development dollars. Therefore, I needed to build label recognition as early as possible with a sound and a direction. We wanted to get to the point quickly, where the people would just trust our taste so completely they would buy anything with an "E" on the label knowing that they would like it. This is not an original idea. Lots of labels have made their name that way (...) It's probably the best way for a small label to go because that way you can be a lot more effective with your limited resources. As far as who I pick to be on my label; the music has to do something for me (...) I'll hear a song and it will give me a shiver (...) It's almost a visceral thing with me. It's not very cerebral". "I want to do the best job I can, and go as far as I can with it. I want to have a model company with good benefits, health care, parental leave, sick pay, where the lowest paid and highest paid are very close in their salaries, and everyone has freedom of expression and opinion. My goal is to show what can be done within the confines of our system, and be an example. The label is at the service of the bands. We try to create an environment where they can be creative and make records, and reach as many people as possible".

3. In January 2002 Brett said that "I had multiple offers for $50- and $100 million for half of my business". He never took any of them.

Equipment

1. Hetson uses a couple of mid-Seventies Marshall 100-watt amps with heads which were modified by an amp tech, Jerry Blaha in L.A. He has an old Marshall cabinet too and he's been playing a '71 Gibson SG which he bought in Manhattan since about 1984, with a Seymour Duncan Alnico pickup in the bridge position.

2. Brian: "I'm wireless, but the wireless is plugged directly into the Marshall 100 W head. I have no effects of any kind. Nothing. I have two completely stock JCM 800 Marshall heads and they go through two Mesa Boogie cabinets. I know they have Celestion speakers, but I don't know how many watts they are. My main guitar is a completely stock '90 Les Paul Standard. It was a factory second and says 'Not for sale' on the back of the headstock. I got it in a horse trade a couple of years ago."

3. The January 2000 issue of 'Guitar World' had this in a section about Pro Tools: "One of the most popular TDM plug-ins is Line 6's amp Farm, which emulates the tone, warmth and feel of 13 different guitar amps, including a variety of Marshall, Fender and Vox models. Amp Farm has been used extensively in several recent productions, including the forthcoming Bad Religion album and the Offspring's 1998 album, Americana." Pickup models used by the two guitarists: Brian Baker: Custom Mini Humbucker, Duncan Distortion. Greg Hetson: Custom Custom , Alnico II Pro Humbucker, Stag Mag.

Etchings

On the vinyl albums there are messages scratched between the songs and the label sticker (i.e. on the run-off groove). This was typical of the early 80s. They did it in their first EP. On one side was written, "We're not Bad Religion..." and on the other "... you are". When they made the second batch of EP's (1,500) they called down to make sure that the message would be etched into the second pressing, but to their horror, the records came back with "We're not Bad Religion..." "Ellipsis U R". With only 500 copies [700 according to other sources] correctly inscribed, the first pressing will inevitably fetch even higher prices as a collector item. Other messages are "I am just a piece of air" (on Suffer), which is what Jay answered in an interview. Suffer also has one saying "Your name here_______". No Control has "Leave me alone" and "Dialectical Pocketry". And Against the Grain has "Drink The Kool Aid" and "Intrepid Pioneer".

Europe

They said that European fans pay more attention to the lyrics and they want to talk to them about what's going on and what they're trying to say in their songs, whereas in the U.S. "a lot of people just come because it's a social thing". They also said that in general musicians are treated with a little bit more respect in Europe than they are in the U.S. ("at least the musicians that have achieved our level of success").

Evan Seinfield (from Biohazard)

Played We're Only Gonna Die live with Bad Religion on a radio program.

Every Day

A kind-of country song (3:18 min. long) written by Greg which appeared on the album The Sounds Of Hollywood Fanzine 2, released by Mystic Records in 1983. It has no drumming

completely acoustic. The chorus goes "But don't be deceived by my ways, I'm stuck here all the time, it's a lonely life, and every day it's just the same, every say it's the same old game". The track is filled with high-pitched backing vocals (the song is practically sung in two voices).

Extra Fancy

Hetson produced two tracks on their album Sinnerman (Atlantic, 1996).

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

F

Faith Alone

At the end of the song you can hear "yeah" and something else.

Faith

Greg: "Faith in your partner, your fellow men, your friends is very important, because without it there's no mutual component to your relationship and relationships are important. So faith plays an important role, but faith in people you don't know, faith in religious or political leaders or even people on stages, people who are popular in the public eye, you shouldn't have faith in those people. You should listen to what they have to say and use it, it might give you some ideas on how to view the world, but ultimately you have to base your views on evidence. Evidence comes from your own eyes and ears! But of course this is in a society where the concept of "cool" doesn't apply and unfortunately we're far away from that."

Fans

Brian: "We have a subculture of Bad Religion fans who buy every record and know all the lyrics because there is something about what we're doing that hits them in a special way. They're the focus group. When I think of how a certain song or riff is going to be perceived, I think about someone who really cares about our band and not some new person that I'm trying to entice. I don't think Bad Religion fans are smarter than anybody else, but I do think that they're a little more committed to investigating beyond the foot-tapping part of it and really spend a lot more time thinking about the lyrics". Brian: "I don't think it's my job to determine how people are supposed to react to Bad Religion music, I'm not the punk police. What I do is play music and whoever shows up is cool. I have no intention of telling people how to have fun or saying 'you people aren't cool enough to go here and since you only heard the single on the radio that means you're not a fan.' I think that's bullshit. Come one come all, slam dance your brains out. The more the merrier".

Fat Wreck Chords

Brett said he loves the label.

FCC

The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates wire, cable, and radio communications media in America. When Greg was asked whether Bad Religion had been censored by the FCC and what he thought about the censorship issue in general, he answered "as for the FCC, I don't really feel any pressure by it at all. I am not interested in its practices at this point, and the reason radio stations don't play four-letter-words is ridiculous, but not that ridiculous to fight over it. It is a stupid law, but like many laws it is set up to protect the ignorant."

Fifi

Pete's band. Their latest album Sinkhole got an amazing review in the issue #105 of Flipside when it came out. The album can be bought from Triple X Records in L.A. They have a website at www.triple-x.com. Fifi's members' previous bands were local unknown bands, except for Steve Dro, who played guitar for the Angry Samoans. Pete: "we're in our thirties and are playing music that we grew up with and feel needs a good kick in the ass. We toured the states this last jan-feb with Welt and Billyclub". The vocalist, Gordon, left the band in late 1997, but Pate says they haven't broken up. No news as of March 1998.

Finland

In Sweden Greg said "To find Finland, go towards the vomit smell 'coz there were a lot of drunk people at the Finland concert!". The Punk Rock Song video was number 1 in the Finnish video charts in March 1996.

First shows

Two weeks after their demo was first played on Rodney on the Roq, they were supposed to play at at Joey's Kills, in Burbank, for their debut live show. But even though a group of around 40 fans turned up, the club's manager didn't. So instead, their first appearance was opening for Social Distortion (which sounds really cool, but it was actually SD's second or third show) in 1980 in a warehouse in Fullerton, California. The second show happened on November 20th 1980 in a USC Frat House Party with The Circle Jerks. Hetson remembers: "The Germs didn't play, but Darby Crash was there. I knew Bad Religion for a while and when the frat asked us (Circle Jerks) to play, we got Bad Religion to open 'cause they had a p.a. and we didn't".

Fishermen, The

The AOR band Pete was drumming for in 1991. They got a deal with a big label which wouldn't accept him playing in two bands at the same time so he was forced to leave Bad Religion (ok, this is only the official explanation). The band ended up breaking up before their debut album was even released.

Flat Earth Society

It's a society that actually exists. The UK Subs album Riot also has a song called Flat Earth Society. And Dimentia Thirteen have an LP called Flat Earth Society.

Flat Earth Society

Loss recorded a slower cover version (with muffled vocals) for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion.

Flipside Magazine

Has featured Bad Religion in several issues and which put out a video of Bad Religion and The Circle Jerks. Bad Religion appeared on the cover of issue 67 (July/August 1990) yet all the magazine had was four pages of photos and no text. Issue number 59 (Spring 89) had a four-page interview (including photos) and 88 (February/March 1994) had a two-page interview with two photos. They released the album The Big One (Flip 30), a compilation of LA and San Francisco bands. There are some bonus cuts on the CD from the out of print City of L.A. Power (a picture disc compilation of L.A. bands including Bad Religion and Mototcycle Boy, Sandy Duncan's Eye, L7, Spiderbaby, Anus The Menace, Trash Can School, and the Creamers). The Bad Religion track is Operation Rescue. The LP comes with a 16-page lyric/photo booklet that is $1.00 for an extra one if your order CS or CD. You can email them at flipside@ix.netcom.com. In the 1988 poll, the readers of the magazine voted Bad Religion best band of the year and Suffer best album. Also the third best album cover of 1988 was Suffer and the second biggest asshole of the year was Brian Baker (only surpassed by GG Allin), though he was also voted second best guitarist.

Folk and old music

The Los Angeles Times wrote that Bad Religion is the living incarnation of the theory that hardcore punk is in fact folk music. Greg has also said in several occasions that he considers Bad Religion to be folk music. Greg: "The music is very sparse, the guitars aren't multi-layered or processed. It's not elaborate; it's something that anyone can play in their garage. It's very populist oriented. Even the things we talk about are populist in scope. So it's very much like folk music. A lot louder of course...". For a while Greg read a lot of music literature, e.g. Last Train to Memphis, by Peter Guralnick, which he loved. At that time he commented "I'm really interested in American folk music". In another interview: "My mom's side of the family is from rural Indiana and every time we'd have a family get-together there would be traditional music playing. The whole family was musical; they grew up around the radio. American traditional old-timey music is my earliest memory. My uncle led the sing-alongs and he was really into Doc Watson, the Delmore Brothers, and Jimmie Rodgers".

Four Tracks from The Gray Race

A UK promo which was released shortly after TGR and which includes the four singles, which means they were all chosen at an early stage.

Free Tibet

Bad Religion was supposed to have a song on a compilation album that The Beastie Boys were putting together with profits going to the movement to Free Tibet, but it never happened.

Frogger

Co-written by the two Gregs. Wryebo Martin, a friend of theirs, came up with the title or the chorus or something, but not much according to Hetson. Still he's listed as having co-written it with Greg on a version of Back to the Known. Covered by Puffball, who have a cover with more anger than the original in the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion. It gets called In the City they Follow in the CD bootleg Hate Yourself and Tired of the City in the bootleg Bad & Worst. In the 9.13.1996 show at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ, a fan threw an original cartridge of the game "Frogger" onstage to request the song. Unlike the show in April, the band had no time for requests because the opener had technical difficulties and Goldfinger played an encore. Greg thanked the fan for the cartridge, nonetheless. P. Finestone described the amphibian footprints on the cover of Back to the Known (where the song first appeared) as "frogger footprints".

Fuck Armageddon...this is hell

Greg always changes the lyrics and mentions the city they are playing in, e.g. "How could hell be any worse, when Barcelona's a fucking curse". On 22.4.1989 in Berkeley, CA (Gilman st.) some guy in the audience got on stage and tried to play the song.

Fuck Christmas

Song by Fear, found on several bootlegs. The bootleg Stranger Than Pulp Fiction has two live versions (tracks 8 and 10). The first one is the same as in the bootleg QROK Christmas Show '94. There is also a bootleg called Fuck Christmas (from the KROQ acoustic Christmas show). The lyrics are: "Don't you smile just because it's christmas, People ?  ? at christmas, See the children on the streets hoping (to) get something good to eat, but for me it's not so great Fuck Christmas Fuck Christmas Fuck Christmas Fuck Christmas".

Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion

A Swedish tribute album. Brian said he hasn't heard it: "they are kind of silly as a concept. I much rather listen to the original music, and I've seen many tribute records come out in the last years (...) You know, I'm flattered that people would want to do it, but...(...) There's a Dag Nasty tribute sampler coming out too. I couldn't understand why they wanted to do that. I actually told the guy that, and he didn't seem to think it was funny". In the album Greg's surname is misspelled -Griffin. It has Generator (by Candysuck), Frogger and Yesterday (by Puffball), Henchman and It's Only Over When... (by Flakes), I Want to Conquer the World and Walk Away (by Astream), Atomic Garden and Heaven is Falling (by Blender), Incomplete and the Handshake (by Troublemakers), Best for You and Latchkey kids (by Toast) and Flat Earth Society and American Jesus (by Loss). Released by Tribute Records (TRO3), it can be ordered by fax: + 46 (0) 31150424.

Functioning

The band functions as a one-man, one-vote democracy, although Greg is generally assumed to be the leader. He just handles a lot more of the business end than the other members.

Fussing and fighting

When some skinheads in the pit beat up a kid Bad Religion stopped playing and admonished them for what they had done. Greg said that the only kind of fighting he would be a part of is mental fighting and told the skinheads that they could leave. In the free concert in L.A (February 1996) Greg went on commenting hysterically on the lack of intelligence in the audience. He started to get angry that people were fighting and harming each other and he was lecturing the members of the audience involved. It was to no avail and they had to end the concert slightly early. At the free Palladium show there was also violence and Greg asked 5 times for them to stop moshing. They played for 55 min. and missed Generator etc which they intended to play. It happened some more times during the Gray Race Tour.

Future, the

Bobby said in a Chicago show (1996) that after the band has been around for 20 years they're going to break up. On another occasion he said that after the 1997 live album they'd release 3 more and then call it quits. But he seems to be the only band member that says this. Brian was told about Bobby's comments and he laughed "I've never heard that one! Bobby's the drummer, OK? We're gonna stop doing this when we think we're not gonna do anything of quality. At this point I have absolutely no intention of stopping something that I still get an incredibly good feeling from. Greg said in a Philadelphia concert "This is about half over.......not the show, our career. We've been around 16 years and we plan on being around 16 more!!!" Greg has no intentions of experimenting with new musical styles. Brian 1997: "We're going to definitely take some time to relax and to really concentrate on writing some very special music for the next record. I don't wanna rush into it. So we're just gonna take our time. I know that we've agreed that we're gonna record this record ourselves, without a producer. We may do it at Greg's house and we're gonna do it in our own speed. We're kind of tired of hearing to schedules and marketing plans. We're not interested in that any longer." Brian also explained that they have been trying to make a home video like Big Bang, but that every time they start, "it turns into we're gonna have to have all these people come and follow us and do all the stuff and we just never had the opportunity to do it on our own, the way we want it to. And hopefully in the future we'll be able to. Everytime, it always turns out into trying to make a movie, and I'm not about making a movie, I'm trying to play music.

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

G

Generator -the album

Released on 2.26.1992. 100,000 copies were shipped. Brett said "it was time to change, I was bored (...) we did it in a different studio, but as far as the songwriting, it was a deliberate effort to try something different". It was recorded almost live in the studio, because Brett had moved Westbeach to larger premises, and for the first time, the entire band could play in the studio at the same time. Jay: "The songs themselves were becoming more intricate, because Greg and Brett were both phenomenal songwriters (...) Greg does his vocals, and the song is done". Brett said the picture of the blood on the door was cheesy.

Generator -the song

'The Generator' is a metaphor for God. Brett: "The vibe that I'm trying to give is like, if you've ever been in a room and the air conditioner's humming. You don't notice it, of course, because it's a constant hum. Then it turns off and you suddenly notice how quiet it is because it went away. That's the generator; it's just behind everything. It's funny, God and spirituality has been the central conflict of my entire life". "It's a song about my concept of god (...) the hammer, window, knife etc. are prose and I don't feel it's appropriate to give you my personal intention, although like any art there is a definite 'meaning' I'm trying to convey. If Generator makes you feel something when you listen to it real loud than [he always misspells this word] chances are you understand it just fine". The Generator has been speculated (by a fan) to be God while creating the universe; a generator is a kind of creator' it creates something (mostly energy). That is why there are "turbines in darkness". When God said "Let there be light" it was like a turbine set into motion to create electricity and light. When God created the animals, this ended the silence, there was "a hummingbird in silence". The "blood on my door" has been suggested (by several fans) to be from the book of Exodus in the Bible, when the chosen people wanted to leave Egypt and were hindered and God sent his archangel to kill the firstborn sons of all Egyptian families and spare only the doors which were marked with sheep' blood. It's a sign of being chosen by God or receiving the mercy of God. (Note also in Don't pray on me: "And I don't remember hearing how Moses reacted, when the innocent first born sons lay dead"). However, it says "the blood on MY door", so the author sees himself as being chosen by God. Mr Brett is Jewish, these people were Jews, they were somehow his ancestors, his people. So he may be pointing out a relationship. But I want to emphasize that this is only a fan's interpretation of the lyrics, which I have included because Generator is the song fans most often ask for the meaning of. Right after the "ohhhh's" near the end and right before the lead kicks in, there is a whispered "1,2,3,4". Candysuck do a really cute cover version in the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion. On Fat Music For Fat People Vol. 4 Me First And The Gimme Gimmes cover the song My Favorite Things and they play most of it with the tune of Generator.

German language

Their tour manager for Stranger Than Fiction was German and taught Greg some German so in the Punk Rock Song single Greg sang the song in German.

Germany

When in 1989 a promoter first called Epitaph and asked Jay whether they'd like to play in Germany, his answer was like "Are you fucking kidding me, man? We just lost money in America [they had lost $2000 on their first American tour], do you think we're going to fly halfway round the world to get out asses kicked, and not even speak the language?" But they went and loved it. Jay said "It was truly phenomenal how well the band was accepted there". So they played there in 1989, '90, and '91 (they'd still do some West coast shows, but there'd be no more American tours for a few years "thanks" to Europe and especially Germany). In '91 they actually played a festival with The pixes, Danzig, Stiff Little Fingers, The Alarm, 999, and Ride.

Germany

Germany is still by far the most badreligious country in Europe. Stranger Than Fiction (the album) was Top Ten. It went up to No.6, I think. The Gray Race was No.11 in the German charts and it was No.60 in the charts of the whole year. Punk Rock Song also was a hit, staying in the charts for more than 20 weeks I think. The German music television channel VIVA had a one-hour Bad Religion special on 11/6/96 with lots of interviews, videos and live footage. In the Lorelei Festival they were second to the top of the bill after David Bowie, but before Iggy Pop, Pulp, and a host of other Britpoppers. At first they thought it wold be a mistake, but no, they ARE popular. Brian: "In the United States it's usually preaching to the converted and a bunch of kids who saw a video on MTV. Strangely enough, in Germany we found people to be much more in tune to the lyrics and to the message that is trying to be presented. And I find that especially hard to understand because of the language barrier. There are many Americans who cannot understand some of the lyrics that Greg Graffin writes, yet we fly to Germany and with the language barrier people seem to be able to respond and understand exactly what is meant. I still can't explain this phenomenon, I've been blown away by it for 2 or 3 years now and I still don't know how you people do it. The majority of the people, I believe, really understands what's going on, but there's always gonna be the people who are there for sport. And, uhm, what you're gonna do?".

Get Off

JERK OFF (Ode to a Spice Girl)

Lascivious, is all that I can think of as I drag my testicles searching for a shag.

Gorgeous, the adjective of your body and of your alluring attributes.

I can see your light green lingerie and I can feel my dick hardening,

And I know I shouldn't but it's too much to ignore,

An emotion I have No Control over...

Every time I look at you I just wanna do it,

I clench my fist right there and I just jerk off.

Rectilinear, the shape my dick has perpetually adopted

never realizing I have spent $100 on a condom machine.

I realize you're engaged, and I know you're shared by many more,

I know it's quite impossible but I am damned to find a way to shag you someday;

But every time I scrutinize I just say "screw it!

A ride? unless she's blind she can't do it

-I just better jerk off".

(by Roger Vulture)

Get Out

Publication from the St.Louis area in which Chris Dickinson wrote that Greg was "a pretentious art-school freshman on a caffeine bender" and said "stick around long enough, and you too can play punk rock slick enough for the masses."

Gina Davis

She was Brett's girlfriend in early 1997 and I think she still is (this is March 1998). She had known him for a long time (worked at Epitaph) and when Brett divorced Maggie they started seeing each other more and more. Gina was the project director or something for Bored Generation and she's frequently thanked on Epitaph releases.

Girl From Ipanema

They covered it at Tipitina's, in New Orleans, on 2.18.1995.

Give Punk A Chance

This is Give Peace a Chance, which they played in a gig at the Palladium. They just repeated the chorus four times singing "Punk" instead of "Peace". There is a bootleg on tape entitled "2-1-91 at The Hollywood Palladium" which has the complete 32-song set.

Glenn Danzig

When The Misfits split, he set up Samhain, and Brian used to play at early jams and rehearsals.

Glory Daze

This is a movie about getting old, starring Ben Affleck as the main character. It has an excellent punk rock soundtrack and there is a spectacular scene where "Ben" and his friends trash their house (giving it a 'viking funeral" of sorts); during all of this violence, the original We're Only Gonna Die is played. They dubbed the original spooky intro to Fuck Armageddon to the beginning of it, leading up to the scene where they suddenly explode into violence. The end credits only mention We're Only Gonna Die though. Strangely, on the CD soundtrack, they use Sublime's version of the song. Other bands on the soundtrack include The Vandals, Bouncing Souls, Mr T Experience, NOFX, etc.

God Song

It contains some literary references from a William Blake poem.

God

At the Salt Lake City show on 5.18.96 someone in the crowd asked Greg if there was a god and he answered "as far as I'm concerned there is no god."

Godsmack

They have a song called Bad Religion on their 1998 self-titled LP (Universal Records 53281).

Godzilla's

Small club in Sun Valley, CA (8230 San Fernando Road) where Bad Religion used to play every other weekend. U.X.A, The Minutemen, T.S.O.L, FEAR, etc. all played there (around 1981, early 1982). Richard Riot (the guy who filmed the famous riots) saw them play there lots of times. During the week after he release of The Gray Race they also played several very small clubs.

Goldfinger

In the song City With Two Faces, right before saying "fuck L.A.", the lead singer says "Now don't get me wrong, L.A. has some great punk bands. NOFX. Bad Religion". The band opened a few times for them and the guitarist has a Bad Religion sticker on his guitar. Actually, the band plays with several Bad Religion stickers posted all over their set. At a concert at Miami Beach 9.6.1996, they opened for Bad Religion. The lead singer's opening comments were something to the effect of "We're a bit nervous tonight because it's our first tour date with Bad Religion and they are my favorite band."

Goldmine

Published the best Bad Religion review/interview ever in their May 1997 issue. 8 tabloid-sized pages of well-researched info. It was written by Jo-Anne Greene and she printed neat things like "Bad Religion's lyrics have remained the most thoughtful and thought provoking of any band one could name" and "It's a philosophy and attitude that has seen Bad Religion through 17 years, 11 albums, and a career second to non".

Good Riddance

Good Riddance's singer Russ Rankins says that Bad Religion is his all time favorite band and that is the reason he started Good Riddance.

Goofs

There was an all-day, snowboard, skate exhibition/concert at Snoqualmie Pass (a ski resort in Seattle) on 3.30.1996, featuring Bad Religion, Seaweed, etc. Greg forgot a bunch of the words to "A Walk", confusing the second verse with the first and ending up singing "blah blah blah...". Hetson screwed up his guitar part twice during Cease, and Greg stopped the song both times. At the Westbeth concert (Manhattan) on 2.3.1998 which was recorded by HBO, they had to start Punk Rock Song four times 'cause Hetson kept starting on the wrong fret (ie wrong chord). Greg very rarely fucks up, but he's sang stuff like "as they were scrutinized something something he's a mockery, you know?".

Gore Verbinski

The Daredevil's lead guitarist, a great cinema director and the director of the video for 21st Century (Digital Boy) (released in 1994). He has directed 5 films: The Ritual (for which he also wrote the script, 1996), Mouse Hunt (1997) and the Mexican (2001, stars Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt). He has won 4 Clio Awards and one Cannes advertising Silver Lion as he was the director of the mega-famous Budweiser TV ad with the frogs learning to say Bud-wei-ser. He's a long-time friend of the band and was thanked in the liner notes to No Control back in 1989.

Gray Race Tour

In 1996 they traveled and played more shows than ever before, and played in front of more people than ever before. They sold out in all the 'geographical regions' they played. During the tour Brian's hair was blonde in Europe and blue in the US.

Gray Race, the -the album

Greg started writing songs for The Gray Race while still touring (as usual), and by the end of the tour the album was pretty much finished, although he continued the process back home in Ithaca (he has a studio in his home). He sent preliminary versions of the songs to the other band members to know their opinions (which he didn't do with the previous records) and then Brian and Bobby joined him to play them for the first time and build on them. Greg said that ultimately made a huge difference in the quality of the songs. Greg said that he and the band were bored of the sound of the guitars on albums previous. Especially they wanted to really refine Bobby's drums so that it didn't conflict with the guitars. He emphasized the fact that the trademark click pedal drumming is more subdued in The Gray Race than on previous Epitaph recordings. They recorded it in New York's Greenwich Village and the famed Electric Lady Studios (set up by Jimi Hendrix), on West 8th Street (it was their first studio work outside of L.A. and Jay explained on 120 Minutes that it was also the first time they had all been able to fit in one studio for years). Released on 2.26.1996. There used to be a commercial regarding The Gray Race on MTV. The sleeve of the Punk Rock Song single is a drawing of a boy and a man who have just shot a deer. At first they wanted this to be the sleeve for The Gray Race. They wanted to get a real picture of a deer and a guy in the middle of Times Square. When TGR came out, in the UK they made a CD with A Walk, Punk Rock Song, Streets of America and The Gray Race (so they had decided all the singles at an early stage)

Gray Race, the -the album

Greg said it is much heavier, harder, better and a lot fuller than Stranger Than Fiction, which is a lot more mid-range. "It was good for the radio. This one's good for listening to on your stereo. The lows are more defined and the highs are crystal clear". "It's almost like a concept album, in that the pieces go together so nicely. It's a much more human album than we've done in a long time. Even though we've always talked about human issues, this one actually has much more emotion in it. Probably just because of personal things I'm going through."

Gray Race, the -the album

Brett said "I don't care for the Gray Race" when it came out and one year later he added "I don't like The Gray Race and in fact it is Bad Religions worst selling record to date even including Suffer and No Control so the fans seem to agree (...) It just sounds like uninspired formula Bad Religion too me. I also happen to detest the production of The Gray Race."

Gray Race, the -the album

To record it they played the songs live as a band, which they hadn't done since How Could Hell Be Any Worse?. Greg explained that in those days it was a matter of economics, they didn't have the luxury of picking the best of several takes. Hetson said that playing together as a unit brought the energy and excitement of the songs back to the surface. Bobby: "It's probably less experimental, but to me it was still the most challenging, because there was so much pressure put on us". Apparently all of the pictures on the cover are just out of a "big book o' faces" that they had at Atlantic.

Gray Race, the -the song

Greg has explained in many interviews what the song is about: "We set up the world in terms of black and white, and yet we're gifted with the ability to see shades of gray. But that ability sometimes hinders us. It hinders our progress, it hinders our success, but it makes us more human, and more compassionate. But, unfortunately, the world we set up for ourselves is not always based on compassion. And that, I think, is the ultimate human dilemma". He said most of the problems he sings about can be distilled down to close mindedness and unwillingness to see "the shades of gray".

Great people

Talking about Thomas Edison, who was so driven in his work that he completely neglected his wife and children and ended up working 114 hours in a week, Greg agreed he was a genius and one of the great men of all time but said he was also a sonofabitch: "every great person in the world, I think, is a sonofabitch, because you cannot excel in things in a world that is set up to discriminate without being a sonofabitch and discriminating in some way. Those who do it best are probably the ones who have fucked up the most people".

Green Day

They opened a few Bad Religion shows in 1990 and Bad Religion opened for them in 7 shows from 10.4.1994 to 10.12.1994. Greg said they did one hell of an album (their fist one).

Greenpeace

Greg is or used to be a member but has called them "a bad religion".

Greg

Gregory Walter Graffin was born in Madison, Wisconsin. His parents were graduate students at the University of Wisconsin. They then spent 2 years in Evanston, Illinois before moving to Racine, Wisconsin where his dad Walter still lives in the house they moved to. By the time he was 7 his mom Marcella had left his dad and for the first 4 years after the separation Greg and his brother Grant commuted between Milwaukee and his dad's house. When he was 11 they moved very far away with their mom, who made very little money. Now he would only see his Wisconsin friends and dad in the summer and at Christmas. With his mom they moved to Los Angeles where 4 years later he began Bad Religion. He moved back to Madison to attend University there, but he was expelled because he was not a legal resident of the state. So he went back and did his MSc at UCLA. When Against the Grain came out he moved to Ithaca, NY to join Cornell University for his PhD program in evolutionary biology. At that point Hetson thought that the band was going to break up, and Greg assured him that it would be no different than when he was going to UCLA. Greg: "During my masters, I didn't see those guys that much, I was very busy, we only toured a couple of times, we made a record at Easter break. In fact, things only got better when I moved to Ithaca. Getting out of LA, I was able to write more clearly, focus on both academics and Bad Religion more". He got married in 1988 to Greta, whom he met in a course called The Intellectual History of the US. They lived in Ithaca with their kids (Graham (born in early 1992?) and Ella, who's two years younger) until Greta moved out. Greg still lives (as of April 1998) in the same house, which is brick, quite large, holds Greg's home studio in the basement and is situated in a rich neighborhood.

Greg -academic history

When Bad Religion broke up in 1983, Greg moved back to his native Wisconsin and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He wasn't willing to say goodbye to Bad Religion but he started treating the band as a hobby. But when the administration found that he was no longer an official resident of the state of Wisconsin (he had just spent several years as a California resident) he was expelled. He went back to CA where he was a resident and started school at UCLA. In 1987 he got a master's degree at UCLA in Geology (he previously got a BA in Anthropology and his BSc degree in Geology there too, which was very field-oriented since he studied fossils). Then he did some field work in several places (North, Central and South America) and by the end of 1990 transferred to Cornell University (Ithaca) for a PhD. It'll be a Biology Ph.D, but he studies fossils. It's evolutionary biology-paleontology. By 1996 all he had left of his PhD was to write his thesis on bone tissue and take the "A" exam, which is the exam where Greg's committee (five people) sits in a room and asks him lots of awkward questions about bits of fossilized bones. However, the PhD was on hold for a big part of the late 1990s (during each of the long tours for STF, TGR and NS, for example). He was also a Teaching Assistant in the Evolutionary Biology department at Cornell University. He taught (TAed) mainly pre-medical students when they took a course in comparative anatomy. By 1999 he was working on the Geneva campus, which is one lake over from Ithaca (but belongs to Cornell Uni). In 1989 he said "I get the same good feeling from people who like Bad Religion and students who like my teaching, but interestingly very rarely do the two ever mix". His PhD is in Evolutionary Biology but he says he will actually be a doctor of Zoology (it is vertebrate fossils he studies). The actual PhD is on bone tissue and he's been said to be one of the five leading bone tissue paleontologists in the world. He's given conferences and published at least one paper in a scientific journal. Both his parents were professors and he also intends to be involved in science for the rest of his life. He once said "If I could make a million dollars with Bad Religion, I would start an institute that would be for research on early vertebrates, that's what I study. Be able to fund research and stuff like that". But when asked to choose, he answers ""I'd probably choose music, because it gives me a lot more freedom to express myself." He took his first semester off from university when they had just signed to Atlantic (so for the first time Bad Religion toured for more than two months in a year). The Gopher server for the Cornell phonebook had the following for Greg: name: Gregory W Graffin / nickname: Aludensparglemein / department: Ecology and Systematics / title: lead singer, AR McCune, advisor / project: Investigations into the origin of bone tissue, and travelling the world whilst playing loud aggressive music / type: student

graduate. A picture of Greg can be seen in a board in the building of the Ecology and Statistics department of Cornell University listing all of the graduated students in the department.

Greg -music preferences

In 1980 Greg's favorite bands were The Gears, The Adolescents, The Chiefs, Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, etc.("all the bands that were melodic and hard"). "I still love the bands that influenced me, like Elvis Costello, the Ramones, the Buzzcocks and the early LA music". He also loves Todd Rundgren ("studying his style at a young age made me learn about writing pop songs and still maintaining an image below the mainstream"); his fav Todd album is A Wizard, A True Star. And The Cars. "The first two Cars albums were very influential to me. They came out when I was 13 or 14 years old, and when I was 15, I started Bad Religion. Those two albums were the last thing I remember before becoming a punker. They had a tremendous influence on me, as did all the music I heard as a kid". "What was really the strongest influence was my mother's side of the family was very religious. They grew up in the Church of Christ, which is very musically oriented. The stuff that influenced my mom and my uncle were the early traditional guitar players. If you give me a guitar and a pick, I could probably put on an hour-and-a-half show of these old-timey tunes." "I respect artists and bands that persist through long careers, who have very high standards of quality, and do good work, regardless of whether their music is the flavor of the month or not. For instance, Fugazi has been consistently good over the years, Neil Young has had his ups and downs, but generally high standards and good work over many years, Bruce Springsteen has had his embarrassments, but continues to be relevant and maintains his high artistic standards. Todd Rundgren, who was a huge early influence to me, also had very high standards, and great music, despite not getting much attention from the mainstream.....this didn't hinder his desire to make music. Stevie Wonder is a great example of this type of artist. Stiff Little Fingers, and Sham 69 are two notables from England that fit this definition, despite the fact that they haven't done much lately, same with Elvis Costello. Of course, the Ramones fit this definition, although I'm not sure what they're up to, also DOA would make my list. I hope someday Bad Religion will be recognized for our high standards, and longevity, regardless if we ever break the top 40". On late 1996 his favorite Bad Religion song was Cease. On early 1996 it was The Gray Race and on summer 1993 it was The Answer.

Greg -quotations

"Bad Religion is now writing songs that everyone can relate to (4/96)". "How many punk bands thank you after every song? Just one". Relevant to Empty Causes and Them and Us: "I try to stay away from causes and I try to stay away from political groups because I don't carry that much hatred around with me. I don't hate anything that much I don't think". "the goal of Bad Religion is to make good catchy songs that are infectious but that make you think".

Greg -the writer

In March 1997 he said he had been writing a book for the last 2 years on the music industry from a band's perspective and hoped to have it done in the following 8 months. He had then finished 160 pages of 1st draft text.

Greg -the fucking amazing composer that he is

Early 1997: "I am recording a lot of my own music (mostly songs on bass, drums, and piano). I don't know if any Bad Religion fans would like it, but maybe I will make it available with the expressed statement that it is not like Bad Religion in any way. Do you think anyone would be interested? Anyway, it is music that has been evolving over the last 10 years and never saw the light of day because Bad Religion was not appropriate. It is music I feel a strange compulsion to record however, and since I always am thinking of songs I think it is a good indication of who I am". In May 1997 he said some of the stuff he was composing was a lot like Runnin' Fast, except -he said- he is now a better composer, lyicist and recordist and so the material will be much better. When I asked him how he comes up with all the amazing melodies he said "I hear voices in my head; not many people do". The fact is most of Bad Religion's vocal melodies come from Greg's head, even on many songs credited only to Brett on the albums.

Greg -the father

"Raising my son and daughter with the knowledge that nothing lasts forever or that everything might cease is actually very valuable. It gives them perspective and allows them to treat not only their fellow humans but rare commodities better and with more appreciation". His children Graham and Ella love Bad Religion. Greg: "I'm not sure yet if it's because they genuinely like the aggressive beat or because every night at dinner I slam my fist on the table and say "God Damn it Kids......its Bad Religion that FEEDS you!".

Greg for president

During the Gray Race Tour Greg explained repeatedly that he's running for president even though legally he's not old enough. And of course, the rest of the band will be his cabinet. In at least one concert he seemed to be pretty serious when he said that he would run for president if he got on the ballot in all 50 states. And I know he's dead serious about it 'cause he's told me and several other people personally. A guy somewhere even printed a T-shirt with Greg's face and the motto "Greg for president".

Greg Greg

The side-project that Graffin and Hetson started just before the Into The Unknown apocalypse. Time And Disregard was originally a Greg Greg song, as was Runnin' Fast (released under the name Greg Greg on the Soundtrack to the motion picture Desperate Teenage Lovedolls) and three more songs which very very few people have ever heard 'cause they were never released or bootlegged. But they were recorded, in June 1982 at Paramount Studios. In 1989 Greg G said that "we just put it off for a while. Greg quit so now it's just Greg. But I use electronic doubling to it's still Greg Greg".

Guitar playing

Brian: "I'm uniquely aware that there is nothing I'm doing that is so goddamn special. There is no pioneering element to this. I can play the way I do because I've had a whole lot of practice. For some unknown reason I've lead a charmed life and I am able to be in bands and go on tour". "I can't experiment, I play pretty much the same way all the time. It's like your own personal style of jerking off; you develop a method that feels right and is unique to you". The chord structure on most Bad Religion songs is something like Am F C G (in different keys, though), and Hetson and Brett mostly solo over this in natural minor (e.g. for Am, the scale a b c d e f g a), but Brian sometimes does a little more dissonant things (e.g. "Parallel" and "Cease"). Sometimes they use melodic minor for songs, as in using E major (E G# B) for the end of a verse or something (when using the aforementioned chord structure). Then, the scale is a b c d e f g# a (e.g. "American Jesus"). Hetson and Brian baker said in a guitar magazine that using les pauls, sgs, and jcm 900 marshall heads are the best equipment for punk rock. Brian said The Gray Race and Stranger than fiction are tuned at A 440, but they play the songs one half step down live. "The earlier records are tuned to whatever the bass was when it came out of the case. When I joined the band I couldn't believe that no one bought a tuner until 1994. Punk, huh?". Greg: "I could never play rhythm guitar as good as Hetson, but I thought I was just about as good as Brett. So I thought of myself as an adequate guitar player. Brian showed me what a really great guitarist can do for an album. And it helped me with songwriting because any ideas I had he could expand on them". When asked how does it feel like to hear people imitating your style, Hetson answered "I don't hear it much. Other people do and they'll say 'can you hear what they're doing? it's a total rip-off of that song of yours!' But I never hear it myself". And Brian answered "I, on the other hand, absolutely hear it all the time -bright, loud as day (...) And I think it's the coolest thing in the fucking world. The only problem is when they are better (...) and when I do hear it, usually it's people who come up to me anyway and cop to it, so it's not like I'm in this egomaniacal world imagining it all.". The 10 commandments of punk guitar, by Brian and Hetson:

1) Treat your guitar like shit and it will respect you.

2) To get that mean fuckin' low end and still retain some highs in your sound, use only Gibson guitars. SG's and Les Pauls are the ultimate punk rock tools.

3) Use only downstrokes. Downstrokes are the key to unlocking all punk rhythms.

4) Plaster your guitars with stickers to prove that you're an individual. Remember, being uncool is cool, so one Van Halen is worth three Sex Pistols stickers.

5) The Marshall JMP 100-Watt master volume head is the Holy Grail of amps. Other people get all hot and bothered about what kind of speakers and cabinets they use, but that's all bullshit. You can plug the JMP into virtually anything and it's going to sound wonderful.

6) No open tunings. Grunge is not punk rock.

7) Don't be self-indulgent. Limit your guitar solos to eight bars or less. Otherwise, you're playing metal.

8) Never, ever play a show with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth. It's incredibly painful when a stage diver pushes off your face and smashes the red-hot cherry into your cheek.

9) It may be punk to be fucked up at your day job, but when you take the stage you should be straight. It's hard to play music with intensity and speed when you're drunk.

10) Do not stack Marshall cabinets. That's not punk, it's arena rock. The Ramones are the only band exempted from this rule.

Guitar playing

Greg: "Brian's a lot better guitarist, he can do anything. Brett self-acknowledges he wasn't as proficient; he had a style, a very sloppy style".

Gulf War, the

Generator was written during the lead-up to the Gulf War, and they were actually in the studio when the bombs started dropping on Baghdad. They received the news from Tim Yohanon, of Maximum Rock' n' Roll. Bad Religion were as appalled as he was, so when Tim asked if they had anything he could release on a projected protest EP, they immediately recorded two songs: Fertile Crescent and Heaven Is Falling. Obviously this ended up being the famous "New World Order: War #1" split 7-inch with Noam Chomsky. Brett: "it was pornographic! The whole county was treating the war like it was a fucking baseball match! I was so appalled I considered moving out of the country".

Guns and Roses

Brian was asked to join the band (in early 2000, I think). He's a personal friend of both Izzy Stradlin' (who played on Appetite for Destruction, an album Brian likes a lot) and Gilby Clarke (who replaced Izzy and played on the two Use Your Illusion albums). Bad Religion played about 30 seconds of Welcome To The Jungle at the sound check before their first Tokyo show in December of 2000.

Guttermouth

The title track of their album Musical Monkey says "Hate major labels, they really suck, except for Bad Religion, can't get the sticker off my truck".

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

H

Handshake, The

Troublemakers recorded a cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion, and called it Handshaker. They sing "gotta overcome the testicles of history".

Harmonies

Like Bobby said, Against the Grain "was where the harmonies really started to take off". Jay said in the early 90s The Adolescents did harmonies better than anyone. "They used three part harmonies all over the place". Bad Religion saw them live and thought they were brilliant, so in a way they gave Bad Religion the confidence to do it themselves. Jay: "Musically speaking, once you get out of punk rock you find out that the members of Bad Religion are listening to the Beach Boys' 17-part harmonies, bands like Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, bands that did background vocals. So it wasn't that hard to conceive, why not use it for what we're doing? We always tried not to do anything in the studio that we could not do live, you don't go completely off the wall. Doing three part harmonies in the studio wasn't so absurd, because we could do them live. It almost became a trademark sound. It wasn't anything I ever noticed people doing, until one time I heard a band and thought, 'That sounds like us, but it's not us.' And I realized that it mostly had to do with the background vocals".

Hatrix

They have a song called Bad Religion on their 1995 LP Collisioncoursewithnoplace (Massacre Records 80152).

Head Cheese

It was a name considered at the time of forming Bad Religion. It's slang for Smegma, which they considered too.

Headbanger's Ball

MTV program where Greg was interviewed by Ricki Rachtman. He asked Greg what "watcho" meant. Greg just laughed and said "Well... It's primal" (it means "watch out" by the way.)

Heaven's Metal

A fundamentalist Christian music magazine which did an interview with Greg.

Heaven is Falling

According to Jay, the line "king George and his Rainbow Cabinet" refers to George Bush and the U.N. Rainbow Cabinet is the term George Bush used to describe his closest advisors when Jesse Jackson nailed him on the issue of minorities in his administration. It was still mostly made up of white males. An earlier version of the song can be found in the Noam Chomsky/Bad Religion 7". Blender recorded a fast and messy cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion.

Hellhole, the

The name given by the early Bad Religion to Greg's garage. They used to rehearse while Greg's mom was at work, upsetting all the neighbors. Local kids would drive by, hearing them play, and ask if they could hang out and watch. Greg: "it was bad, summer in the San Fernando valley is miserably hot, and the garage cooked, because it was all wood".

Henchman

Flakes recorded a funky cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion.

Henrau Kruschev

He is referred to as the "spiritual advisor" in Suffer's liner notes. He is a good friend of someone in Bad Religion who is "a little bit off his rocker" according to Greg and who hung around the studio every day they recorded Suffer; so they just wanted to include him -it was kind of a joke.

Hetson

Gregory Hetson was born in Brooklyn and moved to L.A when he was two. He lived in Sheepshead Bay. He got a hand-me-down acoustic guitar from his dad when he was ten. At about 11 he got an acoustic guitar and amp, a Harmony. Then he decided to quit guitar and play Little League, and didn't pick it up again until he was about 16. He went to his first punk rock show and came back thinking he couldn't do the Eddie Van Halen stuff but he could do that. He thinks he originally picked up the guitar because of two songs he heard on the radio: Up Around the Bend (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and Whole Lotta Love. He was in highschool with (vocalist/guitarist) Jeff McDonald and in 1979 they formed Redd Kross. That year they made an E.P. (Born Innocent, on Frontier, although he is not credited on the E.P.) and then he decided that they weren't serious enough musicians and he left the band. He then hooked up with Ron Reyes, who had sung for Black Flag for a while, and they eventually formed the Circle Jerks. In 1984, when Greg moved back to L.A., The Circles Jerks were taking a year off so Hetson was on holydays and he came up with the idea of resurrecting Bad Religion. He convinced Greg and that was it [God bless Hetson]. They did Back to the Known and he played all guitars. Before that he hadn't been in the band (he only knew them and had played a solo in Part III). Currently he lives in L.A. (his home is by Madonna's), is married and has a daughter who was born in January 1997. He works with some bands, producing and helping them out. Hetson has played ice hockey for the past 15 years. He is going to be recording Edmonton band Choke sometime in 1997. Hetson, along with partner Steve Krevick set up Upshot Records, with bands like Speedbuggy and Choke. He drinks "michelob, or bud US, dos equis , mex, and warsteiner germany -I tried a red hook and it was ok" Jay on the troubles with playing live with little Hetson: "Hetson, he's cool, he just has to get out of the way. Between me and Graffin we're pushing 400 lbs, Hetson weighs in at about 96 lbs. It's crunch time!!!".

Hetson -equipment

He uses a couple of mid-Seventies Marshall 100-watt amps with heads which were modified by an amp tech, Jerry Blaha in L.A. He has an old Marshall cabinet too and he's been playing a '71 Gibson SG since about 1984, with a Seymour Duncan Alnico pickup in the bridge position.

Hey hey, my my

classic song by Neil Young (from which Kurt Cobain got the line "it's better to burn out than to fade away" which he included in his suicide note). Bad Religion can be heard playing it during a soundcheck at the beginning of the Big Bang video.

Hits from the back door

Australian compilation featuring songs that have been played in the TV program Recovery. It includes Come Join Us (live). As far as I know it can only be found in Australia and features mostly Australian bands. It's a double CD, each CD has 17 tracks and Bad Religion are the last track on the 1st disc. Other bands include Spiderbait, Regurgitator, silverchair, Front End Loader, The Mark of Cain, Frenzal Rhomb, Unwritten Law, Beaverloop, etc., all recorded live in Recovery's studios on Saturday mornings (hence the name).

Hockey

In the early 90s Greg, Jay and Hetson all used to play hockey, but in different leagues, because Jay and Hetson lived in LA and Greg lived in NY. Hetson still lives in LA and still plays (he's a huge Kings fan). Greg and Jay also play, whenever they can. In 1998 they started the Bad Religion Hockey Club (Bad ReligionHC) and played their first Charity Game in Edmonton, Canada, with 600 fans in the audience. They also started selling the Bad Religion Hockey Club jerseys on tour. Greg explained that over the years they have met numerous other bands who also love to play hockey. "We always dreamed of starting a musicians hockey league that could be open to fans, musicians, and the media people. There is a league in Canada to which some of our friends belong. SNFU, and the Odds, are a part of the Musicians Hockey League, or MHL". Die Toten Hosen and The Leningrad Cowboys also play hockey (and are friends with Bad Religion) so another game may take place in the near future. If you have a local club that would like to play, get in touch with Bad Religion through Michelle.

Hockey

In a Buffalo Sabers hockey game they played Punk Rock Song during one of the time outs.

Holiday sampler

A promo CD sent to radio stations during the Xmas holidays of 1997. Has Leon (1.33 min), God Rest You Jerry Mentlemen (1.12) and Joy To The World (1.24). Greg uses this mock pious voice on all tracks which makes them sound worse than the original, live versions from the Kroq Acoustic Xmas gigs. God Rest You Jerry Mentlemen starts off as The Answer and is based on that song throughout, with different words. The promo is actually a 12 song sampler ( 3 apiece from Recipe, Stranger and Gray Race).

Honesty

Greg: "I mean everything I say and I practice what I expect from others". In a Manhattan gig, Hetson acknowledged having started Punk Rock Song with the wrong chord and then Greg started going on about the importance of being honest and how the world would be a much better place if everyone was as honest as Hetson.

Hooray for Me

All current Bad Religion members hate the lyrics to the song (by Brett). They told Brett they didn't agree with it but ended up recording it because they liked it musically. They said they would never play it live but they played it in Akron, Ohio, in June 2000.

Hope(lessness)

Brett: "I think it's great for people to be active politically, active in their communities and in humanitarian pursuits, but there's no actual solution within the system, nothing on a grand scale can be achieved".

Horns

Brett explained that the horns credit on Against the Grain was only a joke

there are no horns on the album. Funnily, some people have assured me they can hear them (on Against The Grain, Blenderhead, Flat Earth Society and Walk Away, so far).

How Could Hell Be Any Worse?

It was financed partly from some money left over (after having paid back the borrowed money) from the sales of the first EP and partly by a $1,000 loan from Brett's father. In Early 1982, Jim Mankey, the producer, took Bad Religion into a friend's studio, Track Records, in Hollywood. They recorded for four or five nights, working from midnight to 9 or 10 in the morning. Then, without warning Jay Ziskrout quit, "for some really stupid reason" according to Greg, like "you guys don't listen to me enough, fuck you, I quit". He walked out of the rehearsal studio, and left his drums and everything while the record was still being recorded. Then Pete came over (he was a fellow San Fernando Valley punk kid, but from a different high school) and basically forced himself on Bad Religion. He knocked on Greg's door and said, "Hey, I hear you need a drummer". Greg didn't even audition him, just "Okay we've got a drummer". After some quick practices in the Hellhole they returned to the studio and finished recording the album over a weekend. Originally only 6,000 copies were pressed, but the record sold much better than expected, almost 10,000 copies within a year, and eventually reaching 12,000 copies. Not only did they personally stuff all the albums by hand, but to relieve the tedium, they sometimes wrote little notes on the sleeve or autographed copies. Brett stole most of the money they made from the album to buy drugs, and then, while he was working at the Chameleon label, he made another pressing of the album without the rest of the band's knowledge, sold them to Chameleon, and never accounted for the money. It took them four years to get the album back from Chameleon, to whom Brett had licensed it, and then he / they placed it on Bad Religion 80-85. The first pressing of the album was pressed in the UK and distributed in the US by Suite Beat, and the first and second pressing both say (c) 1981 as the copyright date.

How Could Hell Be Any Worse?

Professor Stone wrote in 1995 (in the liner notes of the bootleg Radiation Hazard) that the album "nowadays is looked upon as being one of the greatest American punk albums ever". According to the record's credits, Pete plays the drums and timpany and Jay plays the timpany on some tracks. Pete's surname is misspelled Fienstone. Johnette gets thanked as does Greg Hetson (for guitar on Part III). Pity is spelled properly in the liner notes.

How Could Hell Be Any Worse?

Reissued as a vinyl only release in 1988. The only difference between the original and later edition is the catalogue number and Epitaph's address (the original had a Ventura Blvd address and the reissue had a Sunset Blvd address).

How the Juice Stole Xmas

The 1995 KROQ Xmas tape. It has a live performance of The First Noel, Fuck Christmas and Joy to the World from the 1994 Acoustic Xmas concert, and the CD calls that track "Leon".

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I

I Love My Computer

In the May 2001 Yahoo Internet Life Magazine they had the article "Sex and censorship online" and they quoted the song: "I love my computer, you're always in the mood. I get so turned on, when I turn on you. I love my computer you never ask for more. You can be princess or you can be my whore. And it's never been quite so easy."

I'm Not Angry

They covered this Elvis Costello song live in Petulema on january 6, 1994. Originally from Costello's 1977 album My Aim Is true.

I Saw the Light

On 11.12.1993 they played a remake of this Hank William's song. It was dedicated to Riki Rachtmann and Greg said he was a big Hank Williams fan. It appears on the bootleg "Christmas Show 11.12.93 + 8.1.91. Los Angeles". The lyrics are: "I wandered so aimless, My life filled with sin. I wouldn't let my dear saviour in. Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night. Praise the Lord I saw the light. I saw the light, I saw the light. No more darkness,no more night. Now I'm so happy, no sorrow in sight. Praise the Lord I saw the light. Just like a blind man I wandered along. Worries and fears I claimed for my own. Then like the blind man that God gave back his sight. Praise the Lord I saw the light. I was a fool to wander and astray, Straight is the path and narrow the way, Now I have traded the wrong for the right, Praise the Lord I saw the light".

I want Something More

Greg said this was his favorite Brett song (I'm not sure whether he was being serious).

I Want to Conquer the World

Astream recorded a faster version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion. It's got a synthesiser and Dexter Holland-like vocals. They sing "give all the idiots a new Bad Religion" and "then I'll save the seals". Greg also sings stuff like "give all you dumb fucks a new Bad Religion".

Incl. 5 tracks from the forthcoming album

A CD promo released in 1997 by Dragnet including roughmixes of Hear It, Victims Of The Revolution, At The Mercy Of Imbeciles, Raise Your Voice and Strange Denial. It was sent to radio stations while No Substance was still being mixed.

Ignorance

Greg: "I guess it might sound like a cliché but what makes me angry is simple ignorance. Like critics who say that all Bad religion songs sound the same or critics who say that our music's become more commercial. 'Cause those are people who are clearly ignorant of Bad Religion, but if they can turn it into a coherent argument and make a valid point, then it's respectable. But today I think most of the problems in the world stem from ignorance and fear."

Incomplete

There is a picture disc of the Incomplete promo with News From the Front as b-side. Troublemakers recorded a cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion, with more vocals tracks than the original, but the vocals are muffled by the guitars.

Indie labels

Brett: "I think indie labels generally speaking are way cooler than majors. There's no question about it. On the other hand, almost every indie label is not a non-profit endeavor (…I if the indie label becomes successful and the cool music they're putting out gets popular, then I think inevitably they'll become very similar to a major. You look at Virgin Records, started out as a small indie, and I dunno how many years later sold for 750 million dollars and became part of EMI. Before that time that it did sell, it really was still an indie. It begs the question, what is an indie? If the next NOFX record went multi-platinum, like Nirvana Nevermind even if I didn't really change anything at Epitaph, wouldn't we be analogous to a major label and all the bad things they represent? And if so why, and what is the essence of what makes a major label bad? If it's the fact that major labels put out crappy music, it wouldn't be a fair assessment to say that Epitaph is any different than it ever was, but if the criteria for judging a label is that it can't sell a lot of records, then yeah, y'know what I mean? I think about it a lot".

Indie mentality

Jay explained that they started up Epitaph and took it to its fruition as far as Bad Religion was concerned, and "never once in my lifetime did I think I was cool for doing that. Every person on the outside wanted to keep handing us this DIY flag, 'How cool you guys are, how indie.' I don't want this fucking flag, I'm not going to fly this thing, I don't care about that shit, I'm doing this because I have to. As a concept it's fine, but it's not why I was doing it, and it's not why anyone in the band was doing it. Basically, it even wasn't true, we're total geeks; losers, that's us".

Individual

The song is sometimes called Individual and sometimes Individuals. At the beginning of the song you can hear "ahh forget it".

Individual freedom

Brett: "Power is the freedom to do what you want. Everyone has that power, but it's a question of whether they realize it or not". Greg: "many would say, 'Well that's just the nature of mankind to be group oriented'. But I disagree. And I have a little bit if knowledge on the subject because I'm getting my Ph.D in evolution. I think that the human mind is unique among all other forms of life in that it can spontaneously create unique thoughts and behaviors. Instead of rewarding that uniqueness we, for some reason probably because of cultural and social necessity, we chastise unique behavior and reward conformity".

Infected

Brett explained Infected is about an abusive obsessive relationship between a man and a woman. "I want to drill you like an ocean" is a metaphor for violating an unspoiled woman, or in other words making love to her in a violent or violating fashion, much the way an oil rig "penetrates" the pristine sea. He said this is one of his favorite and most elegant metaphors (because of its brevity) and one of his simplest metaphors from a song that is very important to him. Clearly Greg hasn't heard any of this, because during a gig he changed the lyrics to something like: "You're clear, this line doesn't make sense, want to drill you like an ocean, but I don't know what that means, 'cause I didn't write it." The Infected Live EP CD has The Handshake, Recipe For Hate, Infected, 21st Century..., Struck a Nerve and Stranger than Fiction. These tracks were also released as two singles called Infected 1 and Infected 2. Infected was also the third of a trilogy of muscular singles from Stranger than Fiction; it had the radio edit (3:35) and the LP version (4:08).

Influences

Bad Religion's beginnings were influenced by the Beatles, Todd Rundgren, Black Flag, The Germs, folk music, Elvis Costello, etc.

Inner Logic

Greg: "I hope people learn to question what seems obvious, because usually there is deeper meaning to it that is contrary to what appears on the surface. There is an inner logic". "The inner logic [in the song] is that truth that no one tells you about and that you have to learn by yourself......that the secret of America lies in its protection of corporate profits above everything else. All of our institutions are erected to protect corporations, and bolster their profits. Very few people are aware of this, particularly those who work at corporations like medical care facilities, or government agencies, or drug companies, who think that they are functioning to help Americans live better. But they cannot deny that their ability to help is limited totally by their ability to make a large profit for the company. Therefore, they, like the US government, are less concerned with people's well-being than they are with the economic well-being of their company..... welcome to America".

Insted

They have supported Bad Religion on tour and thank them in their album "What we Believe".

Into the Unknown

In 1983 they were getting disillusioned with the punk scene, because it wasn't as open and accepting as in 1980. According to Greg, around late 1982 it started to get a gang mentality; so since the scene let them down, they in turn (Greg thinks in retrospect) let the scene down too, by going into the studio and doing a record they just wanted to do, without worrying about the constraints of their style, and not worrying about the marketing. The album was perceived by many to be responsible for the destruction of the SoCal punk scene, and Bad Religion was a pariah because of it.

Into the Unknown

It had 10,000 copies pressed. Jay said they were almost all returned, including one bootleg (they gave him his money back too). After they were returned, they put them in the Bomp warehouse (Brett worked there for a bit and was dating a girl from there called Suzi Shaw). Bomp sold most of the albums without telling the band. When they found out, they stopped it and Jay said only about 300 copies were left at that time (which he still kept in his garage in the late 90s and probably to this day). Suzy Shaw wrote a letter to Goldmine magazine about how she sold copies from the Bomp warehouse after Brett lived with her for a year without paying for anything, so she thought she had every right to do it. She was quite critical of Jay saying 9,700 copies were sold. She says it was like 2,000. The album can still be found on the internet (as of late 20th Century), e.g. on e-bay where it usually sells for 100 dollars or more. Somehow a few Into The Unknowns have ended up in Spain: an American guy walked into a record store in Madrid in February 2001 and they had an original copy which he bought for $75. I myself found a CD copy of it (obviously a bootleg; with the same artwork as the original) in the Virgin Megastore in Barcelona and bought it for $12! Apart from this CD bootleg, there is another bootleg CD with a drawing of a monster on the sleeve (on pink or yellow thin cardboard -i.e. there are two versions of the boot). Three song titles are incorrect and even Bad Religion is misspelled. It is produced by Devil's Double Records (former East Germany?). There is also a bootleg ITU which is also a 12" vynil and has the same drawing as the original but has no "purple haze" out of the top corner but rather a blue one, in the same vein as the rest of the blue on it, i.e. it's basically bluer. And the lyric sheet is just like photocopy paper. It was released in 1992 by the label Rock Music. Brett bought Greg a Roland Juno 6 synthesiser and Greg used it to write all his songs in Into the Unknown, which Brett now hates. Greg: "I was a kid, who didn't have any concept of historical constraint or how to make your audience happy. I was just doing what I wanted to do". Jay: "At the time there wasn't much of a scene left in L.A. It's exactly what a 17 year old punk would do, go against the grain. It wasn't so much courage, as it was what was stated in the opening, he [Greg] and Brett did it because they liked it. Well, and Brett was on drugs. hahaha". Jay: "it sounds like a band progressing musically, but it also sounds like a band doing something and not understanding the values of it". "The only problem I had with the album musically [he quit Bad Religion as they started to record the first song], was (...) on the album he [Greg] just used one polyrhythm, so it was kind of monotonous. There was a lot of keyboard and monotony in there, he didn't change anything (...) I don't think it was the song so much as the attitude, the whole process of making the record was kind of backwards to me, it didn't seem right. We did one song where I thought 'OK, let's go on to the next song' but we spent the next eight hours doing overdubs, putting little bits and pieces on it. And I thought, 'Why are we doing this?' In terms of the sentiments of the songs and the content, the album was very Bad Religion, it was very similar to what had been done lyrically. The sentiment of the band hadn't changed, the only thing that had changed was the sonics". Greg: "I think ITU is like early REM; if it had come a couple of years later it probably would have been as popular as REM. That's the irony there. The keyboards were very straightforward, distorted sounding that mocked what the guitar was playing. There was still good song sensibility, but there was some ridiculous parts to the album too. All in all, because it's such a secret, people expect it to be an embarrassment, but it's not".

Into the Unknown

A band from Germany called Mars Moles released an album called Invite Punk Religion Back Into The Unknown. It's an LP with 16 songs, including all 8 songs from the Into The Unknown album in punk rock versions, plus 8 other songs on the B-side (including a Barbie Girl cover). The vinyl is multicoloured and limited to 100

200 copies (6 different variations). Great artwork; only available on LP. Available from Nejc Jakopin (<a href="mailto:sgk79ja@unidui.uni-duisburg.de">sgk79ja@unidui.uni-duisburg.de</a> for 15DM or the equivalent in dollars.

IRC

Jay often joins #badreligion, e.g. he showed up on mid-January 1997 and told everyone there that Tested was to be released soon. On 2.11.1997 Brett joined #epitaph for more than an hour (this was previously announced in, at least, the Bad ReligionML) and was grilled by those there.

Iron Maiden

Bad Religion watched the Iron Maiden video "Live after Death" a lot on the European tour 2000, and they were thinking about adopting some ideas from their show for their own, like having monsters on stage or setting the Suffer Boy on fire, build catwalks and have Greg Graffin wear a feather mask during songs and that kind of stuff.

Italy

Bobby remembers a festival in Milan as the weirdest Bad Religion show ever. They were playing with Neil Young, Booker T and the MGs, 4 Non Blondes and James (i.e. mellow stuff). Bobby: "Then here comes Bad Religion; no one clapped, no one booed, no one did anything, they just looked. They were in shock; they were like, 'Oh my god, what the fuck is this?' You just laugh about it, what else can you do?".

It's Only Over When...

Flakes recorded a cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is Tribute to Bad Religion. It's funky and played with a single guitar which sounds poor. One line is sang a capella.

Ithaca studio, the

This is just the studio Greg has in the basement of his home, where he composes and records himself. The official name is Polypterus Studios. The Universal Cynic and The Dodo were recorded here and in Jay's opinion they sound as well as the songs on The Gray Race. American Lesion was recorded here too of course.

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

J

James Hutton (1727-1797)

The eminent 18th century Scottish geologist-physician-farmer and founder of modern geoscience. In 1795 he published The Theory of the Earth and proposed the Principle of Uniformitarianism. His revolutionary thinking laid the groundwork for a more scientific and rational approach to geology. The quote in No Control is slightly changed. The original is "We find no vestige of a beginning,

no prospect of an end" and it is from his famous book Theory of the Earth. The Principle of Uniformitarianism states that the present is the key to the past -geologic processes operating today have operated throughout Earth history and we can compare ancient rocks to similar rocks forming today and assume that they developed in the same manner. Prior to Hutton, people believed that Earth's features like mountains, valley, and oceans had been produced by a few great catastrophes (catastrophism). He also authored the concept of the rock cycle, which depicts the interrelationships between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (who invented the concept of Gaia) acknowledged Hutton's concept of a living Earth as a forerunner to the Gaia hypothesis. It was Hutton who suggested that the proper study of the Earth should be known as "geophysiology".

James Hutton (1727-1797)

The bit of the book 'Theory of the Earth' where the famous quotation on No Control comes from is this: "We have now got to the end of our reasoning; we have no data further to conclude immediately from that which actually is: But we have got enough; we have the satisfaction to find, that in nature there is wisdom, system, and consistency. For having, in the natural history of this earth, seen a succession of worlds, we may from this conclude that there is a system in nature; in like manner as, from seeing revolutions of the planets, it is concluded, that there is a system by which they are intended to continue those revolutions. But if the succession of worlds is established in the system of nature, it is in vain to look for any thing higher in the origin of the earth. The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, -no prospect of an end."

Jawbreaker

They did a live cover version of Chasing the Wild Goose.

Jay

Jay Bentley was born in Kansas; Greg grew up in Wisconsin. They ended up in the same junior high school, Hale, then went to El Camino High School together. When he was asked to join Bad Religion the band didn't have a bassist (it was Ziskrout, Greg and Brett) and Greg says they didn't care much either. They had already written and played Sensory Overload, World War III and Politics without a bassist and it sounded alright to them. They only knew three bassists so Greg went up to Jay in school and asked him if he wanted to be in a band. Jay answered "Yeah, I can play guitar". -"We've got a guitarist, we need a bass player". -"Well I don't play bass". -"Well, it's a four string thing...". -"Well, I know what it is!!". -"But, I don't have a bass, I don't play bass, but I want to be in a band, so OK". He went to sears, bought a bass, and it took minutes to learn to play. "Hey, these four strings are the top four strings on a guitar, cool. No chords, I get to play one string at a time; I can do this easy, all you've got to do is follow the guitar player". He says it was pretty much what he knew how to do on a guitar anyway, "play Smoke On The Water on one string!". He quit Bad Religion in 1983 while they were recording the first song for Into the Unknown. Even during the end of his time with Bad Religion, he had been playing with another local punk band, Wasted Youth. Just after he quit Bad Religion, he was asked to join TSOL, which led to Jay opening for himself in Santa Barbara. Bad Religion had one final show booked, which he agreed to play, opening for TSOL. At this point, he was actually in three bands at the same time. When original bassist Mike Roche returned to TSOL, Jay left and joined the band's singer, Jack Greggors (a man of many surnames, today he is Jack Grisham or The Joykiller), in the short-lived Cathedral of Tears. Then Wasted Youth underwent a line-up change, at which point he quit, and suddenly he wasn't in any band at all. He sold his gear and settled into a well paid job as a machinist, making precision parts for airplanes and space shuttles. Jay: "It was cool. Some of the jobs were ones were you couldn't talk to the guy making another part, because you might figure out what it was. 'What do you think it is?' 'Looks like a hand grenade, man.' I thought it was hilarious. My pay was pretty good, and I was dating the boss' daughter, so that helped. But everybody who'd been doing it for years was missing fingers! I kept saying, 'I've got to get out of here.' I wasn't playing in a band, but I knew I wanted to play music again, and I wanted to have all my fingers". In 1986, Greg called and asked if he'd like to rejoin. At first he said no, mostly because he wasn't sure what Bad Religion sounded like, and didn't want to play in front of fighting crowds. Greg insisted that things had changed, and told him their set consisted of songs from How Could Hell. He agreed to play one show, and had so much fun that he stayed. By the late 80s / early 90s he was working on motorcycles for the motion pictures. In his own words "when you see in a movie when the guy crashes on the bicycle (...) then when they cut on the scene I go in and put the bike back together so they can ride it again". He also worked in Epitaph for many years with / for Brett and eventually quit during the Recipe for Hate Tour because the tours were getting longer and he felt he couldn't cope with the workload and there was no reason why someone else couldn't do it for him. He said he doesn't like the songs he writes, he feels insecure during the process of writing although in the end they may end up pretty good, so usually he scraps the songs. Plus, when Brett was in the band there were plenty of songs he and Greg wrote constantly so he didn't feel he had to write. He also said when he writes songs they sound too much like Elvis Costello so he feels they don't belong with Bad Religion. He now lives in Bowen Island, British Columbia (Canada). He divorced Michela, with whom he had two sons: Miles and Hunter. The kids don't like daddy's music; they like The Pogues. In 1997 he built (by himself) a garage for his four guitars and for Michela's car (and for his kids' future band he said half-jokingly). He also goes fishing. He's a really nice guy. Michael Smith from the Doomed Clowns (the best Bad Religion band in the world after Bad Religion) once told me "Jay is an extremely down to earth person. We saw him sitting by himself after they had some sound problems during a show in Orlando, Florida. The fact that he was a bit down because the show didn't go off perfectly impressed me. After all these years, it seems he still feels everything they write and do and very much enjoys playing with Bad Religion".

Jay -musical preferences

He likes The Jam, Buzzcocks, The Clash, Nirvana, Elvis Costello, Supersuckers, etc. Doesn't like Pennywise, thinks The Daredevils are garbage, liked Coffin Break a lot, and thinks NOFX and Clawhammer are brilliant. But he says he's more a fan of powerpop than harcore/punk.

Jay -quotations

"It seems like we reinvent ourselves every four years".

Jay Ziskrout

He was the first musician Greg met in school at San Fernando Valley; then they recruited Brett. He was the only drummer on the Bad Religion EP. Then, while he was recording How Could Hell... (over the course of four or five nights, working from midnight to 9 or 10 in the morning) he quit, without warning. According to Greg it was for some really stupid reason, like "you guys don't listen to me enough, fuck you, I quit". He walked out of the rehearsal studio, and left his drums and everything while they were halfway finished with the album. Then Pete came over and they finished the album with him. Jay played in a band called Electric Peace after he left Bad Religion. He is currently the boss at Grita!, a label devoted mostly to foreign punk bands that sing in Spanish.

Jens Geiger

Their tour manager. He's German and taught Greg how to speak German.

Jerry Brown

He was supported by Brett in 1992.

JFK

In Austin Greg told the audiences that he's visited Austin over a million times and still can't find the book depository where Kennedy was shot.

Jim Lindberg

Pennywise's singer. Did backing vocals for Marked.

Jim Mankey (Concrete Blonde's guitarist)

When in 1981 Bad Religion went to Goldstar to have their first EP mixed, Johnette Napolitano was sitting at the front desk and she was so impressed with the stuff she asked them to have her boyfriend Jim produce their first album; she assured them he would get them studio time and stuff. They accepted and he produced How Could Hell Be Any Worse in 1982.

John Albert

Drummed for Bad Religion after Pete left for England and before Lucky joined.

John Peel Sessions, the

They recorded them in England during the Recipe for Hate tour. They are available as a 7" with Kerosene, Recipe for Hate, American Jesus and What Can You Do?

Johnette Napolitano (from Concrete Blonde)

When Bad Religion took the recordings of what had to be their first EP to Goldstar Recorders for mastering, Johnette was the receptionist at the front desk of Goldstar. Back then she was just a wannabe singer and a fellow punk (with dyed purple hair and all). Bad Religion gave her a copy of the EP and she so impressed that she asked them to have her boyfriend produce their next album; she assured them he would get them studio time and stuff. Of course she became famous with Concrete Blonde and so did her boyfriend Jim Mankey, future guitarist for Concrete Blonde, and a founding member of Sparks. 12 years later she did some backing vocals on Struck a Nerve and then co-wrote Television with Brett.

Johnny B.Goode

By Chuck Berry. There is a 7" with cover versions of Johnny B.Goode (live at the Skylight Club, 3.31.19/83), Louie Louie, Rock and Roll and Riding the Storm Out (live tracks from the early 80s). The cover is yellow with two naked women in the water waving at another woman. There is a clear vinyl release (red cover) and a normal release. Also found (together with the other three covers) in the CD bootleg Christmas show 11.12.'93 + 8.1.94 Los Angeles.

Jokes

In an interview with Fat Mike from NOFX, he was saying that when he plays live he doesn't like to have a predetermined set of jokes, stories or whatever to tell the audience every night, he is more into improvisation; he mentioned Bad Religion as going the other way, he said they tell the same jokes every night to the crowd, and they laugh just to let the people see that they are laughing, but they are not really convinced of what they are doing.

Jon Branagan

Works for the William Morris Agency and functioned (functions?) as agent for Bad Religion.

Joy to the World

They played it together with Noel. Found in the CD bootleg Stranger than Pulp Fiction and in KROQ Christmas Party 1994, where the two songs are entitled Christmas Medley. They recorded it for the Holiday Sampler. The lyrics on the Holiday Sampler are: (Ladies and gentlemen of the community of angels

Jurassic Park

Greg went to the movies to see this and he enjoyed it, but was frustrated that the main characters (Sam Neill and Laura Dern) didn't really do much as paleontologists; he said they could have been ordinary people instead.

James Hutton (1727-1797)

The eminent 18th century Scottish geologist-physician-farmer and founder of modern geoscience. In 1795 he published The Theory of the Earth and proposed the Principle of Uniformitarianism. His revolutionary thinking laid the groundwork for a more scientific and rational approach to geology. The quote in No Control is slightly changed. The original is "We find no vestige of a beginning,

no prospect of an end" and it is from his famous book Theory of the Earth. The Principle of Uniformitarianism states that the present is the key to the past -geologic processes operating today have operated throughout Earth history and we can compare ancient rocks to similar rocks forming today and assume that they developed in the same manner. Prior to Hutton, people believed that Earth's features like mountains, valley, and oceans had been produced by a few great catastrophes (catastrophism). He also authored the concept of the rock cycle, which depicts the interrelationships between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (who invented the concept of Gaia) acknowledged Hutton's concept of a living Earth as a forerunner to the Gaia hypothesis. It was Hutton who suggested that the proper study of the Earth should be known as "geophysiology".

James Hutton (1727-1797)

The bit of the book 'Theory of the Earth' where the famous quotation on No Control comes from is this: "We have now got to the end of our reasoning; we have no data further to conclude immediately from that which actually is: But we have got enough; we have the satisfaction to find, that in nature there is wisdom, system, and consistency. For having, in the natural history of this earth, seen a succession of worlds, we may from this conclude that there is a system in nature; in like manner as, from seeing revolutions of the planets, it is concluded, that there is a system by which they are intended to continue those revolutions. But if the succession of worlds is established in the system of nature, it is in vain to look for any thing higher in the origin of the earth. The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning, -no prospect of an end."

Jawbreaker

They did a live cover version of Chasing the Wild Goose.

Jay

Jay Bentley was born in Kansas; Greg grew up in Wisconsin. They ended up in the same junior high school, Hale, then went to El Camino High School together. When he was asked to join Bad Religion the band didn't have a bassist (it was Ziskrout, Greg and Brett) and Greg says they didn't care much either. They had already written and played Sensory Overload, World War III and Politics without a bassist and it sounded alright to them. They only knew three bassists so Greg went up to Jay in school and asked him if he wanted to be in a band. Jay answered "Yeah, I can play guitar". -"We've got a guitarist, we need a bass player". -"Well I don't play bass". -"Well, it's a four string thing...". -"Well, I know what it is!!". -"But, I don't have a bass, I don't play bass, but I want to be in a band, so OK". He went to sears, bought a bass, and it took minutes to learn to play. "Hey, these four strings are the top four strings on a guitar, cool. No chords, I get to play one string at a time; I can do this easy, all you've got to do is follow the guitar player". He says it was pretty much what he knew how to do on a guitar anyway, "play Smoke On The Water on one string!". He quit Bad Religion in 1983 while they were recording the first song for Into the Unknown. Even during the end of his time with Bad Religion, he had been playing with another local punk band, Wasted Youth. Just after he quit Bad Religion, he was asked to join TSOL, which led to Jay opening for himself in Santa Barbara. Bad Religion had one final show booked, which he agreed to play, opening for TSOL. At this point, he was actually in three bands at the same time. When original bassist Mike Roche returned to TSOL, Jay left and joined the band's singer, Jack Greggors (a man of many surnames, today he is Jack Grisham or The Joykiller), in the short-lived Cathedral of Tears. Then Wasted Youth underwent a line-up change, at which point he quit, and suddenly he wasn't in any band at all. He sold his gear and settled into a well paid job as a machinist, making precision parts for airplanes and space shuttles. Jay: "It was cool. Some of the jobs were ones were you couldn't talk to the guy making another part, because you might figure out what it was. 'What do you think it is?' 'Looks like a hand grenade, man.' I thought it was hilarious. My pay was pretty good, and I was dating the boss' daughter, so that helped. But everybody who'd been doing it for years was missing fingers! I kept saying, 'I've got to get out of here.' I wasn't playing in a band, but I knew I wanted to play music again, and I wanted to have all my fingers". In 1986, Greg called and asked if he'd like to rejoin. At first he said no, mostly because he wasn't sure what Bad Religion sounded like, and didn't want to play in front of fighting crowds. Greg insisted that things had changed, and told him their set consisted of songs from How Could Hell. He agreed to play one show, and had so much fun that he stayed. By the late 80s / early 90s he was working on motorcycles for the motion pictures. In his own words "when you see in a movie when the guy crashes on the bicycle (...) then when they cut on the scene I go in and put the bike back together so they can ride it again". He also worked in Epitaph for many years with / for Brett and eventually quit during the Recipe for Hate Tour because the tours were getting longer and he felt he couldn't cope with the workload and there was no reason why someone else couldn't do it for him. He said he doesn't like the songs he writes, he feels insecure during the process of writing although in the end they may end up pretty good, so usually he scraps the songs. Plus, when Brett was in the band there were plenty of songs he and Greg wrote constantly so he didn't feel he had to write. He also said when he writes songs they sound too much like Elvis Costello so he feels they don't belong with Bad Religion. He now lives in Bowen Island, British Columbia (Canada). He divorced Michela, with whom he had two sons: Miles and Hunter. The kids don't like daddy's music; they like The Pogues. In 1997 he built (by himself) a garage for his four guitars and for Michela's car (and for his kids' future band he said half-jokingly). He also goes fishing. He's a really nice guy. Michael Smith from the Doomed Clowns (the best Bad Religion band in the world after Bad Religion) once told me "Jay is an extremely down to earth person. We saw him sitting by himself after they had some sound problems during a show in Orlando, Florida. The fact that he was a bit down because the show didn't go off perfectly impressed me. After all these years, it seems he still feels everything they write and do and very much enjoys playing with Bad Religion".

Jay -musical preferences

He likes The Jam, Buzzcocks, The Clash, Nirvana, Elvis Costello, Supersuckers, etc. Doesn't like Pennywise, thinks The Daredevils are garbage, liked Coffin Break a lot, and thinks NOFX and Clawhammer are brilliant. But he says he's more a fan of powerpop than harcore/punk.

Jay -quotations

"It seems like we reinvent ourselves every four years".

Jay Ziskrout

He was the first musician Greg met in school at San Fernando Valley; then they recruited Brett. He was the only drummer on the Bad Religion EP. Then, while he was recording How Could Hell... (over the course of four or five nights, working from midnight to 9 or 10 in the morning) he quit, without warning. According to Greg it was for some really stupid reason, like "you guys don't listen to me enough, fuck you, I quit". He walked out of the rehearsal studio, and left his drums and everything while they were halfway finished with the album. Then Pete came over and they finished the album with him. Jay played in a band called Electric Peace after he left Bad Religion. He is currently the boss at Grita!, a label devoted mostly to foreign punk bands that sing in Spanish.

Jens Geiger

Their tour manager. He's German and taught Greg how to speak German.

Jerry Brown

He was supported by Brett in 1992.

JFK

In Austin Greg told the audiences that he's visited Austin over a million times and still can't find the book depository where Kennedy was shot.

Jim Lindberg

Pennywise's singer. Did backing vocals for Marked.

Jim Mankey (Concrete Blonde's guitarist)

When in 1981 Bad Religion went to Goldstar to have their first EP mixed, Johnette Napolitano was sitting at the front desk and she was so impressed with the stuff she asked them to have her boyfriend Jim produce their first album; she assured them he would get them studio time and stuff. They accepted and he produced How Could Hell Be Any Worse in 1982.

John Albert

Drummed for Bad Religion after Pete left for England and before Lucky joined.

John Peel Sessions, the

They recorded them in England during the Recipe for Hate tour. They are available as a 7" with Kerosene, Recipe for Hate, American Jesus and What Can You Do?

Johnette Napolitano (from Concrete Blonde)

When Bad Religion took the recordings of what had to be their first EP to Goldstar Recorders for mastering, Johnette was the receptionist at the front desk of Goldstar. Back then she was just a wannabe singer and a fellow punk (with dyed purple hair and all). Bad Religion gave her a copy of the EP and she so impressed that she asked them to have her boyfriend produce their next album; she assured them he would get them studio time and stuff. Of course she became famous with Concrete Blonde and so did her boyfriend Jim Mankey, future guitarist for Concrete Blonde, and a founding member of Sparks. 12 years later she did some backing vocals on Struck a Nerve and then co-wrote Television with Brett.

Johnny B.Goode

By Chuck Berry. There is a 7" with cover versions of Johnny B.Goode (live at the Skylight Club, 3.31.19/83), Louie Louie, Rock and Roll and Riding the Storm Out (live tracks from the early 80s). The cover is yellow with two naked women in the water waving at another woman. There is a clear vinyl release (red cover) and a normal release. Also found (together with the other three covers) in the CD bootleg Christmas show 11.12.'93 + 8.1.94 Los Angeles.

Jokes

In an interview with Fat Mike from NOFX, he was saying that when he plays live he doesn't like to have a predetermined set of jokes, stories or whatever to tell the audience every night, he is more into improvisation; he mentioned Bad Religion as going the other way, he said they tell the same jokes every night to the crowd, and they laugh just to let the people see that they are laughing, but they are not really convinced of what they are doing.

Jon Branagan

Works for the William Morris Agency and functioned (functions?) as agent for Bad Religion.

Joy to the World

They played it together with Noel. Found in the CD bootleg Stranger than Pulp Fiction and in KROQ Christmas Party 1994, where the two songs are entitled Christmas Medley. They recorded it for the Holiday Sampler. The lyrics on the Holiday Sampler are: (Ladies and gentlemen of the community of angels

Jurassic Park

Greg went to the movies to see this and he enjoyed it, but was frustrated that the main characters (Sam Neill and Laura Dern) didn't really do much as paleontologists; he said they could have been ordinary people instead.

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

K

Keith Morris

The first Black Flag vocalist in 1978, did backing vocals for Operation Rescue (but it says on Against the grain so you should know this).

Kerrang

It published a selection of punk rockers' posters (one of them was Bad Religion with Brett) and entitled it "Watch out!". They gave No Substance 4 out of 5, saying it was the best Bad Religion album since Against The Grain. Mind you they say that for every record released by over-the-hill bands (Motorhead's best since Ace Of Spades, Ramones best since Rocket To Russia etc).

Kevin Smith

The director of Clerks (which features Leaders and Followers in the soundtrack). He told me he doesn't like Bad Religion.

Kids

Jay: "I feel like now my attitude has softened to the point were, yeah, I’m still pretty convinced the planet is fucked and the people in general are fucked, but that maybe I can teach my children not to be fucked. Maybe you can make a little world where people aren’t fucked. Maybe that’s a sick way of looking at it; using your kids to make yourself feel better". Jay's kids went out once on tour. He says "It’s difficult for kids. They’re like “what do we do?” They run around the club and you’re like “fuck, this is not cool.” My wife doesn’t like it".

Kix

An 80's band. They reviewed the video for Infected in the section "celebrity rate a video" of Hit Parader Magazine: "This is everything I'm sick to death of. The shorts and the battle boots and the stupid shirts and the dumb haircuts; absolutely no concern for what the crowd thinks of how they look or how they perform. I hope that's over with. I think people have to realize we're supposed to entertain people, not gross them out". "a little more distortion on those guitars, guys (laughs)". "It's nothing I haven't heard in the past five years that every other band hasn't done before. If people like this kind of music, they'll like this band. I've had my fill of it. It's time for some fresh music and a fresh look to come back. It always thrilled me to see bands like Aerosmith and the Stones because they went out of their way to look so damn cool that you idolized them for their coolness, the presentation of their show and their music, and this band obviously don't have that. We try to put that into our shows and these guys don't have a clue. I'm sure they don't care, which I guess is the attitude of this music".

Kreator

A metal band. In the filmclip for their song "Betrayer," one of the members is wearing a crossbuster shirt.

KROQ

The radio station Bad Religion have been in contact with since the very beginning of the whole thing. Their first E.P. got played in the program Rodney on the KROQ in one occasion when they were interviewing the Circle Jerks live and Hetson took the tape with him and insisted that they played it. That was the first-ever radio appearance for Bad Religion and in July 1998 Bobby found a tape of it (the only copy known to exist so far). In the mid nineties Bad Religion was still doing Xmas gigs for KROQ. Every year KROQ releases a Xmas tape and they are in years 1004 and 1995. The Xmas show from 1994 can be found in several bootlegs. Brett was among the names mentioned in the "Thanks to" section of 1996's "Kevin and Bean's Christmas time in the LBC" KROQ Christmas tape, although he didn't play.

Kurt Cobain

His ex-manager, Danny Goldberg, pursued and signed Bad Religion to Atlantic. In a Seattle concert (3/30/1996), Greg sang "if I thought I'd make a difference, I'd 'Kurt Cobain' myself today".

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

L

Languages

Bobby's grandparents were Mexican but he hardly speaks any Spanish. Greg speaks some German and some Spanish. Their tour manager Jens is German and he taught Greg. Greg also studied Spanish for two years in the mid eighties; he remembers most of it and manages to say lots of things in Spanish when they play in Spain. He often asks the audience what they call a given word ("water" is a classic) in their language. Once he said "some people just don't have a propensity for languages -I am one of them" (just being modest). According to Hetson, Greg speaks more Spanish than German. Brian speaks "pretty good French", also according to Hetson. Their ex-sound engineer on tour (Ronnie Kimball) speaks bits and pieces of four languages. Hetson just feels guilty that he doesn't speak any foreign language. This is the joke he tells their fans when he's playing outside the US: "what do you call a guy who speaks many languages? Multilingual. …a guy who speaks two? Bilingual … a guy who speaks only one? American."

Latchkey kids

Toast recorded a funny cover version for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion. Impossible to understand a word.

Leads

Brett said all his and Hetson's leads were improvised (it's not clear whether he was referring to all the albums or only to No Control).

Len Smith

The creator and maintainer of the Bad Religion mailing list. He worked for Epitaph for a while (contracted by Brett) and created other lists for Epitaph bands. When Andy took over Epitaph he sacked Len.

Leon

This is just what the CD How the Juice Stole Xmas calls the tracks The First Noel and Joy to the World.

Leonard Peltier tribute

They should contribute, in the near future, to a benefit compilation for Leonard Peltier. The whole operation should be supervised by Reed Mullin, Corrosion of Conformity's drummer. Hetson explained that Reed contacted them and they accepted his proposal "with great pleasure" 'cause "it's a cause that really needs being supported". Too right. If someone does not know who Leonard is, watch the promo vid for Rage Against The Machine's Freedom (one of the greatest songs/videos ever (I sign that -Roger!)). (addition in late 2000: it never happened).

Let's Do It

This is a song originally by Cole Porter that was recorded by Graffin and Joan Jett. It's uptempo and there's a lot of background harmonies, but it's the Blackhearts singing so it's not like the oozin' aahs. It's like a revved up 50s song. It was recorded for the movie "Tank Girl" and then Atlantic got into a pissing match with someone about using Greg so they deleted his vocals and added Paul Westerberg's for the released version. It's found on the Laguna Tunes compilation.

Letterman Show, the

They played there just after their San Diego show of the Stranger than Fiction Tour (1994). Letterman brought some senior citizens up on the stage to watch Bad Religion and told them that the next guests' name were Bad Religion and an old man replied "Me and my wife are very religious". They played Infected and Greg sang "no-one, someone, anyone, Dave". Jay actually chimed in with the Dave part. Bobby was twirling the drumstick between his fingers and Dave went "look what the drummer can do!".

Lickity Split

D.C. band. It was originally the first lead singer from Avail, two guys from another D.C. band called the Suspects, and one guy from D.C. ska legends The Pietasters. Since early 1997 Brian is their new guitarist. He played his first gig with them at the Black Cat in D.C. with Les Stitches and the Cretins.

Limp

Hetson produced an E.P. for them.

Line-ups

1. 1: Graffin/Gurewitz/------/Bentley/Ziskrout (Bad Religion EP) / #2: Graffin/Gurewitz/------/Bentley/Finestone (How Could Hell...) / #3: Graffin/Gurewitz/------/Dedona/Goldman (Into the Unknown) / #4: Graffin/--------/Hetson/Gallegos/Finestone (Back to the Known) / #5: Graffin/Gurewitz/Hetson/Bentley/Finestone (till Against the Grain) / #6: Graffin/Gurewitz/Hetson/Bentley/Schayer (till Stranger than Fiction) / #7: Graffin/Baker/Hetson/Bentley/Schayer.

Live -bad moments

A kid got the tips of three of his fingers cut off at a California show because the front barricade was made out of a bunch of old bike racks (they had to stop playing to look for the fingers). In a show in Reseda at the Country Club during the Against the Grain tour there was a girl in trouble in the audience and because the security was too lame to go help, Jay took matters in his own hands and stopped playing during "I Want To Conquer the World." He jumped into the crowd and pulled the injured girl onto the stage to safety. At the Dr. Music Festival a guy got to the stage and started calling Greg sell-out, fat and bald (in Spanish) while patting him on the belly and the head. Greg was just laughing and telling him I'd rather be fat than short like you. Then the guy punched Greg and Greg immediately grabbed him and furiously dragged him offstage. During a concert in the night club Erne in the town of Oiartzun, near Donosti (the Basque Country) 3,000 people in the audience were slamming to the first or second song of the show (Recipe For Hate or 21st Century Digital Boy -accounts differ) and jumping in unison when suddenly the floor collapsed sending hundreds plummeting down a hole that was 80 feet wide, and below was a lower level parking structure. Hundreds were injured and had to be taken to hospital, but luckily no one died. It happened during the European leg of the Recipe for Hate Tour. Greg has said it was the worst moment in Bad Religions history and in January 1997 Jay described the incident as the scariest moment of his life. The builder blamed the organization for packing 4000 people in a disco with a capacity of 700. The organization blamed the builder claiming the concrete was very low quality. Both things were true. When on 4.4.1998 they played the Basque Country (Donostia) for the first time since the incident (different, bigger venue), they started the show with Recipe For Hate and Greg said "we'll start with the same song as the last time" with a cynical grin. When on 10.11.1998 NOFX played Donosti, Fat Mike started off the gig by saying "shit, it's the same place as the last time. Why don't we get venues where the floor collapses?". Oh, and the famous riots, of course.

Live -cool moments

In a gig in Tallin, Estonia, Greg started yelling to the audience something like "I want something that you have! I want to have a hot dog!". Greg and Brian started counting the money they had in their pockets, and it appeared they only had few cents (they use crowns in Estonia). The crowd started throwing lots of coins to the stage. Greg said that "this would be a nice idea to write a song about", and the band started improvising something like two guitars playing solos and Bobby and Jay playing the rhythm. Greg began make up the lyrics to something that sounded like punk-rap. The thing went like "...and then the crowd started throwing pennies at me, but all I wanted was just a fucking hot dog." Eventually someone brought a hot dog to the stage, and someone threw a bag of ketchup to Greg. The show continued with Greg eating and singing at the same time.

Live -cool moments

One night during the American leg of the STF Tour they decided to change the format of their show. Normally, they played four songs in a block, paused for breath and then launched into another four-song block. But that night they left it up to Greg to decide when to pause, and he didn't pause! Jay: "We played 37 songs straight through, and were done in about 45 minutes. We didn't have any more songs, so what could we do? We started taking requests, then played new songs that we only had half done. After that show I said to Greg, 'Don't ever do that again!'".

Live performances

Greg: "Every time we play a show in a new geographic region we leave with a great sense of accomplishment, especially if the show was sold-out. These occasions are special because there is only one time that you first enter a new region. Every repeat trip to that area is slightly less exciting, slightly more predictable, and feels a little bit more familiar. This has its advantages too, but the sense of anticipation and edginess provides for a special experience and usually a great show". "We always have to balance that compromise between playing and having some time off for sanity reasons and to further develop our mental state. The reason that we could continue it is because everywhere we play, there are people who genuinely want to see us. Every time we go to a new place, there are people who have been waiting for years and years to see us. That's a lot different to people who are out there milking it, bands who are out there just riding it high off a hit they had a few years ago".

Live videos

There is a bootleg VHS tape of a concert on 5/17/85 at The Olympic Velodrome in LA in which they play everything from 80-85. It's filmed with a camcorder and it has backstage footage of Greg G. and Greg H. talking to the camera. .

Logotype

The font style used in Bad Religion's logotype is called Friz Quadrata (bold) and was designed by Vic Caruso for Visual Graphics Corp. in 1974 after the Ernst Friz original of 1965.

Longevity

Hetson explained that longevity is better than being a flash-in-the-pan, where "you have two years of glory and then you're bitter for the rest of your life". They have all expressed this same idea at some point. Brian even said that if all of a sudden they sold millions of albums, they'd probably break up ("I'm really happy with the way everything is"). Brian: "Our [his and Hetson's] influence has more to do with longevity than any kind of technical prowess."

Lookin' In

A very rare single. The b-side was Generator live.

Los Angeles Times, the

"Bad Religion is the living incarnation of the theory that hardcore punk is in fact folk music".

Loudmouth

A Chicago based metal outfit which supported Bad Religion on a small tour in 1999. They were apparently trying to pull off the rebirth of the metal thing already. Here's what their drummer, John Sullivan, had to say: "I can't really say any of us are fans of punk at all. I mean, we don't even like it. The Bad Religion guys were really cool though, and hopefully someday we'll do a really big rock show and they can do a big punk show, and we'll just leave it at that. But punk rock started out as bands rebelling against all the bands we love. They hated Black Sabbath. They hated Led Zeppelin. So, needless to say, their fans probably weren't big fans of ours, and our fans weren't big fans of theirs. It wasn't the ideal tour. We tried it, and now we're going to go back on our own."

Louie Louie

By Richard Berry. There is a 7" with cover versions of Louie Louie (live at the Skylight Club, 3.31.1983), Rock and Roll, Riding the Storm Out and Johnny B.Goode (live tracks from the early 80s). The cover is yellow with two naked women in the water waving at another woman. There is a clear vinyl release (red cover) and a normal release. Also found (together with the other three covers) in the CD bootleg Christmas show 11.12.'93 + 8.1.94 Los Angeles.

Loveline

In February 1996 they were on Loveline and Greg said "I'll be honest with you, I've not told anyone this, one of my testes is smaller than the other...I got out the callipers, actually...".

Lucky Lehrer

[Real name: Keith Lehrer]. Lucky is the guy that got the first demo Bad Religion recorded in 1980 and, since he was the drummer with the Circle Jerks, who were already well known in Southern California, DJ Rodney Bingenheimer invited him onto his show on KROQ. Lucky, who was a stout supporter of the embryonic San Fernando Valley scene, took the opportunity to take the tape along to the show and introduce the listening public to Bad Religion. The tape would get quite a few airing on KROQ in the ensuing weeks. When in late 1986 Bad Religion went off to play the East Coast for the first time, on a 10-day tour, he played the whole tour with them because Pete was back in England. Apparently it was freezing during that tour. They traveled around in a VW van with broken windows and they didn't particularly enjoy it. He was the original drummer for the Circle Jerks and he showed Pete some basic riffs when Pete was asked to join Bad Religion. Pete didn't even know how to hold the sticks at the time (according to himself).

Lynyard Skynyard

At the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, on January 2002, a kid was yelling for them to play Freebird. According to a guy from San Francisco who was there, at every show he goes to someone yells for Freebird, and Bad Religion are the first band he's ever seen that actually played it. Jay and Brian started to play the song and Greg left the stage because he doesn't know the lyrics so the kid got on stage and sang it.

Lyrics

Brett: "My lyrics are art and therefore I can't 'explain' them to you any more than a poem or a painting can be explained, or a sunset for that matter". Jay said he used to ask Brett what his lyrics meant and he'd reply "Fuck you", so Jay doesn't know very well. Greg said that to be super popular, your music has to be more fun and less thought provoking. Hetson said he agrees with 98% or more of what Greg says in his lyrics. Greg: "No, I don't read, get pissed off and then write a song. Look, when I read, I'm reading. When I write, I'm writing. I draw on everyday experiences and of course our consciousness is shaped by what we read". In 1989 they were asked about the importance of the lyrics in Bad Religion. Jay thought music is as important as lyrics because if music wasn't good and melodic you wouldn't hear the lyrics. Pete said the lyrics were more important in Bad Religion because "we can't really play that well". Hetson said the lyrics were the most important but the music was good too. Brett said the same, "the music is the vehicle for the words". Greg said that ever since e listens to music lyrics have been what he focuses on, because "it's very difficult to show differences in bands but one source of sophistication that you can get from a band is 'how do they think'?". Hetson said that no label or person has ever asked them to dumb their lyrics down a little for market purposes. Brian: "I think Greg especially has become a lot more of a philosophical lyricist and a lot less literal. It's turning more into a more of a human and global concern rather than individual concerns as reflected on earlier records. You know, 'they're all beating me down', that type of attitude is reflected less and less as the band progresses". Greg: "There is a number of Bad Religion fans who've followed us through all these years who really love us for our lyrics and that's a personal commitment I feel when I write a song is a commitment to them -the people who really understand the lyrics." Hetson: "As far as I'm concerned, my contribution to the lyrics is minimal, sometimes I insert a line in some song, but nothing more".

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

M

Man with a mission

Brett: "man on a mission [he got the title wrong] is not autobiographical per se, but the character in the song represents a cult leader type". A magazine quoted the song and very decisively implied that the "Man" is Brett, and his mission is to run a successful record company and help smaller punk bands grow larger, all that good stuff.

Manic Hispanic

A band on BYO Records. On their album The Recline of Mexican Civilization they do a parody of Atomic Garden called Uncle Chato's Garden.

Manowar

Their promo video Secrets Of Steel has become some kind of cult among the band members and crew. It's only a 15 minute video, and it has been on every Bad Religion tour since 1996 I think. They watch it once every day, at least.

Marked

It features backing vocals by Pennywise singer Jim Lindberg.

Markovian Process

It was included at the end of the Japanese, Australian, Russian, South American and European releases of Stranger than Fiction. Also in the promo copy of the Infected single.

Marriage

Jay: "I met my wife in ’87 when we were writing Suffer". (He got married in '89). "These wives have seen this band grow". By 1999 both Gregs and Jay had been married and divorced. After the first fight broke out at a show in October 2000, Jay said something like "Hey, go outside if you want to fight!" and Graffin said "If you guys wanna fight, get married".

Maxwell Edison Gurewitz

Brett's son, named after The Beatles' Maxwell Silver Hammer.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

they do a cover of the song My Favorite Things (from the sound of music) to the music of Generator on the album Are A Drag. The song was also included on the Fat Music For Fat People Vol. 4. On their 2001 release they cover the song San Francisco and they throw in part of the beginning of Stanger Than Fiction into it.

Michelle Fleischli

Bad Religion's manager. She's based in Manhattan and works with a small team of people. In early May 1998 she got married and the reverend Hetson functioned as priest for the occasion. (She's an atheist too.). She used to be Michelle A. Ceazan.

Microphones

Greg uses Audix mics live and Neumann condenser mics in the studio.

Misery and Famine

At the end of the song you can hear something like "it wasn't right"; except he doesn't say "right".

Modern Man

At the beginning of the song / album, Greg says "here's a song with attitude" but the first part of the sentence is cut off. The solo at the beginning of the song uses the natural minor scale instead of the pentatonic minor.

Modern Rock Live

When they were at this radio show (4/7/96) Greg said "All of our friends hate us, and our families have abandoned us. We are basically orphans playing punk rock!".

Money

Brett: "Very few people know just how much I contributed to Bad Religion before the group stabbed me in the back by selling out to a major label (for the money)". In a Santa Cruz gig a guy was gesturing that he had something to say; Greg invited him onstage and the guy asked him whether they are doing it for the money. Greg's reply: "No. If we were we wouldn't spend this much time, put this much effort into the shows, or let guys like you come up and say anything". During the last leg of the Gray Race Tour apparently they were pretty picky about their shows. They'd play a certain place only if they were paid enough (Greg doesn't like to travel). They did play a couple of odd ball places such as Danbury, Connecticut because it was not far off their path and they were being paid 15000 dollars for this one gig. 15000 was their average pay per show. In the Big Bang video Greg interviews Brett after having introduced him as "Mr. Brett Religion" and they have this really funny conversation, driven by Greg's infinite sarcasm: Greg asks Brett why they tour in a tour bus instead of a small inconspicuous van ("is it the autograph thing?") and Brett answers that actually that bus is cheaper than the two trucks they had to use in the previous tour. So Greg goes "so you're saying that it's cost; all you're worried about is the expense". Brett: "no mister, I never said that". Greg: "I distinctively heard you say that you're interested only in making money". Brett: "I never said that (...) I hate making money". Brett stole most of the money they made from How Could Hell... to buy drugs, and then, while he was working at the Chameleon label, he made another pressing of the album without the rest of the band's knowledge, sold them to Chameleon, and never accounted for the money. He always felt guilty about it, and part of what he wanted to do when he started Epitaph up again in 1987 was to make it up to the band. They lost $2000 on their first American tour. At a show at the Country Club in Rosita California they realised why. Jay: "We did the match -1,000 people times $10 a head, and between us we made $1000, so we said, 'Well this is fucked, we're getting the shitty end of the stick here' (...) You have to learn things, but the only way is to go out and get ripped off for six years. You have to know a little bit about the economics, or you're eating shit every night".

More Songs About Anger, Fear, Sex, and Death

Epitaph compilation from 1993 containing old Bad Religion, NOFX, Pennywise, Dag Nasty, etc. It has Atomic Garden, No Control, Faith Alone, I Want To Conquer The World, You Are The Government, The Answer and Fuck Armageddon..

Motorhead

They have a song called Bad Religion (Kilmister-Burston-Campbell) on their album March Or Die (WTG records, 1992, catalogue number 48997). These are the lyrics: "Thou who wouldst make us devils. Thou shalt not poison me. The world hath been persuaded to believe thy heresy. I spit in the eye of Satan. And I will spit in thine. The devils that surround thee. Liveth only in thine eye. Bad Religion, Bad Religion I need no gods or devils, I need no pagan rights. Bad religion, Bad religion, I need no burning crosses to illuminate my nights. HEY, HEY, You hear me now You hear me now HEY, HEY, For thou art Judas. The mark of Cain be on thy brow. Evangelistic Nazis, you cannot frighten me. The name you take in vain shall judge you for eternity. I spit in the eye of Satan. Spit right in your eye too. You are the spooks you're chasing. You know not what you do. Bad religion, Bad religion I know you lie, I know you lie. Bad religion, Bad religion. Thieves and liars. Cross my heart. I hope you die. If there be such a being then thou art Anti-christ. Turn men against their children. Turn beauty into vice. I say thy God shall smite thee. He will perceive thy lust. His wrath shall fall upon thee. Thou that betray his thrust. Bad religion, Bad religion I say that thou art liars, Thy souls shall not be saved. Bad religion, Bad religion Here are the days of thunder, The days that thou hast made.

Movies

There is a Recipe for hate tour poster (subway size) in the background of a porno movie. The same poster (the one showing the album cover) is seen in the movie PCU posted to a wall in the "pit" (basement of the college dorm in the movie) and in an episode of the TV show Weird Science (when Gary is going to talk to a girl she has the poster on her locker). In 8mm, with Nicolas Cage, in one scene as he leaves a room and opens the door very faintly you can see the typical crossbuster poster, black with a red font and the crossbuster below the words. In the movie SLC (Salt Lake City) Punk, on the dashboard of the van there's a crossbuster sticker.

Movies

Clerks features Leaders and Followers and The Chase has Two Babies in the Dark. In the film "SLC Punk", starring Matthew Lillard, about three-quarters of the way through the movie, the two stars are driving in a van, and on the dash is a crossbuster logo sticker.

Movies

On the 2000 MTV Movie Awards, before it cut to commercial, the guitar riff from the start of New America was played.

MSO

Bad Religion's independent publicist.

MTV

The European The Gray Race Tour was sponsored by MTV. The channel used to show a commercial regarding The Gray Race. The A Walk video was the first from The Gray Race and was first played in 120 minutes. They were in 120 min again on 4.26.1996 (where once more Greg said The Gray Race is their best album). They were also on MTV Europe's 3 From 1. On the commercial for MTV Live they show Greg on a coach laughing. In early 1998 they were on MTV Sports; they showed small bits of their live performance on the Air & Style Skateboard Festival and footage of Bad Religion members trying to snowboard.

MTV

Jay: "It’s just a thing, like a radio station or anything else. Unfortunately it’s the biggest one ever. It’s so big, it is omnipotent. It is the Big Brother of music. It forces you to consume what they decide you consume. I personally like MTV when I want to watch it but I’ll always turn it off. I’m never force-fed anything I don’t like. I hated the Poison, White Snake, Warrant era. I find myself watching MTV more and more because all the bands on it are my friends! (...) MTV is in business to stay in business. They are not a college radio station and they don’t play what they feel like playing. It’s a cyclical thing. They play what’s selling in retail stores. And because they play it, radio plays it. And as more radio plays it, retail sells more, and MTV plays it more. See how that works? It’s the chicken before the egg theory, it just goes around and around. So when you have Green Day and the Offspring selling multi-platinum records you see them a lot more on MTV. It’s just an unfortunate by-product of retail sales. Metallica was the first band to get a platinum record with zero exposure, which I always thought was great. I thought that was really cool that they could do that. (...) The only thing that I can really say about MTV is that if you don’t dig it, then turn it off. If you don’t like what they’re saying or what they’re playing, then turn it off. One thing I can’t stand is when someone comes up to me and says “you fucking sell-outs! I saw you on MTV!” What the fuck were you watching it for? If you consider every band on MTV a sell-out then you’re a sell-out for watching it. It’s like anything else: it’s a book, a record, a television show. I’m not gonna force anybody to sit down and watch Rush Limbaugh. I don’t force anybody to sit down and watch MTV. It’s just an entertainment program, nothing more. There’s nothing to read into it. It doesn’t really matter to us. It doesn’t affect us one way or the other".

MTV

On the 2000 MTV Movie Awards, before it cut to commercial, the guitar riff from the start of New America was played. At the second MTV Sports and Music Festival, in-line skater Marco Hintze skated to Incomplete, and one of the BMXers rode to American Jesus. MTV had a website about the state of rock where they had the opinions of 40 rock musicians. One was Jay.

Mumia Abu-Jamal

They played a concert together with Rage Against The Machine and the Beastie Boys at the Continental Airlines Arena in northern New Jersey on January 28th 1999 to benefit black activist and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982. <a href="mumia.html">Here</a>'s the story. Mumia's death warrant is to be signed April 24, 1999 and many are trying to free him. Tickets were 30 dollars. Greg said the bands organized the concert to raise awareness about the racial inequities in the use of the death penalty: ``We also believe that Mumia should be given a fair trial he said. <a href="mumia_greg.html">Here</a>'s a whole interview with Greg on the subject. The concert started a lot of controversy as the police officers who were assigned to patrol the event were disgusted that they had to look after "kids supporting a cop killer", while Governor Whitman called for ticketholders to boycott the sold-out event. <a href="mumia_jack.html">Here</a>'s Jack Rabid making sense.

Music

Hetson: "We're not allowed the luxury of being progressive. This is the style I pretty much grew up playing on guitar". "We all think every record we make is good. But it's not like one is more important than another." Greg: "The music is very sparse, the guitars aren't multi-layered or processed. It's not elaborate; it's something that anyone can play in their garage. It's very populist oriented". Brian: "Bad Religion has always been a vocals first and guitars second type of band

but it's always been a strong second". Jay: "I think we are very good at what we do, and what we do is bad religion".

My Sharona

A song from the 70s (it was a huge hit in the US) of which they simply played an instrumental version for 20 seconds in the middle of playing Silent Night.

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

N

Nascar

Greg said they're all big nascar fans and go to the Daytona 500 (the "Super Bowl of Motorsports") in Daytona Beach Florida every year... also big motorcycle buffs he says...

Nervous Breakdown

By Black Flag. Covered live at Ton Halle, Villingen, Schwenningen, Germany, on 7.12.90.

New America, The

Released on 5.24.00, it debuted at 88 on the US billboards. If one bought the album during the first week in the US, he/she got a free ticket to one of the shows in the fall (you had to have a shrink wrap or merchandise slip from the album and the receipt sent in, and state which show you wanted to attend). The Japanese version (cat. # is ESCA 8152) ends with The Fast Life and Queen Of The 21st Century. The European version doens't have Queen... and the American version has neither of the songs. The first single (The New America, the song) included two unreleased tracks: Pretenders and Lose As Directed. The second single was I Love My Computer (with A Whisper In Time).

New America, The

At some Warped shows in 2000, Fat Mike of NOFX said he thought the album sucked.

New Maps of Hell

The lastest Bad Religion album, made on March 2007.

New Musical Express (NME), the

Pathetic British music paper which tends to either ignore or slag off Bad Religion. Famous for publishing that Bad Religion were such a rip-off of The Offspring that they deserved to be sued by them.

New World Order

War 1

The famous Noam Chomsky 7-inch. Put out by Maximum Rock and Roll (MRR006). The release comes with a giant foldout containing scathing indictments of the US's political, economic and media involvement in the gulf war (the cover calls it "the war that didn't have to happen"). It's got final demos of Heaven is Falling and Fertile Crescent (with no oozin' ahhs and Greg's vocals are slightly different). The flip is Chomsky's political analysis (5-6 minutes of spoken word).

New World Order

War 1

They were recording Generator when the US started dropping bombs on Baghdad. They received the news from Tim Yohanon (of Maximum Rock' n' Roll) and he asked them whether they had anything he could release on a projected protest EP; so they hurriedly recorded the two songs for him.

New York Newsday

In 1996 they called Bad Religion "one of the most articulate and adventurous voices in the socially conscious wing of the American punk underground."

News From the Front

The band voted it off the record but Brett wishes it had made it on because he likes it a lot. However, it was included in the Japanese, Australian, European, Russian and South American releases of Stranger than Fiction. It also appears in the promo copies of Infected and Incomplete.

Nicknames

Aludensparglemein is Greg's nickname as listed in Cornell's Network Identity Directory. The directory also describes his activities in the college as "Investigations into the origin of bone tissue, and travelling". the nickname doesn't mean anything. It's a made-up name. Starbolt was Brett's nickname when he joined IRC. It has been his nickname for years. In the liner notes of Suffer, No Control, ATG, Generator and other albums by other bands, one can read "engineered by the legendary Starbolt" -that means Brett. Brett is Billy in No Control, Billy Gnosis in Into The Unknown and Billy Pilgrim in The Seeing Eye Gods.

Nintendo

Hetson is famous for playing Nintendo. He used to be very good at it. He played Super Mario Brothers, Blades of Steel (a hockey game, since he plays hockey too), etc. He used to program Nintendo games too. He said it never was a real job, but more of a hobby, which allowed him to "destroy my existence a little more".

No Control -the album

Released on 11.2.1989. 12,000 copies were shipped at first and, to their amazement, they ended up selling 60,000. Imported copies of No Control LP to West Germany were repackaged with a limited edition bootleg 7" of the Bad Religion EP. Bobby: "That's my favorite album. I just like the pace of the record, the songs on the album, it's very in your face. I find it exciting, because it gives you the same excitement as when I heard the first Ramones album. It makes me want to play music again. It's a little rawer than Suffer, and I like the production and material better". There is a punk music store in the city of Lleida (Catalonia) called No Control (written with the same lettering as in the album cover).

No Control at the Country Club Live

A 7" recorded at the Country Club in Reseda, CA, which includes I Want Something More and Modern Man. Released in 1990 by Nemesis.

No Direction

On the Tested version Greg sings "Courtney [Love]'s nasty clothes". And of course the famous line is printed on the cover of Tested.

No Empathy

In the CD single for Ben Weasel Don't Like It they do a cover of Chasing the Wild Goose. The back of the CD resembles the Into the Unknown cover, complete with the same cheesy lettering as on ITU.

No Fun At All

They thank Bad Religion in the liner notes of their 1997 album.

No Substance

On late 1997 it was counted by Alternative Press as among the year's top 25 most-anticipated albums. Before it was released, Greg said a lot of it is a straight throwback to 1981. Greg on (no) substance: "I'm not bitter, but if you are aware of our culture, which I think I am, then you see how it's becoming more and more superficial and I'm addressing that. The media and TV seem to take over people's brains, they don't want to see what happens in the real world. Their minds get corrupted by fashion, there's nothing wrong with enjoying fashion if it's just a casual enjoyment, but it isn't just that anymore, it has become compulsive. The increase of cosmetic surgery is a big indicator for me in that respect. People are too focused on the outside, on looks and they neglect everything else. If looks are all that matter to you, then you admit that other values like political awareness and social conscience carry no meaning for you, you focus too much on things that have no substance. If you base your whole life on looks, then remember that they're not going to last, they're only skin deep and what will happen if your will fade? More cosmetic surgery if you can afford it? Erasing everything that's characteristic and replacing it with a plain plastic Barbie-smoothness is not beautiful, it's a misconception of beauty, real beauty springs from within!". Greg: "With No Substance, Bad Religion fans are going to recognize a very natural and spontaneous-sounding Bad Religion album that I think sounds better than any of them since Suffer. And even then it sounds a lot better than Suffer, in the way that Suffer really woke people up and made people rediscover Bad Religion. I think this will do the same thing for the Bad Religion fan. For people who have never heard us, I think they'll be pleasantly surprised that Bad Religion is so melodic and has such a good sensibility of what pop music is. There's something for them in that, too". Greg: "I wanted to bring it together like we did in the old days and have everybody just get in the studio and arrange the songs together as a group". Brian: "This time when Greg would have an idea in his head that he's never translated to instruments; we got to be there for that translation. That opens up room for a lot more experimentation and input from the rest of us. I'm proud of how it came out, musically. I still get goosebumps when the transitions come for 'Sowing The Seeds Of Utopia".

No Substance

Greg: "I think the freshest thing about it is that we got out a lot of our old records from 1980 and listened to the music that inspired us. We listened our old records and Stiff Little Fingers, Sham 69 and X and what was going on in L.A. at the time with the Adolescents and the Circle Jerks. We were listening to those records thinking, 'Music has gotten so far away from this great stuff that inspired us. And even we, in our race to keep up, have gotten away from it. Let's make a record that's real natural and based on what we do best".

No Substance

The cover photo is of actress (Third Rock From The Sun) Kristen Johnston.

No Use For A Name

On their album More Betterness (released late 1999) there's a picture of a yellow couch and practice room of theirs and there is a table with some books, and CDs and a drink on it. The center CD is a copy of No Substance.

Noam Chomsky

Greg and Brett have interacted with him; Greg said "we see eye to eye". A magazine was supposed to put out an interview with Greg and Noam but it never happened. It's something Greg still wants to do. Needless to say, Greg has read most or all his books. I don't know about Brett.

Noel

They played it together with Joy to the World. Found in the CD bootleg Stranger than Pulp Fiction. Recorded for the Holiday Sampler.

NOFX

1. At the NOFX website they have a section where you can submit questions and Fat Mike answers them This is from Antoine, November 25, 1999: "hey hefe, eric, mike and erik, i gotta lame question for u guys: what do u think is the greatest punk band of all time?". Fat Mike's reply: "BAD RELIGION HANDS DOWN". Go Your Own Way on NOFX's S & M Airlines features Greg on vocals. The album was produced by Brett. At some Warped shows in early 2000, Fat Mike said he thought The New America sucked.

2. Their song Louise, from Pump Up The Valuum, has different lyrics set to the music of The Answer.

3. They have a song called Stranger Than Fishin'.

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Offspring, The

1. They don't particularly like them. Once, asked about The Offspring, they replied "If you've nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all". They were supposed to play with The Offspring in Argentina in 1999 and while they were in the plane, flying to Buenos Aires, they were told that The Offspring didn't want to play, so the concert had been suspended. To this day The Offspring haven't explained to Bad Religion why they did that, but they suspect it was The Offspring being petty, wanting to be the headliners, and not wanting to share the stage with Bad Religion, as Greg explained in a radio interview in Buenos Aires two years later.

2. Brian said comparing Bad Religion to The Offspring is like comparing apples and oranges. Greg said that in part the reason The Offspring got so big and sold millions of copies of Smash is that Bad Religion left Epitaph and so the label was then able to focus on other bands. Brett on the other hand said the departure of Bad Religion didn't help anything; and said the fact that The Offspring got huge as soon as Bad Religion left Epitaph was the dictionary definition of "Ironic". Jay: "I won't say that because Bad Religion left it allowed The Offspring to take off, because that's taking responsibility for something way beyond something that I ever would".

3. After some ignorant bastard from the NME published that Bad Religion were such a rip-off of The Offspring that they deserved to be sued by them, Bobby and Jay were asked what bands have influenced Bad Religion: "The Offspring... we saw them live in 1980 and totally ripped them off, we stole all their stuff".

4. Brett said he loved Smash and that "it was a very good record". Yet one week after the release of Ixnay on the Hombre (not on Epitaph), Brett said it was "uninspired derivative pablum" and asked "you guys actually like that crap?". Then he added "on a serious note, there's really nothing original on the new offspring record. One song sounds like Jane's Addiction, one Bon Jovi, one Blind Melon, one Bad Religion. They've become an unimaginative copycat band...".

Offspring, The -departure from Epitaph

Brett: "Offspring stabbed me in the back and there's no two ways of looking at it". In an interview with Brett, the interviewer said something like "but you have to admit that All I Want kicks ass" and Brett went like "yeah, it's a good Bad Religion song".

Operation rescue

The notorious American anti-abortion group begun in 1988 by evangelical ex-used car salesman Rev. Randall Terry, specializes in blocking access to targeted clinics and subjecting patients, physicians and staff to intimidation and harassment. A queasy mixture of far-right fundamentalist Protestants and reactionary Catholics, the membership includes many who would criminalize all forms of contraception and suppress all family planning information other than exhortations to abstinence. During the 1992 election, Randall Terry warned his followers that "to vote for Bill Clinton is to sin against God." With Clinton in office, Operation Rescue has shifted its focus to include opposition to civil rights for gays and lesbians. OR has also been known to launch attacks on the arts. In 1990 Boston-area members tried to block access to Serrano's "Piss Christ" at the Klein Gallery, and threatened to blockade Boston University's Photographic Resource Center. In February 1994, Rev. Flip Benham of the Free Methodist Church took over the directorship of the organization from Keith Tucci, who left to found a separate ministry, the Life Coalition, in Melbourne, Florida. Call or write for a copy of OR's National Rescue Update: Rev. Flip Benham

National Director

P.O. Box 740066

Dallas, TX 75374

214/907-2280 . When played live, the song was often linked to Along the Way. At the end of the Tested version, Greg says "Randall Terry!" and at the end of the album version he says "hmmm".

Orange County Keith (OCK)

Real name Keith Krubulia. He has a website and knows the band personally. He's got a label and organized a Bad Religion concert (+ hockey game) in Canada in late March 1998. Both Mr. Brett and Hetson have heard his answering machine message that has Time and Disregard from Into the Unknown on it. Hetson found it hilarious, Brett didn't at all.

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P

P.P. Vaughn

Greg's mentor in Paleontology. He retired from UCLA and now (as of late 2000) lives in Arizona.

Paha Uskonto

Paha Uskonto (means Bad Religion in Finnish) was formed around 1993 by five guys called Sakke (vocals), Lappa (Guitar), Aku (Bass), Tune (Drums) and the 5th guy (lead guitarist) wanted to be called Hra Teppis just like Mr Brett (Hra is Mr in Finnish). They also took the famous crossbuster logo from Bad Religion, but the only difference was the the cross on the logo was turned upside down. The main idea was to play Bad Religion covers in Finnish since all the guys were big fans of them and Bad Religion were yet to visit Finland for the first time back then. Playing shows all around Finland got them a huge reputation as a big Bad Religion cover band. Their live set included over 30 Bad Religion covers, all done with a true passion. They could play any Bad Religion song live, except for Atomic Garden, which they had big problems trying to learn. In 1994 the band started thinking about releasing their CD, but one problem had to be solved first: they had to get legal rights from Epitaph and Bad Religion. So Paha Uskonto wrote to Bad Religion and they were allowed to record as many songs as they wanted. Bad Religion was highly interested in hearing the CD which was later sent to the band. The CD itself came out in 1994 and was released by Fight Records. Their dream was about to come true when Bad Religion went to Finland and they (Paha Uskonto) were scheduled to open for them. For some strange reason it never happened. So they only released one album and broke up around the end of 1994 -they say out of frustration because they couldn't open up for Bad Religion Here is the info about the CD: Paha Uskonto (self-titled) (Fight Records

004). Songs: 1. Digitaalimies (21st Century d b), 2. Tuhannen Taalan Tanopaa (1000 More fools), 3. Aika Kuolla (Watch It Die), 4. Leukaluu (Best for you), 5. Lahtee Pois (Walk Away), 6. Hulluus (Sanity). All songs by Bad Religion. Finnish words by Savijarvi. Address of Fight Records: Pikkupiiankatu 3 A 10 33580 Tampere, Finland.

Pantera

Apparently all Bad Religion members dislike Pantera.

Paradoxx

The label that releases Epitaph's Bad Religion albums in Brazil.

Parallel

Greg (Graffin) plays guitar in this song. He does a slide with his finger on one string of the guitar. In a radio interview, he explained that Parallel is about two people living life the same, but never meeting or coming together (hence the name parallel).

Part III

According to one version Jay wrote the verse and chorus, Brett wrote the intro lyrics and Greg wrote the music. According to Jay he wrote the whole song. Hetson played the solo (his only contribution to the album).

Part IV (the index fossil)

Greg: "an index fossil is an extinct species that lasted for only a few million years. This is a very brief period of time by most species' standards. They are very useful for geologists because no matter where on the earth one is searching, if he finds a species that is a known index fossil then the age of the surrounding rock is immediately known. Mankind will make a perfect index fossil because we have only been around for about 2 million years. We could still persist for another few hundred thousand years and still be considered a great index fossil".

Parts

The song Part III is about world war three. Part II (the numbers game) is what precedes Part III, which is what precedes ww3, i.e. imperialism etc. And Part IV (the index fossil) is what comes after Part III and ww3, i.e. extinction.

Paul Dedona

Bass player on Into the Unknown.

Pearl Jam

They supported Bad Religion in Europe in 1995 and then Bad Religion did a string of dates supporting Pearl Jam in the U.S. in June and July of the same year. However, many of the later tour's dates were cancelled. At Golden Gate Park in San Francisco Bad Religion opened for them in front of 50,000 people. Greg said they will probably tour with Pearl Jam again.

Pennywise

When they played the Skate Park in Ulladulla (Australia) on 1.10.1999 with the Warped Tour, Jim Lindberg talked about the rumours that Bad Religion broke up (for cancelling all the Australian Warped shows) and said it simply wasn't true, then asked the audience, "who likes Bad Religion?" and there was a loud cry of approval and they went on to cover Do What You Want. Jim also spoke of Greg and the rest of the band as being really top blokes. Jim is quoted to have said that "What happened is that they signed with Atlantic and left Epitaph, they're fucking assholes man". I don't know if those were really Jim's words

hard to understand considering he sang backup on Marked for the Atlantic release Stranger Than Fiction.

Pennywise

Brett: "(Full Circle) is probably their best and hardest record yet!".

Pete Finestone

<a href="http://www.pfinestone.homestead.com" target="new">Here</a>'s a page you can visit. Pete joined the band when Jay Ziskrout quit in the middle of recording How Could Hell... He was a fellow San Fernando Valley punk kid, but from a different high school, and Greg says he basically forced himself on the band. He knocked on Greg's door and said, "Hey, I hear you need a drummer". Greg asked if he could play drums, and he said, "sure". So Greg didn't even audition him; just, "Okay we've got a drummer". They rehearsed for a while in the hellhole and then returned to the studio and finished recording the album over a weekend with Pete. His first show took place at the opening of the venerable punk club Godzilla's in the winter of 1982. When Bad Religion split up he went to study Irish and English literature in England. He left for England in June 1986 and returned in July 1987. In the interim Bad Religion had done a few tours with Lucky. Two months after he got home Greg asked him to rejoin Bad Religion for Back To The Known. He subtly exerted the proper amount of pressure on the band (specially Lucky) and Lucky left for greener, richer pastures. Immediately after his return Brett returned to the fold and the next chapter of Bad Religion history commenced. By late 1986 they went off to play the East Coast for the first time, on a 10-day tour, but Pete was back in England for a while so he missed this trip and was replaced again by Lucky Lehrer. In 1989 he graduated from school and started working as a part-time teacher at a college while still in Bad Religion. He quit the band again after Against the Grain. He left in a weird way, according to Jay, who still can't make sense of why Pete quit. He just pinned a two-page long note to Hetson's door. The "official" reason given was that his other band, "The Fishermen", got a record deal with Electra, and Electra told him that if he wanted to be signed by them he couldn't play with Bad Religion live. So he had no other choice than to leave Bad Religion. But it can't be that simple, because in a bootleg video of a Bad Religion show in Reseda at the Country Club during their Against the Grain tour (the first tour with Bobby), Greg tells the audience not to ask what happened to Peter because it is way too complicated. Actually, I know The Fishermen story was just an excuse

he quit because of his problems with a certain member of Bad Religion, whose name starts with Bad Religion and ends with ett.

Pete Finestone

He has a new label (Low Blow Records) and was playing drums in his band FiFi, with Steve (former Angry Samoans) on bass, Larry on guitar and Gordon on vocals. Gordon was married to Nina Hagen and a lot of their music was dedicated to her. Gordon left the band in late 1997 but Pete said they were just going to find a new vocalist. No news as of April 1998. From 1997 he has a new band called The Brothers, which has now (April 98) finished recording their first album. Pete: "The material reminds me of later Bad Religion stuff -melodic, great songs at slower tempos". All current Bad Religion members heard the stuff and loved it. Pete: "Fifi stuff is slightly silly and sophmoric where the Brother's is more sophisticated and meaningful". He also owns a boxing gym in Hollywood called the 5th Street Gym: "I teach a kickboxing class twice a week and take a indonesian martial class twice a week. I believe if more people engaged in martial classes and learned the healing and self-defense aspect of martial arts, then there would be a lot less need to conquer, dominate and subjecate". He's now looking for a wife (he doesn't want a girlfriend; just a wife). A while ago he was dating a kindergarten teacher that has been in the states for about 2 years. Previously she lived in Sri Lanka. The outside of Pete's L.A. apartment complex is a hideous orange/blue color but Low-Blow Records headquarters is conveniently located about 2 minutes away. Miller is his favorite beer. He likes Bloody Marys, too. In 1996, at a Santa Monica Bad Religion show they brought Pete out for a song and he played. When at the start of a live song you heard "1,2,3,4" that was always Pete.

Pete Finestone

Currently, he's playing drums in a band called Jackass. More information is available at <a href="http://www.pfinestone.homestead.com/jackass.html">www.pfinestone.homestead.com/jackass.html</a>.

Philosophy

Around 1980 they (mostly Brett) used to read books on existentialism by Jean-Paul Sartre. He also read Nietzsche, Spinoza, Kant, Lao-Tzu, etc. When in 1997 Brett was asked to choose between Socrates and Diogenes (value being wisdom and consistency), he replied he didn't have any preference and "if I were to choose between wisdom and consistency I'd have to pick wisdom but both are overrated".

Phoenix festival

In summer 1993, a review of their set at the Phoenix festival, in Britain, said they "sound like a piss-poor version of Motorhead."

Piano

Greg used to have a "pretty cheesy" piano (according to Jay) in his house, a real old time bar upright that was always out of tune. He'd write songs on that, and the rest of the band would listen going, "uhhh, what are you playing?". Then Brett got him a Roland June 6 keyboard with which Greg wrote Into the Unknown. Jay said his old piano brought Greg into the new age, but on Into the Unknown "he just used one polyrhythm, so it was kind of monotonous. There was a lot of keyboard and monotony".

Pickups

They all use Seymour Duncan pickups. Brian: JB Jr for Strat, JB Model , Custom Mini Humbucker, Duncan Distortion. Jay: QuarterPound for Pbass. Hetson: Stag Mag , Alnico II Pro Humbucker.

Pictures

All the band pictures on Generator came from the Atomic Garden video. They did one take where they were in a small room filled with smoke and Jay got pissed off because he couldn't breathe, so he went next door to an army/navy surplus and bought a gas mask, then used a few frames (notice how all the pictures are movie frames) with it on for the LP. So they didn't really have a photographer; Brett and Jay chose the pictures. The photos in Stranger Than Fiction, aside from the cover, all were in Discover Magazines in the early 90's. The picture where an old man stares up into a starry night was later on used as an advert for the company Q8. The picture of the band in The Gray Race was taken in Culver City. Probably the photos of faces in The Gray Race were not taken specifically for the album, but are in fact samples of the work of a particular photographer (Richard Burbridge) whose speciality is such photos.

Playstation

The video game Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 features You.

Politically Incorrect

Greg has appeared at least twice (1994 and 1996?). In one infamous episode, Bill Maher made a comment about human life being precious, and Greg responded by saying that it wasn't precious at all, since there are so many people in the world.

Politics

Greg: "I really hate politics. I affiliate more with whom my parents affiliated with, and that's the Democrats. I'm far more liberal-thinking than conservatives". But two years later or so he said Ross Perot was a better candidate than the other two because "he's beautifully human". In a 1996 concert, Greg spoke of the upcoming presidential election and said that no-one should vote for a guy that shakes hands with his left hand (referring to Bob Dole). He always says that he would run for president if he got on the ballot in all 50 states.

Polypterus Music

Greg's publishing company, named after a genus of ancient African fish.

Polypterus Studios

Greg's home studio (in the basement of his house).

Pop

Brett said his goal has always been to write the perfect pop song but explained that "that is just an abstract dream, something to shoot for like a poet might try to write the perfect haiku. Pop song structure is restricting and liberating at the same time, and doing it well is a real challenge".>>

Popularity

Greg used to listen to anything (even prog rockers like Emerson, Lake & Palmer) as long as it was not popular. Now he comments "There are bands operating under that very premise today: 'Don't make it too good, man. Too many people might like it'. Their main thrust in creating music is to not make it generally appealing, a juvenile persona of being not like anything else. But more often than not it means...bad."

Positive Aspect of Negative Thinking, the

Greg said about the song (written by Jay) that "it's grammatically incorrect, makes no sense, we all hate it, and never play it live." Jay has only explained that "it's about us".

Press kits

There are press kits for most of their albums and they can be bought as collectors items. In case someone doesn't know, press kits are just promotional materials that are sent to radio stations, etc. to "inform" them about an artist and their new release. Bad Religion's usually consist of an 8x10 glossy band photo (these are cool photos that I have never seen elsewhere, except for the one for No Substance, which is so great it has been used for flyers, etc.) and several pages of high production, decorated text which tell about the band and the release. The one for Recipe For Hate intersperses a famous Allan Ginsburg poem throughout the text. They have also released promotional objects like a Stranger Than Fiction candle.

Problems (by The Sex Pistols)

There's a bootleg circulating with a cover of the song.

Process Of Belief, The

Released on 1.21.2002 in Europe and the following day in America, it was called "the ultimate Bad Religion album" by Brett and many agreed. The Australian (and New Zealand) version, distributed by Shock Records, included an extra track called Shattered Faith. When it was released, Greg's favourite Brett song was The Defense, and Brett's fave Greg song was Epiphany.

Production

Jim Mankey produced How Could Hell, Andy Wallace did Stranger than Fiction and Ric Ocasek The Gray Race. The rest were produced by Bad Religion, which means Brett (under the nickname of "the legendary Starbolt").

Psychology

Greg spent some time reading popular psychology and commented "it's interesting to me to see how narrow-minded a lot of the psychological literature is, how it doesn't see mankind as a continuum from the animal kingdom. It totally ignores our instinctive behaviors. We're still 50 percent animal brains, with the same neural reactions animals have". Dead right.

Public Service

A compilation put out by Smoke 7 Records in 1981 with Circle One, RF7, Redd Kross and Disability. It has Bad Religion, Slaves and Drastic Actions (different versions from the first EP, as they contributed the songs during the making of the EP).

Punk Rock Karaoke

Greg Hetson, Eric Melvin from NOFX, Mike Watt, and Derek (the drummer from Social Distortion) are doing Punk Rock Karaoke, a travelling road show that plays old skool punk rock songs from bands such as Black Flag, Sham 69, Stiff Little Fingers, the Ramones, the Circle Jerks, and also Bad Religion (even if it's only Fuck Armageddon), with a volunteer audience member providing the vocals. This is same act was part of the American leg of the Warped Tour in 1998. They have a specific list they bring with them and they don't take requests so if you want to go onstage and sing a song you have to sign up for one of those on the list. Also, they hand out lyric booklets with all the lyrics to all their songs on the list. The opening act is Speedbuggy, which interestingly opened for Bad Religion during their Spring '98 US small clubs mini-tour.

Punk Rock Song

On 1.29.1996 the maxi was released. On its sleeve is a drawing of a boy and a man who have just shot a deer. This very drawing was intended at first to be the sleeve for The Gray Race the album. The 7" single is on gray marbled vinyl on Unplayable Records. It has The Universal Cynic and The Dodo. The CD single has these two songs plus Punk Rock Song sang in German and it has the lyrics to the two unreleased tracks plus the English and German lyrics to PRS. The "German language version" was also included in a non-American release of The Gray Race on tape. Greg has a pretty good accent according to some German fans. There is also a single which has live versions of Modern Day Catastrophists and 10 in 2010. There is a CD single made purposely for the UK (it has the dates of the UK concerts that were eventually canceled printed on it). In it the words "shit" and "fucking" had been censored. Every time Greg says "so many other...........insects/robots out there" his voice is completely cut out. In April 1996 PRS was number 17 on the European MTV, above Green Day and Bon Jovi. There is also a promotional CD which has no insert, just the CD, which is red, and has the title and some other info written on it in plain, silver text; and there's a promo poster too.

Punk Rock Song

At the end of the song, you can hear voices saying: "Yes! Bobby Schayer...that's the one". Greg: " There are so many drastic human tragedies and problems going on among people who've never even heard rock & roll and all we can do is offer you this Punk Rock Song." The video was directed by David Bragger.

Punk-o-Rama

A collection of compilations by Epitaph (of Epitaph bands). Punk-o-Rama 1 has Do What You Want and Punk-o-Rama 2 has Give you Nothing. Number 4 has Generator, number 6 has I Want To Conquor The World.

Punk

Jay: "Those bands used to be considered punk, hell even Devo was punk, now I don't know what punk is, I don't care for most of it. It all sounds the same, like us. We sound the same, for 17 years. Haha". Greg: "English punk died in '79 or '80. Maybe '82 at the latest (...) I don't think American punk ever died. Part of that is thanks to bands like Bad Religion, of which there aren't many". Jay: "[punk] is too specific in terms of what it is. It used to be, if you got on-stage and screamed into a megaphone and smashed a typewriter with a sledgehammer, you were punk. But now you're art-rock or whatever... ". In 1991, when asked "does punk rock change the world?" Brett answered "slightly". Jay: "it's changed the fashion world". Bobby: "yes, it's changed people's attitude towards music, it's opened their minds (...) it opened the door for other types of music". Greg: "No. That's an unqualified No. (...) if you could get people to think a little bit you could make some people a bit happier, some people more able to cope with problems in the western world and make a little bit of a difference". Hetson: "it's changed the music industry a lot". Brett: "being punk as a kid meant that I was a misfit. Being punk now is meaningless to me. I'm not punk". Brian: "It was already blown out of proportion by 1985. That sense of community and danger had dissipated as soon as runway models started wearing leather jackets with studs in them and movies like Sid and Nancy came out. The only reason everyone's saying it's all being destroyed now is because they're 14. Punk rock is now mainstream and you can't fix that. It's time to stop worrying about the community that doesn't exist and be more concerned about liking bands for the right reasons because maybe they have something important to say, not what label they are on. Take the time to investigate music a little bit more thoroughly which is one of the few things you still can do that we used to do when we were punk."

Punk music

Hetson named Epitaph, Dischord and Alternative Tentacles as the three labels that marked the history of punk during the eighties and The Dead Kennedys, D.O.A. and The Ramones as the three bands (that marked the history of punk during the eighties). Hetson said about the new wave of "punk" bands that "The difference resides in the musical style, basically. Punk bands in the seventies had a certain intention, they wanted to write melodic songs, with some flair for pop sounds. Eighties saw the coming of hardcore, a phenomenon that got to change the scenario. And now we're witnessing a return to punk's roots, melodies are being rediscovered." He said that "this is good, punk rock has always been my favorite music. I'm proud of what is happening, you can turn the radio on and hear something different, a punk rock song. The kids are able to choose nowadays, they can refuse the pop crap that's being fed to them, and turn to something that is profoundly honest" and "Bad Religion somehow paved the way for those acts, even if we didn't climb to the top of the charts. Anyway I'm a big fan of both Green Day and the Offspring, I find them both very fresh and honest".

Punk music

Jay: "The way I see it, this "punk rock explosion” is only 2 bands (Offspring & Green Day). Bad Religion is in the same place it was last year (1994). So there’s no “punk rock explosion.” (...) When a punk rock explosion takes place, you’ll be seeing platinum Black Flag albums, platinum Dead Kennedys albums. That’s a punk rock explosion. Rich Kids on LSD aren’t doing well. SNFU aren’t doing well. (Rancid ARE doing well). But good bands are selling records. That makes sense to me. I buy records that I like. I have a Rancid record. (...) Do you really think middle America is going to be conned into buying punk rock albums? I don’t think so. I think middle America will, and this is from my years at the label, walk into a store and go “who sings that song ‘You gotta keep ‘em separated?’” That’s how they buy records. “Here you go, it’s the Offspring.” “Whatever, I don’t care what the name of the band is, I just want that song.”"

Punkness

Greg: "Punk is not about looking cool. It is not about being popular. It is a heartfelt movement of relevant music that comes from determined musicians who question the prevailing dogma". "A 16 year old girl from an affluent religious family who shows up to church with her green mohawk and FUCK JESUS shirt is punk. But so is a 42 year old biology professor who claims that Charles Darwin's ideas were wrong. These people have never heard of nor met each other, and yet what links them is their challenge to institutions and to dogmatic thinking. Whether this is genetic or learned is unknown. But I feel a kinship with everyone who shares these traits."

Putting the record straight

Jay: "We don't dress alike, we don't have to think alike, or talk alike. We don't hold to any party line. We don't fly a flag." Jay: "if you're looking to Bad Religion to be some kind of anarchistic, antichrist punk rock band look elsewhere, we don't offer that service here".

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Q

Quarks, The

The band Brett was in when he was asked to join Bad Religion by Greg and Jay Ziskrout. It was a New Wave band, and Brett much preferred punk, so he was the ideal guitarist, especially since he had an amp and a van.

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R

Raise Your Voice

The first single from No Substance, released in Europe one or two weeks before the album. It has State of the End Of the Millenium and At The Mercy Of Imbeciles plus a version of Raise Your Voice with Campino (the singer of Die Toten Hosen) singing. Inside the CD there is a picture of the band with Campino, who also appeared on the promo video. When Greg first saw the single (on the cover there's a picture of Greg screaming) his reaction was "this is ridiculous…" (they never know what's going to be on the cover of singles -that's up to Sony).

Rancid

Jay and Brett did back up vocals on their first (self-titled) album. Brett sports a Rancid tattoo on his arm. Matt Freeman said that Stranger Than Fiction was Bad Religion's best album. And of course Tim Armstrong sang on Television. At the Warped show in Cleveland, they were going to play Cease but when Lars from Rancid showed up backstage, Greg said: "Lars is here, looks like we better play what he wants." So then they played What Can You Do? Later when Rancid played, Lars thanked Bad Religion and said "Now that's punk rock!".

Randall Terry

The founder of Operation Rescue, which is a radical anti-abortion organization. Greg once said (in an interview for Kerrang) that Randall is the person he would most like to talk to (together with Bill Clinton).

Randall Terry

Here's a quote from the man himself: "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism".

RAINN

In 1996 Greg did a commercial for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, advertising a hotline. In it he talked about domestic violence and rape. In the background, Struck a Nerve played. It was played on national radio shows.

Realpolitik

Word of German etymology which means "political realism or practical politics, especially policy based on power rather than ideals." R.E.M.'s "Exhuming McCarthy" also quotes the word. The first person of historical note to play with "realpolitik" was Von Bismarck.

Recipe for Hate

Cover of the Recipe For Hate Album

1. In an interview Greg mentioned that it was hard to be labeled a band lacking creativity and musical diversity and called Recipe "an experimental approach to sound differently and to shut up the critics". Yet Brett said "I think it is more accessible, but I wouldn't say it was premeditated (...). Greg and I really don't discuss what we're going to write before we write. We don't even map it out in a general way. We don't say for next year's songs let's try to write in this general direction. We write the songs, then we listen to them and say, 'Hmmm, I wonder if we should play this in Bad Religion? It doesn't sound like anything we've ever written before.' Having written it, it's what the fuck? Yeah, I am going to use it for Bad Religion, because I have no desire to do a solo project right now, and I'm certainly not going to write 10 more songs striving to make them sound like something I've written before. Then again, I don't think anything is totally out of context, and if you like any previous Bad Religion albums, chances are this will appeal to you also". Greg: "It's possibly more easy to digest, but that's a sign of the times more than a sound on the record. I think it's more likely to be played on the radio; even two years ago, it wouldn't have had much of a chance to get played. I think our whole catalog is now more likely to get played. The fact that the albums might have hits is time dependent".

2. There is a Recipe For Hate tour poster (subway size) in the background of a porno movie. The same poster (the one showing the album cover) is seen in the movie PCU posted to a wall in the "pit" (basement of the college dorm in the movie) and in an episode of the TV show Weird Science (when Gary is going to talk to a girl she has the poster on her locker).

Red Kross

Hetson's first band (although they were first called The Tourists). He played on their first EP in 1979.

Rehearsing

Bobby: "If we were rehearsing like, seven days a week, I think, knowing our personalities, we would just go nuts after a while". So generally speaking they only meet up to rehearse before recording an album or going on tour.

Religion

Brett: "I'm not a religious person and feel that organized religions have generally done more harm than good". On 15.10.1993 Greg said Bad Religion has 108 songs and only 5 or 6 are about religious issues. He explained that the cross in their symbol is more metaphor (a metaphor for any kind of shared belief or way of thinking that is prescribed by an individual or a group) than it is iconography. Greg: "like all humans, I'm curious about where I come from and where I'm going. But I don't believe that God created me and I don't believe that I'm going to heaven. And so I can answer those questions better through studying biology, because it (...) allows me to pursue them in a framework where I can actually test theories myself". In an interview with a fundamentalist Christian music magazine, Greg said he has no problems with a person who prays at home and doesn't shove his/her views down someone else's throat. When he was asked if he was an atheist he said he hesitates to take that term because according to that a person knows there is no god and that is a religion onto itself. He said that if you believe in Jesus as an all-powerful god then Jesus is responsible for all the evil in the world. He explained that his mother had a pretty religious family and raised him away from the church. In another interview Greg states he has no problem with people believing in god, and in fact thinks religion has some good social value such as holding communities together, but he cannot abide the rigid dogmatic thinking that goes with it. Brett: "I don't know how to believe and what to believe in

but I don't feel comfortable with atheism either".

R.E.M.

Brian refused an offer to tour Monster with R.E.M. to join Bad Religion (or, like he put it "that's me in the corner, choosing Bad Religion"). Greg: "I think Into the Unknown is like early REM; if it had come a couple of years later it probably would have been as popular as REM".

Research grant

As stated by Alternative Press, "Bad Religion have recently (as of early 1998) decided to put their money where their mouth is and offer a research grant to fund field research". Graffin explains “We sent out circulars to all the universities offering between $3000 to $5000 for students who want to do field work in natural or cultural sciences. But it has to be field work: You have to go out into nature and observe. So far, there are probably on the order of 300 proposals. There are a lot of granting agencies that give money for scientific inquiry. But increasingly, there’s very little funding available for field-oriented projects. That’s because the ‘sexy sciences’ these days are genetics, DNA, and protein research that all takes place in laboratories. To me, that’s not nearly as educational as going out into nature and observing the environment. A trip through inner space-which is what you’re doing if you’re looking at molecules-doesn’t give you much of an understanding of the interactions of different species in our environment, which is ultimately what sustains us as people, the environmental theater. We’re going to give one award this year, and one award next year-hopefully it’ll become an annual award. We were surprised at how many universities took immediate interest in it because of this fact: There are a lot of people who want to do natural-history studies. I would love for Bad Religion to be one of the primary motivators of natural-history education-that’d be wonderful. People need to be educated to understand where we fit biologically. The reason we’re doing it is education-that’s what Bad Religion has been about since the beginning. We never pretended to have the answers, but we always asked questions. Hopefully, we’ve provoked people to come up with their own answers through observations.

Ric Ocasek

The ex-frontman and composer of The Cars (which Greg was a fan of). Ric produced The Gray Race, having previously produced the album "Rock for light" by The Bad Brains (from DC) as well as Weezer's self-titled album and Suicide (from NY). Ric is also known for being married to supermodel Paulina. As a producer, Hetson said he is "a visionary". Greg: "We liked the fact that he's another creative element, whereas a lot of producers are (...) just technical elements. He had a vision himself when he heard the demo tapes. Most of his input was on the overall sound of the album." Ric: "I'm not even a fucking producer; I'm a reducer. My job is to get to the essence of it. I wanted the guitars to be full and thick. I wanted it to punch real good. I also thought there was no reason in the world why this band shouldn't be played on the radio. This record is so well thought out, so good lyrically, so heavy, full and pumping, this should definitely be heard". Ric told them to go into the studio, work on the songs individually and put down stuff wherever they wanted, then sat down with all the recordings and picked up what he wanted for the album. Brian said that until The Gray Race was done, he didn't know what he had played on.

Richard Gurewitz

Brett's father, a.k.a. Big Dick. Both the Bad Religion EP and How Could Hell... were financed by a loan from him. With Epitaph, because they were a partnership, Bad Religion had to pick an outside party as a co- signer on every check, and they chose him too, because Jay trusted him more than anyone else he knew (because he was a successful and clever business man, and Jay had spent many nights talking to him about what Bad Religion were doing, what they were trying to accomplish, etc.).

Richard White

The guy who filmed and released the riots occurred at a North Hollywood Bad Religion "gig" (cancelled) on 12.29.1990. He was baptized Richard Riot by the members of Bad Religion. Has filmed and owns all the following Bad Religion concerts: "Bad Religion" -May .18,1985/Olympic Aud. / "Bad Religion" May.1,1986/Fenders / "Bad Religion"- Feb.26,1988/Fenders / "Bad Religion"-April.29,1988/Fenders / "Bad Religion"-Aug.18,1988/Fenders / "Bad Religion"-Oct.15,1988/Devonshire Downs (multiple cameras) / "Bad Religion"- dec.23,1989/CountryClub (multiple cameras) / "Bad Religion May.10,1990/the Palladium (multiple cameras) / "Bad Religion-Dec .29,1990/El Portal theatre +sound check / "punk Rock Riot Footage" used by ABC News (one camera) / "Bad Religion"-1991/The Palladium (multiple cameras) / "Bad Religion"-April.11,1992/The Palladium (multiple cameras).

Ricky Rachtman

The guy from MTV's Headbanger's Ball. Greg dedicated I Saw the Light to him. He is thanked in the liner notes for Stranger than Fiction.

Riding the Storm out

Song by Reo Speedwagon. There is a 7" with cover versions of Riding the Storm out (recorded at the Olympic Auditorium in 1984), Louie Louie, Rock and Roll and Johnny B.Goode (live tracks from the early 80s). The cover is yellow with two naked women in the water waving at another woman. There is a clear vinyl release (red cover) and a normal release. Also found (together with the other three covers) in the CD bootleg Christmas show 11.12.'93 + 8.1.94 Los Angeles. Found on the bootleg CD Hell On Earth, which includes the whole show where they played the song (at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, 1984).

Riding the Storm out

Words & Music Gary Richrath. These are the lyrics (although Greg doesn't exactly sing this): Ridin' the storm out, waitin' for the thaw out,

Riots

On 12.29.1990 in the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood there were riots in a Bad Religion , NOFX and Pennywise concert (there's a <a href="../vids/v_riot.html">documentary</a> for sale on video).

Rock music

Hetson said in 1994: "I can't help it, I can't appreciate those sounds. I detest mainstream rock, it's not my stile. I'm against wild partying and the sex, drugs and r'n'r myth". However, he said that "popular rock bands tend to demonstrate an interest towards everyday life. There's some kind of self-imposed discipline, the rock-parties-drugs triad seems to lose its appeal. I notice a renewed attention for social issues."

Rock and Roll (by Led Zeppelin)

There is a 7" with cover versions of Rock and Roll (live at the Skylight Club, 3.31.1983), Louie Louie, Riding the Storm Out and Johnny B.Goode (live tracks from the early 80s). The cover is yellow with two naked women in the water waving at another woman. There is a clear vinyl release (red cover) and a normal release. Also found (together with the other three covers) in the CD bootleg Christmas show 11.12.'93 + 8.1.94 Los Angeles.

Ronnie Kimball

Their sound engineer i.e. the man behind the sound desk in all their live shows, at least since the Gray Race Tour. He also engineered No Substance. He's a very cool guy and surfing is his greatest passion. He's also worked for The Offspring and Pearl Jam (Ten and Vitalogy tours) among other bands. His wife, Sheryl Nields, is a very good photographer who works for several very prestigious magazines and she took a great picture of Bad Religion which was used as a promo picture by Atlantic, in flyers advertising gigs etc.

Rosemary's billygoat

Hetson produced an album for them.

Roskilde Festival

They played it in 1996, along with ~150 other bands. Also in 1993, when they recorded the acoustic version of Do What You Want.

Ross Perot

Greg was reading a Ross Perot book and commented that he's "beautifully human, and that's why I think he's a better candidate than these other ones".

Runnin' Fast

A great acoustic rock ballad type of song which Greg wrote and was released on the Desperate Teenage Lovedolls soundtrack .

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

S

Sales

Sales increased with each album until 1994 (Stranger Than Fiction sold 400,000 copies, their record) and then started decreasing with each album.

Seaweed

They are thanked in the liner notes for Stranger than Fiction and Jay was wearing a Seaweed T-shirt in a publicity shot published as a poster by Kerrang.

Security staff

At the Warped show in Pontiac, a brain-dead, bastard security guard punched a young crowdsurfer. Jay and Greg saw this, and Jay yelled something to the tune: "Hey fat-ass, stop that! Hey asshole leave him alone!" Greg then began poking the guard in the back with the mic stand while saying something like "Hey, that's not nice." At one point it looked like Jay was going to jump onto the guard, but the guard left the kid alone. Greg cracked a few more jokes, and Jay called the security guard a few more swear words, and the rest of the set went smoothly.

Seeing Eye Gods, The

The name of a "band" and a mini-album with 5 tracks which Brett released on Epitaph in 1985. All the lyrics were written by Brett. All the music was composed by Brett except for one song by Brett's friend John Bertini (who was his crack dealer). Brett sings all songs (and I suppose he plays all instruments too). Nobody else apart from Brett and John was involved in the making of the album (Brett wasn't speaking to the Bad Religion guys too much at the time). I wouldn't know how to describe it but I guess it's slow pop music with a psychedelic sensibility. It includes also a cover version of Matchstick Men, by Status Quo. It is a 12" picture disc (paisley vinyl actually). Two songs talk about the girl Brett was going out with back then, Suzy Shaw. They are Psychedelic Suzy and Strawberry Girl. It is really a very personal project, recorded, engineered and produced by Brett. Even the art direction is credited to Brett (to Billy Pilgrim actually, which was Brett's nickname for that particular project). That was when Brett had a distribution deal with a company called Sounds Good and according to Suzy Shaw they released about 1,000 copies. She has only one copy. I don't know how well it was distributed, but not even Bad Religion collectors knew about it until Suzy told me (Roger) and I told everyone, in 1998. Some punk collectors in Europe knew that it was written by Brett and that Suzy is "Psychedelic Suzy", as she got a few letters on the subject. This would seem to indicate at least some distribution. But Suzy herself had never come across anyone who had one until I found it. Jay Bentley does have a copy (actually, Hetson has Jay's copy since years ago) but Suzy didn't know.

Sega

The soundtrack to the computer game Crazy Taxi (1999) includes 10 in 2010, Them and Us, Inner Logic and Hear It as well as The Offpsring's All I Want and some other songs. It's fast-paced drivin' sort of thing, so obviously those somewhat turbocharged songs were chosen with that in mind.

Selection from the album Stranger than Fiction

A promo CD which contains six tracks with their lyrics, exclusive pics and the following comments on each song: "I don't always feel one hundred percent (Incomplete)", "Love is a many splintered thing (Infected)", "why do so many of the great writers of fiction, the hearts and voices of generations, turn out to be as crazy as loons (Stranger than Fiction)", "a song about dead people. Originally inspired by the tragedy of Bosnia; it evolved into a general statement about our history of turning our backs on those who suffer, and the haunting guilt that we are left with (Tiny Voices)", "a song about compromise and its scarcity in today's world. Where it's needed (at the ethnic, political and personal level) it ain't found (The Handshake)", "Will the information revolution improve quality of life or the quality of gizmos? Are you Mac or Windows? (21st Century...)". Note that the four tracks that ended up as singles were all Brett songs. There's a French version of it too.

Selling out

Brett: "[the common theory is that we sold out]. I'm not gonna argue with that.(…) I'm only speaking for myself. I don't think everyone else in the group would agree with me. We're catching a lot of flak for signing to a major, and we probably deserve it, and you're not gonna find me being defensive about it. But I will say that if you dig the music, to me that's the final word". Bobby said Bad Religion are sell-outs. "But then again if we are sell-outs because we signed to a major label then I guess the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, the Clash, the Damned, the Jam, the Dictators, the MC5, the Stooges, the Stranglers, the Dickies..... I guess all of those bands were sell-outs too". Brian: "...to encapsulate my thoughts on the whole sell-out issue, I think a band has to cater both sonically and ideologically to the evil major label overlords in order to qualify for sellout status. I think that Stranger than Fiction and the Gray Race prove where we are at...". In a Houston gig Greg explained that they are not sellouts like Rush and Foo-Fighters. On another occasion, Greg said he couldn't care less about the whole issue of punk going mainstream, sellouts, etc. He said people spend way too much time on that. He gave Punk Rock Song that title "because I knew it would raise a lot of eyebrows, and a lot of people will get hung up on the Punk word. The point is, they get so wrapped up in how to classify it that they miss the whole point, which is the importance of the human tragedy" (he wrote it around the time of the Rwanda tragedy). In 1991 they were asked "do you think music of resistance can be mass entertainment?" and all Bad Religion members answered positively. Brett said "protest music has its greatest potential in exposure to mass media". Brett explained that he heard Op Ivy broke up 'cause they were getting too popular and it wasn't punk to be super popular. He said "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, I don't think that there's anything wrong with it. (…) I've been reading about this issue in Flipside for (…) 13 years. And what it means is this, it's very simple: people who decide that they're gonna be punks make a decision to lead an alternative lifestyle outside or on the fringe of the mainstream. So the individual has a choice, either to reject that band, not because necessarily their music changed, but in order to maintain their chosen lifestyle on the fringe, outside of the mainstream. Because to continue to accept that group would mean that they are now a part of the mainstream. It's not their fault and it's not the group's fault. It's just that pop culture is not static and what was underground or fringe yesterday quite often can become what is acceptable or mainstream today". He said anybody who chooses to reject a band (just 'cause other strangers in the mainstream have decided to like them) can't expect an artist to be in control of who likes them; all you can expect them to do is put out the best art they can.

Sepultura

The guitarist used to have a Bad Religion sticker on his guitar.

Sex Pistols, The

They expressed an interest in touring with Bad Religion. Eventually they played together the Filthy Lucre Tour. In Finland they played in the first gig the Pistols ever played since the reunion. The Pistols actually got booed on their first night out. The New York Times said that the audience likes Bad Religion and The Leningrad Cowboys better than the Pistols. They also played Brazil, where Greg said onstage that when he started to listen to The Pistols he thought that if Johnny Rotten can sing he could sing too, but now he knows that Rotten can't sing and he can. Bad Religion blew them away at the handful of shows where they opened for them in Europe. I think in Denmark, the Pistols actually left the stage after about 3 songs because the crowd wouldn't stop chanting for Bad Religion.

Sex Pistols, The

Greg: "That's pathetic. That's total freak show. The thing that made me maddest about it was that they had surrounded themselves with mainstream rock and roll people who were treating the band as though they were untouchable. They were treating the bands around them as if they were pieces of shit".

Sex Pistols, The

After the show in Finland they put up pieces of board over Bad Religion's tour bus windows so they couldn't see the Pistols coming offstage. Bobby filmed that and Greg commented "that was the end of the Sex Pistols tour as far as I was concerned. The first day it was over. It's just really pathetic that they would allow things like that to happen". But Greg used to be into them as a kid: "they sang with heart (...) now they sing just like a puppet show".

Shai Hulud

They play a much harder/noisier version of Anesthesia.

Silencio!

A vinyl bootleg with the pope on the sleeve and a picture of the band members (including Lucky) looking very young.

Silent Night

Played in a Christmas show on 11.12.1993 together with Fuck Christmas. Found in the CD bootlegs Christmas Show 11.12.'93 + 8.1.'94 Los Angeles, Stranger than Pulp Fiction, KROQ Christmas Party 1994 and Unknown Infections (same version). The same version is also found on the Atlantic official compilation CD So This Is Christmas (Atlantic PRCD 5996). In the middle of playing it (2:22 min. to 2:39 min.), they inserted 17 seconds of the famous riff from The Knacks' My Sharona. The lyrics are as follows: Silent night, holy night,

Silverchair

Daniel Johns (I think that's his name) sports a crossbuster on his guitar.

Skaters

In 1991 Greg said nobody liked Bad Religion except for skaters.

Skyscraper

The missing bit says something like "well madness reigned and paradise drowned when Babel's walls came crashing down / Now the echoes roar / for story [lived] / that was hardly understood / and never any good". Babel is a city mentioned in The Bible in which the citizens longed so much to know what the afterlife was like, that they attempted to build a tower that could reach heaven ("we'll build a city with a tower for the world"). They never reached heaven and were forced to stop building the tower because of a miscommunication problem with God. What happened was that all the people in the world spoke the same language and some were building this great tower. God saw what was going on and thought that if they were able to do that, that nothing would be impossible for them. The story is really the explaination of why there are different races and languages becase God scattered them around and gave them different languages so they didnt understand each other, hence the name Babel..because it was confused and no one made sense of it. In the Brazil concert Bobby was asked about why they hadn't played Skyscraper and Anesthesia and he said it's because the vocals are too high and after 8 months of tour Greg just can't sing it anymore.

Sleeves

There are many different sleeves for The Gray Race. There's a cover with an African American on one side and a baby on the other. Another one with a boy on one side and the baby on the other. One with an Indian man with a wide face on the front and an Asian woman on the back. And one with a 50-odd-year-old American-looking man on one side and a boy on the other. The band were asked about the cover and they answered it was an old guy so supposedly the latter is the most usual one. I suppose there are as many sleeves as faces in the fold-out lyrics sheet.

Slug

Magazine which published a pathetic review of All Ages on their January 1996 issue: "Another comp record from the new kings of recycled garbage (...) I know that Epitaph can't put out a good record, the kind of quality you know to expect. And of course this record stands up to that mark of quality (crap). It's Bad Religion if you think they are an energetic good punk band you've got a brain tumor. If you skipped this review 'cause you know they suck then you've got taste"

Smegma

It was a name considered at the time of forming Bad Religion. Smegma is the medical word for the secretions that you find under the foreskin of a dick. They were also considering calling themselves Head Cheese, which is the slang word for the stuff.

Snot

SoCal hardcore band. Their last album (released on Geffen 27.5.1997) has a track (num 13) titled Mr. Brett and is pretty much a song dedicated to slamming Mr. Brett for being a corporate sellout. Among the lyrics are lines like "You think that you're still part of the scene, nail painted black, hair dyed dark green, for you this mid-life crisis has come on strong" and "Punk rock life's been good to you, now corporate punk's the thing to do, obnoxiously, you raised your fee, you'll see to it, we'll all get screwed".

So this is Xmas

They contributed Silent Night to this compilation.

Soccer

Though Bad Religion is mostly a hockey team, they have played several soccer matches over the years, while on tour. They had a charity match on August 31, 2000, in Hamburg, Germany, Bad Religion and crew and fans and FC St.Pauli ex-pros against the 3rd team of FC ST.Pauli. The whole thing was in the local press a lot, 300 people showed up, Bad Religion & friends lost 2 : 4 (Jay made 2 fatal mistakes), and the revenues went towards a youth project in Hamburg/St.Pauli.

Social Distortion

Bad Religion's first show was a garage party in Fullerton with Social Distortion in 1980. Jay: "Mike Ness was in the punk rock scene cuz Social Distortion sucked as a band. They weren't anything other than a punk rock band. And WE sucked; I'm not trying to say that anybody was better. It wasn't that it was a bad scene. It was a scene that people could actually go to and be a part of. They weren't a heavy metal band, they weren't a country and western band; (...) Mike Ness has been saying a lot of things against that cuz every review that you read of Social Distortion I says 'coming out of the 80s punk scene'. They don't wanna be a part of that. They don't wanna be associated with that anymore. To them that's an anchor. It's something that drags them down. So he's gonna say (...) it's more punk what he's doing now. Which is true! What he's doing now is much more relevant than what he did. It's up to date, it's new".

Solos

Hetson said "they are something we fear" and "a good soloist knows what not to play" and Brian said "they are a necessary evil in songwriting" and "most guitar solos sound totally masturbatory to me." Hetson: "The only thing different about any guitar solo that I've ever done has to do with fucking around with different amps or cool pedals. Otherwise it's really the same three solos over and over". Bad Religion's solos use mostly the scales minor pentatonic, natural minor, blues scale, and dorian mode. Brian: "hey, nobody likes to sit through guitar solos waiting for the vocals to come back, especially on a Bad Religion song. That's Graffin's whole thing -'just get to the vocal!'". Brian said the guitar solos only exist to give Greg a breather.

Solutions?

Brett: "There's no actual solution within the system, nothing on a grand scale can be achieved". When they asked Greg for solutions, he said that "assumes I have a concept of a perfect world, which I think is a flawed supposition (...) I believe the idea of perfection is fascist. I'd have to control people's behavior... but ideally people should treat each other better. But really, you're encouraging me to do something that's not in my nature, it would be so easy to rattle off some bullshit, but if I really want to share something insightful, then it's tough".

Someone Got Their Head Kicked In

A Better Youth Organization Records compilation, also with Social Distortion, Adolescents and Youth Brigade. All old tunes. Bad Religion contributed In The Night. It was kind of rereleased on CD as Someone's Gonna Get Their Head To Believe In Something.

Songs

Brett said "There are those who say screw Bad Religion because all the songs sound the same, and there's also the school of thought who say screw Bad Religion because they've changed and now they sound commercial! But there's probably an equal number of both. And really, I never thought about having to write a song that someone else would like. I always just tried to write good Bad Religion songs".

Songwriting

When they formed Bad Religion Brett and Greg just started contributing songs. They never agreed to write 50% each or whatever. Jay on the Generator era: "The songs themselves were becoming more intricate, because Greg and Brett were both phenomenal songwriters. I've been in a lot of bands, so it's not just because I'm in Bad Religion". "With the talent that Brett and Greg both had, it made for a healthy competition of songwriting against each other; if Greg wrote two songs, well Brett would write five. Greg would write one great song, and you'd just go 'Wow!'. And then Brett would go try to do one better. I thought his was great. I just sit back and let everyone else do all the work". Jay has said he's very insecure about what he writes so most times he just scraps it. He also said he writes songs "but when I'm done with them, I knew they don't belong with Bad Religion. I'm not interested in a solo album; my songs are maybe too much Elvis Costello". Although the vast majority of the songs were credited only to one person (Brett or Greg) because this is how they decided they'd do it, Bobby often comes up with the drum parts and Jay with the bass parts, as does Hetson, at least to some extent. More importantly, Greg often comes up with the vocal melodies, even for songs which will be credited solely to Brett because Brett wrote the lyrics and some musical basis (sometimes the guitar part, sometimes just a riff or a chord progression). When Brett left Bad Religion he said he got tired of changing songs so that Greg could sing them. Greg said in turn that when you're a co-writer you have to compromise, and with Brett gone, he felt liberated to be able to explore elements that he hadn't explored. By the time they went into the studio for The Gray Race, Greg had 23 songs. Brian only wrote four or five guitar parts. When asked why they don't experiment more as in All Good Soldiers, Brian answered: "I think it would be a little bit shallow to force something weird just because we don't have a weird song on the last record. What we put on records is just what comes out and perhaps the next record that comes out will be an entire album of "All Good Soldiers", as far as I know. It's not planned and it's not contrived, it's just what comes out". Brett: "Greg and I really don't discuss what we're going to write before we write. We don't even map it out in a general way. We don't say for next year's songs let's try to write in this general direction. We write the songs, then we listen to them and say, 'Hmmm, I wonder if we should play this in Bad Religion?'". Hetson said in 1994 "We don't have fixed rules. Some albums saw a strong lyrical contribution on Greg Graffin's part, other works were more distributed between the components. Brett took a big responsibility for Stranger Than Fiction; he wrote an important portion of both music and lyrics. We tend to follow the moment's inspiration, the way we divide the work is substantially casual; things just happen".

Sorrow

Song from "The Process of Belief" album.

See the video for Sorrow

Soul

The word "soul" appears on 11 different songs and 22 unique phrases. Probably more than what one would expect from a band named Bad Religion:

"The Hippy Killers" (creatures sustained by desire, heart, and soul), "God Song" (your life to bless your soul), "Empty Causes" (a bluster for the soul, a fix for their mind / direction for the soul, conviction for the mind) , "Faith Alone" (if your soul needs love you can get consoled by pity / if your soul needs love you can always have my pity), "The Handshake" (but I'm not gonna lie or sell my soul), "Individual" (pushing on with soul and heart), "Marked" (everything you see leaves a mark on your soul / everything you feel leaves a mark on your soul / everything you touch leaves a mark on your soul / everything you make leaves a mark on your soul / everyone you bare leaves a mark on your soul / everyone you love leaves a mark on your soul / everything you take leaves a mark on your soul / everything you give leaves a mark on your soul / and every tear you cry leaves a mark on your soul), "Man With A Mission" (I'll save your soul / come to me, I'll save your soul), "Losing Generation" (and now they're down to 250 lone souls), "A world without melody" Way deep within your soul, "The empire strikes first" But even ten million souls marching in february couldn't stop the worst

Sounds of Hollywood Fanzine 2

An album which Mystic Records put out in 1983 (Mystic 33124) which contains Waiting For the Fire and Every Day. It also has Chain Reaction

S.V.D.B., Rise and Fall

Shattered Faith, Tearin Me Up

Still Life, Oughta Be Dancing

F Beat, Drag the Lake

Red Scare, Keep America Beautiful

Red Scare, Hate, Lust, Filth and Greed

Circle One, Sweaty Little Girls

Battalion of Saints, Fruit Loops

10,000 Hurts, Sharin

F Beat, Melt Down

S.V.D.B., Abandon

10,000 Hurts, Black Swan

Wurm and Last Name First

Shattered Faith. The sleeve of the LP is solid yellow with black lettering. There's another album with the same name that came out in 1997 and has nothing to do with Bad Religion by the way.

Speedbuggy

Hetson produced a CD they released on Blue Man From Uranus. Apparently he then signed them for his Upshot label and recorded them at the legendary Westbeach Studio.

Stairway to Heaven

In the Brazil concert Greg started singing Stairway to Heaven (taking the piss, that is).

Stealth

The lyrics are spliced together from President Bush's State of the Union Address in 1992. Here are some quotes from the speech: "I will continue pushing to eliminate tariffs", "We can get rid of each and every one of them.", "This year America will spend over $800 billion on health", "This weekend I will meet at Camp David with Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation.", "And soon after that, at Christmas, the last American hostages came home", "We make basic health insurance affordable for all low-income people not now covered.", "And I'm doing what I think is right; I'm proposing what I know will help.", "And they will certainly deserve it." These were turned into the song's lyrics,which go like "first I will continue pushing free narcotics for all low income people not now covered and soon after that we can get rid of each and every one of them. And I'm doing what I think is right, and they will certainly deserve it."

Stone Pony

In the Stone Pony (Asbury Park) concert, Bobby had a huge hand with middle finger extended on his drum set-up. Greg ranted about how he grew up in Asbury Park and how he had a guitar and his mother told him "no Bad Religion song can make you life complete.." right before playing No Direction.

Straight-edge

Brian claims to have invented this word (when he wrote the homonymous song together with Dave). He says when he was 15 and was playing punk shows everyone around him was drinking but he simply wasn't allowed to because of his age so he'd always ask for a Coke. Therefore he was sXe but had no choice. He was sXe until somewhere around '86 or '87. He said that the second lead singer from Dag Nasty used to smoke a lot of pot, and he eventually experimented with it. He also said something like "I can't argue that putting shit in your body is better for you, but I'm a grown man and if I want to get drunk in my room and lie in my bed crying, then it's my decision." In an interview in Britain in 1995, Greg claimed that he had never been drunk in his life. In 1996 some fans claimed to have seen him drunk at the backstage.

Stranger Than Fiction -the album

It took five weeks to record. As far as the song selections, Jay says "that was an ordeal! we choose the songs, but man did we fight. The songs that were left off the U.S. release were voted off by a majority. you should've seen the lobbying!". A limited European version was released with a black sleeve and including a crossbuster logo sticker with the dates of the European Tour on the back. On March 3rd 1998, Stranger Than Fiction officially becomes Bad Religion's first gold album (over half a million copies sold in the US). In the fall of 1999 I heard it had sold 1.3 millions worldwide, but I'm not sure how reliable this information was.

Stranger Than Fiction -the album

All the images in the booklet and on the front/back cover come from issues of Popular Science magazine.

Stranger than Fiction -the song

Len Smith asked Brett what "Caringosity killed the Kerouac Cat" meant. "Cat" is a slang word just like "dude" or "guy". Jack Kerouac was a writer from the Beat Generation whom Brett deeply admires. Along with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Ken Kesey, they defined the "beat" poetry and literature movement of the 50's and early 60's. After Jack's friend Neal Cassady died, he got so depressed he drank himself to death (although he had his drinking problem long before Neal died -from about 1958 until his death in 1969 he barely wrote and did about a quart of booze a day, plus various other drugs). So caringosity, caring too much, killed Jack Kerouac. The whole song's about artists who write fantastic fiction, yet can't deal with real life. Greg used to sing live "I wanna know why Gurewitz cracked, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction" (e.g. 13.9.96 Stone Pony, NJ) and, at least once, he sang "I wanna know, where Brett gets his crack, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction". There is a 10" one-sided picture disc promo with the crossbuster symbol of which Dragnet only released 1,000 copies (also has Individual). There's a promo CD single which explains that "the talents of Bad Religion have been acknowledged by several critically-noted scribes, including British music watchdogs NME & Melody Maker, as well as Rolling Stone, Spin, the Los Angeles Times & Chicago Tribune, Playboy and Village Voice among many others. (...) truly, nothing compares to the sheer power of Bad Religion live". It also has a sticker with a quotation from Charles M. Young: "true believer punks from L.A., Bad Religion have mastered its art form, creating defiant, burning music...". The German single has Leaders and Followers and Mediocrity, and all the European dates for the STF Tour (including a mistake -it says Zurich is in the Czech republic).

Stranger Than Fiction -the tour

It lasted for 9 months and included Europe, Japan and the U.S. (where they also opened a string of concerts for Pearl Jam).

Stranger than Pulp Fiction

Famous bootleg which includes live Bad Religion stuff plus Noel, Joy to the World, Silent Night and Fuck Christmas (twice).

Streets of America

The promo video was shot in May 1996 in the Mojave Desert, California, and was directed by David Bragger, who also did the clips for Punk Rock Song and A Walk. It was all an idea of Atlantic and Brian said it was one of the worst experiences he's ever had. The single includes the edit (radio) version, which is identical to the original but Fuckin' has been censored ("for what you [fuckin] promised led them astray"). The single also has a CD-ROM track with the promo video.

Strings

Bad Religion's guitarists use Dean Markley Blue Steel strings. Hetson uses 0.09 to 0.42 and Brian 0.10 to 0.52.

Struck a Nerve

In 1996 Greg did a commercial for a rape hotline. In it he talked about domestic violence and rape. In the background, Struck a Nerve played. It was played live at the Conan O' Brien show. There's a CD single promo which doesn't have a sleeve, just a sticker on the front with the dates to the US leg of the Recipe tour. In the Infected Single, Greg sings "...holding a candy cane, and it isn't quite yet Christmas."

Student Newspaper of the University of Texas, the

They called Bad Religion the world's most prolific and probably longest-lasting punk band.

Sublime

They did a slower cover version of We're Only Gonna Die in 40 Ounces to Freedom, also included in the Blackout Record's compilation Punk Rock Jukebox. They even play it live and it can be found in some live videos of the band. The singer comments that Bad Religion is one of the reasons he wanted to be in a band and that if he started a band that he wanted to sound just like Bad Religion. At the American Lesion show in Ithaca (11.9.1997) Greg mentioned the Sublime version jokingly and tried to fake it a bit.

SubPop

They were contacted by Bad Religion when the band decided to leave Epitaph, but SubPop wasn't interested.

Suffer

Greg said Brett's return to Bad Religion in 1987 "really motivated Brett, and me too, that's why Suffer has so much life to it. Here was a bunch of guys that hadn't been together for a while, and then we find out not only do we have a better outlook on life and understand more about the world so we can write a little more lucidly, but we both sound better than ever". "At that time I wasn't trying to be punk anymore, I wanted to deliver a more honest representation of the lyrics, I had these ideas I wanted to communicate. I guess I was concentrating more on communication, than trying to define our sound or fit into a genre". Jay: "I think you just get better at what you're doing. A lot of the early songs, when people say you're a three chord punk band, they're absolutely right. However, on Suffer there were songs that really were songs; verse, chorus, bridge, these are not three chord songs at all. I think that simply has to do with trying not to write the same material over and over gain, so you have to write different kinds of music. It's not different styles, but just expanding on what you're playing, so they became more song like". Bobby replies: "Suffer is what punk rock is about. I just think that over time you progress as a songwriter and all that, but for me Suffer was the rebirth, that was where How Could Hell... left off". It was released on 9.8.88 and it sold 4,000 copies, which was cool to them considering how utterly insignificant Epitaph was at the time. In 1993 Brett said it was his favorite Bad Religion album. In 1988 the album was voted best album of the year by the editors of Trust Magazine and Maximum Rock and Roll and by the readers (and the editor) of Flipside. There are rumors of an 8-track tape release of the album. Jay assures me Epitaph never released it (in fact they say no 8-tracks were released in the 80s at all) yet this guy assured me he had it. I guess he was lying but I don't understand why.

Suffer

On the liner notes for the All Ages album one can see the alternative lyrics that were considered for the song. The verse that goes "The business man whose master plan controls the world each day..." has written underneath it "The worker in the factory, the Hindu in the dust. The mesogleal hooker who can ruin lives with lust" and "The Hindu in the dust, the Russians lack of trust, The NATO powers, lives in fear. The Hindu eating dust. The shepherd lost his flock..." and also "Johnee strung on dope. They gave him too much rope. The Maitredee of Bourgoisee takes valium to cope...".

Supernovice

Hetson produced their album Inescapable in 1996 (released by Onset).

Support bands

Cowboy Killers, Drive, Extreme Noise Terror, The Jerks, Leatherface, Pearl Jam, Samiam, SNUFF, Unwritten Law, etc. (check All Ages for like 50 other bands).

Suzy Shaw

An ex-girlfriend of Brett's who works at the Bomp label since many moons ago. She's known Brett for a longer time than almost anyone he knows. In 1983, after most of 10,000 copies of Into the Unknown were returned, they put them in the Bomp warehouse, because Brett was working there. After a while, Suzy sold most of the albums without telling the band. When they found out, they stopped it and Jay said only about 300 copies were left at that time. Suzy says that she only sold about 2,000 and "personally, I think I had every right to sell a few crappy albums that had been abandoned in MY warehouse to recoup a bit on the expenses I incurred while Brett and I were living together. I took care of Brett for many a year when he had nothing and let him live in my really nice house for free and made him dinner every night and taught him everything I could about the record business! He didn't contribute anything to the household expenses and he hasn't given me a thing since. That's all a long time ago and Brett and I have no hard feelings towards each other".

Suzy Shaw

The album Seeing Eye Gods (see its entry) is mostly about her.

Symbol

The "crossbusters" logo was invented by Brett when they were 15 years old. Brett came up with a piece of paper and said "look at this" and they all found it very funny. Jay said one of the reasons why they chose it is because of TV evangelism and how much they hate the notion of having to pay to be saved and loved by god (Jay wrote the intro to Voice of God is Government). Also because "it's an easy symbol for kids to spray paint" and "to put on a shirt" and because "it would piss our parents off". In 1989 Greg said "I wish it wasn't so offensive to people because other people could benefit from the ideas I think" but also said they chose it to piss a lot of people off. Recently Greg has mentioned again that he has a feeling that, people who should be listening to Bad Religion like religious people, are put off by their logo, and therefore he regrets having chosen it. Greg explained that the cross in their symbol is more metaphor (a metaphor for any kind of shared belief or way of thinking that is prescribed by an individual or a group) than it is iconography. Hetson said it's "against any established set of rules".

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

T

T-shirts

In the Atomic Garden video and in the Against the Grain album Hetson wears an L.A. Kings T-shirt. In the Along the Way video Brett wears a Ramones, a Suffer (Bad Religion) white T-shirt and a Bad Religion black T-shirt. Hetson wears NOFX and SNFU. Jay wears the crossbuster logo and so does the crew. In Big Bang Hetson wears a Jimmy Hendrix and a Bad Religion T-shirt, Brett wears No Control, NOFX and Elvis Costello and Bobby Bad Religion, while Greg wears Sham 69, a T-shirt with drawings of different species of fish and a Cornell University T-shirt during the interview. He was wearing a T-shirt of the Vertebrate Collection in Cornell University in a photo session. Hetson wore a Helmet T. Jay called the fact that Brett appears in the Atomic Garden video with a Bad Religion T-shirt on "pretty tacky". But explained that "there was a time when we all wore our own shirts because they were free, and we didn't have anything else to wear". There are lots of different Bad Religion T-shirts (CD Now and badreligion.com sell some. In the T-shirt with the list of all their songs there are several errors; namely: 1) I must look pretty appealing 2) Faith alone won't sustain us any longer 3) Entrophy and 4) Dilirium of Disorder. 5)Watch it Die and Punk Rock Song are not properly capitalised along with the list. In the bootleg Live 94 Radio, Brian wears a Motorhead T-shirt, in Hate Yourself Brett wears No Control, in KROQ Christmas Party 1994 Hetson wears D.O.A. and in Radiation Hazard Greg wears UCLA Athletics.

Takin' Care of Business

70s hit by Bachman Turner Overdrive. They played it live at the White Eagle Hall in Victoria, on 1.5.91, in the middle of We're Only Gonna Die (where the slow part kicks in). There is a bootleg video of this show, of pretty good quality.

Tattoos

Garth L. from Salt Lake city Utah has an against the grain tattoo: the corn with an arrow through it. His mate Ian Gowans claims to be the biggest Bad Religion fan alive and is going to get a Suffer tattoo on his lower leg. A guy called Chito has the kind-of sun from the Generator booklet, an Epitaph sign and the Suffer boy on his left arm. Another guy at Washington State University had the Generator wheel (on the CD) on the back of his calf. Adam Sanford from Pleasant Hill, CA has the flaming boy from Suffer on his right shoulder blade. Another guy has it on his back. Chris from Lilburn, GA has a tattoo on his ankle of the crossbuster surrounded by flames and Mr White from Norcross, GA plans on getting the crossbuster so it wraps his elbow. Dirk Röttgers in Germany has an Against The Grain tattoo on his arm too.

Teen Idols

They have a song called Tuff Guy which sounds a lot like No Control and all the members of the band are Bad Religion freaks.

Ten in 2010

About the video, Brian explained "we purposely aren't in it (...) we told them that we were tired of dancing around like 5 people playing a punk rock song and put together a video that has nothing to do with us and actually does deal with the visual images, actually supports the lyrics much more accurately". Sony/Dragnet released a promo, but not a single for sale.

Tested

The live album, their thirteenth release according to Greg (hence the 13s on the artwork). As for the three new tracks on it, Dream Of Unity and Reciprocal were written during the Gray Race tour (Brian wrote half of Reciprocal), and apparently there was an original Tested that the verse of it was trying to be a song for The Gray Race, but they never followed through, and when they were somewhere in Germany at soundcheck they stumbled on to a chorus, and then, as through the tour, they progressed and turned it into a song. Atlantic turned down releasing the album and, since it was going to be made only in Europe, Bad Religion decided to import loads to the US so people could buy it at a non-import price (they were recommending a price of $15.99 in US stores). Dragnet worked out a way to ship the record from Europe into the USA at a relatively low cost. It required Bad Religion and Dragnet to both make less money; Bad Religion in the form of a reduced royalty rate, and Dragnet in the form of a lower margin of profit. Thus, in America it was an import record on the Dragnet label from Germany, and in the rest of the world (where it was released in middle February, a month earlier) on the Dragnet label, or regional SONY affiliate label. Still, there was quite a lot of confusion when it came out because most fans couldn't get it while others already had it; and some paid lots and some very little. Greg's advice was "be patient and absolutely do not pay more than 20 dollars for it". CD NOW was selling it for $18.95 + S&H, the Virgin Megastore in NY was charging $30 and Bad Religion themselves set up an ordering service where one could get it for $13 net of postage. Here's how: check only (add 8.25% sales tax if in California); write to: Ancient Chinese Secret / c/o Bad Religion / 137 W. 14th Street #202 / NYC NY 10011. They would even send you an autographed copy if you asked them to when ordering it. The distributors were being quite slow and also a CD shipment was sort of stuck in customs for a while and they eventually got them on the 25.3.1997 instead of the 18th which was the official release date. Michelle (Bad Religion's manager) said Dragnet would import it because Atlantic were being jerks. Brian commented "we were kind of confused! I think perhaps our American label didn't think it was going to make them enough money. And they didn't understand that we didn't put this record out to make money, we don't expect everybody to buy it. They didn't seem to understand that we wanted to put something out for the people who had followed the band for a long time. We didn't want to have some marketing plan, and we did not want to go on tour behind it, and give MTV videos, and, you know... I guess our German label understands what we're trying to do, and the American label doesn't.

Tested

Greg approached Brett about the album and Brett replied that it was too early in Bad Religion's career for a live album. He argued that live albums usually mark the end or waning of a group's career; they are a documentation of a group's early vital years; he felt that if Bad Religion were to continue as a vital group continuing to put out new material and if indeed their best material were in front of them, than a live album was premature. Another reason he gave is that "All Ages" had just been released. He said that "two retrospectives in a row seems like ripping off the fans to me. A great new studio album is in my opinion what is called for before a new comp is released." Brett was also very hurt and angry because only four of his songs were included in the album. He called this "a fucking low blow" and said Greg had done it to get more money from the album (songwriters get extra money). He said that he hadn't spoken to Greg about it but that "I dedicated 16 years of my life to that band and to leave my songs off the live album is a supreme insult in my estimation". On 2.28.1997 Greg wrote "I maintained that our live show doesn't depend upon who wrote what songs, and therefore the live album doesn't either. I thought we were friends again too until I found out how angry he was because he didn't have any say in the song choice (...) I have always wished Brett well in running his label and never stood in the way of its progress (in fact, some would argue that my singing has only helped Epitaph records; I tend to concur). But the day he decided to quit Bad Religion was the day that he stopped having a say in our activities. He was adamant that we should consult him on a project like this because he consulted us when it was time to release "All Ages". However, it is not an equal situation. A label must always consult its artists when it wants to release an album unless it wants the image of a marketing machine that has no regard for the people it promotes. A band is a creative entity that is far more whimsical and less calculating than a record label. When we made "Tested" we didn't even consult the labels that we are signed to now, we just wanted to record something and produce it ourselves and not have any intervention from anyone, and that includes a past member. Although we are glad that he consulted us when it was time to put out All Ages, he certainly didn't have to, but it was in his labels best interest to choose the songs that best represented Bad Religion, and who better to consult about that than the people who play those songs every night on stage? Finally, remember that "Tested" is a live album not a retrospective of the best studio work we have done. As such it is a representation of last year's tour which included a lot of material from the Mr. Brett era but also an entire album and six B-sides of songs that he wasn't a part of. We simply chose the songs that were the best takes and the best recordings and the 27 songs you see on the album were the result. The songwriting credits were not the determinant". Brian said the reason why they released it is that they did the whole record themselves. "We recorded it ourselves, it was our concept, and the [live] B-sides that were on the singles were always just sort of things that were thrown on, you know, that some radio station had recorded, or it had been, you know, some situation on some concert where some fan had recorded something. Tested really represents what we are, and what we are doing now (...) it sort of marks something that we're going to work forward from (...) and it was very very fun to make, and it's important to us. So we put it out." "The members of Bad Religion have high regard for things that endure against the odds. We thought Tested was a good title for this album because in many respects we have stood the test of time. We are sure this album will as well. It is a very personal project, and one that nicely illustrates our live heritage, and details the consistency in our music over the last 16 years". The idea of Tested started before the Gray Race Tour ever started. Right on the week of the release they played some small clubs in Europe to get physically close to the fans, and Greg started thinking of Suffer as an album which captured the emotional spontaneity they were looking for, and thought he'd like to recapture that in a way, so he thought they could record their live shows very simply, very basically and make it sound like Suffer. He thought it would show that a lot of the newer, better-produced songs, still can translate into Suffer-like, in-your-face format.

Tested

A German review by Wolf-Ruediger Muehlmann of Rock Hard Magazine said "With the power of an old men's group which gathered to admire the latest collection of tupperware the band drags on from song to song. Greg Graffin is often on the verge of breaking down, weak as he yodels the songs. And, no joke, the sound quality really made me think my stereo was defect, when I first listened to it. I do even own BAD-RELIGION-bootlegs with a better sound! Not to mention the bad joke that this is a collection of single song recordings with the corresponding fade outs". There is a promo version. It has all the tracks from Tested and comes in a black and red cardboard sleeve. It's from Sony/Dragnet, and the series number is DRASAMPCD 3952 2 / 12-003952-10.

Them and Us

Jay: "All the songs like that are not written about what we expect or want, but what is".

Ticket prices

In Melbourne 16.2.1997 Greg apologized for the ludicrous ticket prices [$35.50 AUD], claiming ignorance of foreign currency [1 AUD = 78c US] but promised to make amends when they come back. Jay attacked the promoter saying that the guy assured them that 35.50 was a good price.

Tim Armstrong (Rancid's singer)

Does extra vocals on Television (also used to go by the name of Lint and played guitar in Operation Ivy).

Tim Gallegos

Bassist for Wasted Youth (which Jay joined when he quit Bad Religion in 1983) and bassist for Bad Religion in 1984/85.

Tim Yohanon

The longtime editor of Maximum Rock 'N' Roll. He had been a friend of the band and in 1988 had voted Bad Religion best band of the year and Suffer best album. Tim put together (and put out) the New World Order: War #1 7-inch. He called up Bad Religion while they were in the studio recording Generator to inform them that the US had started dropping bombs on Baghdad, and that's when he asked them to contribute some songs to a protest EP he was planning on releasing. Tim died on 4.3.1998.

Tiny Voices

It was inspired by the war in Bosnia.

Toast

A band from near London which on early 1997 released a 7" that has two Bad Religion covers, Latch Key Kids and Best For You, also included in the tribute album.

Todd Rundgren

Producer of The New America. He was one of Greg's childhood idols. His album A Wizard, a True Star is one of Greg's favorites. Bobby once said about Into the Unknown that "if you like Todd Rundgren, you'll love this album; it's very Utopia".

Tom Clement

He was Brett's best friend circa 1981; they somehow lost contact with each other in the mid eighties and he died in a car accident in 1986. In 1996 Brett said Tom killed himself (I don't know why he said that).

Tom Sawyer (by Rush)

They played it in 1996 during a soundcheck in Vancouver .

Top 10 songs, as voted by over 50 members of the Bad ReligionML

1. Along the Way / 2. American Jesus / 3. Atomic Garden; No Control / 4. Do What You Want; I Want To Conquer the World / 5. We're Only Gonna Die / 6. Fuck Armageddon; Generator; Punk Rock Song; Modern Man / 7. Skyscraper; Anesthesia; 21st Century Digital Boy; Struck a Nerve / 8. Marked; Recipe for Hate; Latch Key Kids; You; Against the Grain; 1000 More Fools; Parallel; Big Bang; You Are the government; 9. Drunk Sincerity; Yesterday; Billy; 10 in 2010; Faith Alone; The Answer; Too Much To Ask; Change Of Ideas; Bad Religion; Inner Logic; Come Join Us / 10. Don't Pray On Me; Hooray For Me; The Handshake; What Can You Do; Individual; The Positive Aspect of Negative Thinking; Sanity; Automatic Man; Pity the Dead; Streets of America; Slumber; Only Entertainment; Incomplete; Pessimistic Lines; Best For You; No Direction; Operation Rescue.

TOP

"The Gray Race is simply more intelligent, wittier and far more musically adept than any of their contemporaries. It's also loud, noisy and exuberant" (April 1996 issue).

Touring

They have toured A LOT, often playing every night for several weeks at a time; and they have a "tour book" for each tour that they put together. When they're touring they won't put a punk rock record on the tour bus after the show but it 'll be anything from country to classical music.

Treva Van Scoy

Greg's personal assistant.

Trippin Daisies

Covered We're Only Gonna Die.

Trouser Press Record Guide, The

"In offering a heavy dose of the danger modern rock so rarely possesses, Bad Religion has become not only the best punk band (by far) but one of the best current rock 'n' roll bands, period" (written by Jack Rabid, who reviewed all Bad Religion albums in the guide).

TSOL

Jay joined them when he quit Bad Religion in 1983. Jay: "Strangely enough at the time that Into the Unknown came out, another band, coincidentally, put out a very similar album, which was TSOL's 'Beneath The Shadows'. I know that TSOL and Bad Religion had absolutely no contact with each other, it wasn't like we sat down in a coffee shop and said, 'Hey, let's do these kind of albums.'"

TSOL

Graffin was never into TSOL but I the others probably like the band. At the Warped Tour 2000, at the George, WA, stop, the singer from TSOL remarked about his music, "You're probably all saying, 'What the fuck? This shit doesn't sound like Bad Religion!'".

Turn on the light

Jay told me that one night, while working at Epitaph with Brett, they walked in the Epitaph building and these guys who were recording an album were sitting on the floor and had turned off the lights and lit a bunch of candles. Brett and Jay went 'what the fuck, turn on the lights!' and then Brett rushed into a room and wrote Turn On The Light in a matter of minutes. The chorus is similar to the following lines from On the Road (as you know, a 1950s book by beat generation legend Jack Kerouac): "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at one time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars." Amazing, huh? It would seem that the line "burn, like a Roman fucking candle" was inspired by this, especially since Mr. Brett is familiar with Kerouac's work (who's also mentioned in Stranger than Fiction ("caringosity killed the Kerouac cat")).

Turn on the light

In the Big Bang video Greg sings "he used to fuck it when the wind...".

TV

Jay: "Things that are supposed to make your life better generally turn into a giant shithole, like TV". Greg: "Eight out of ten American kids, and it's probably very similar in Europe, come home from school and don't so anything but turn on TV. I'm sure that it makes the companies very happy, but it says something about how people are using their minds". Brett said he never watches TV.

Twelve-year-olds

Brian: "people blame the fact that bands like Green Day and The Offspring are on MTV and say these kids are coming to shows because they're getting this stuff shoved down their throats. But I don't think the 12-year-olds at Bad Religion shows are MTV 12-year-olds. I think you're just watching another generation of the whole scene. And just from talking to kids at shows it seems like, no matter how young they are, they really seem to know Bad Religion and their story. It's not just 'hey, it's Punk Night, let's go to a show!". And that's kind of heartening. I think it's great that we still manage to set ourselves apart somewhat".

Two Babies in the Dark

Featured in the movie The Chase. The band has made fun of the song in a couple of occasions -Brian said the only difference that Brett's departure would make is that Bad Religion wouldn't have songs with the word "babies" in the title. the song is entitled "Babies in the dark" in the CD bootlegs Promise of Prosperity, Nevermind the Cat and Turn on the Music.

Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

U

U.F.O.s

Brett believes there is life in other planets but doesn't believe they have landed on Earth. Bobby does believe they have landed on Earth.

U.S.A., the

Hetson: "In the U.S.A. people are lazy, they don't participate, they don't vote, and they really should". Jay: "what I see around me is frightening. the L.A. riots prove that people are upset (...) It's becoming a state where paranoia rules". Greg: "what's been happening in the US over the last 15 or 20 years is that money has been going not only to fewer and fewer people who are in the upper class but money has been going away from inner city and working-class population and has been funneled to other countries where they can get cheaper labor, and because of that, an unusually high number of unhappy people in the inner cities and the working class has been ignored and I think that has resulted in widespread turmoil as has been broadcast throughout the western world in the last month with the L.A. riots". Hetson: "there's rich, there's poor, and there's really not much in the middle anymore. Social programs have been cut and so the middle class is suffering and the poor are getting poorer" (Brett said something very similar to this last Hetson quotation). Brett (pointing out serious issues concerning the U.S. while the other band members where talking about hockey) : "that we don't have a national health insurance here, that all our foreign policy is completely controlled by the upper 1% of the rich, that the kids in the inner city can't get a decent education, that we drop bombs on Guatemala, you could go on and on, people are crying about baseball cards, I don't give a fuck about baseball cards, and you know what? George Bush doesn't give a fuck about baseball cards either".

Underwear

Yes, there is Bad Religion underwear too... Future Vending, Inc. were selling 750 pairs of women's underwear, priced at $9 per pair, which had been screen-printed with various bands on them, including Bad Religion. Each underwear came individually wrapped in tissue paper and in its own box.

Universal Cynic, The

Together with The Dodo, one of the two unreleased tracks from the so-called Ithaca sessions. The only version of The Gray Race that included it was the Japanese one, I think. Found in the Punk Rock Song single import from Germany, which also includes Punk Rock Song sang by Greg in German and The Dodo. They played it once during a soundcheck in Vancouver.

Unplayable Records

Bad Religion's own imprint, created with the release of The Gray Race. The Punk Rock Song single was released on it, but through Atlantic (or as Jay puts it, "we did it, and made Atlantic do all the work".

Unreleased songs

According to Jay there must be less than 10 unreleased songs, most of them from 1980. very early material, pretty rough. the only songs he knows of that they recorded in a studio environment and never released, were The Dodo and the Universal Cynic from The Gray Race. When I asked him, he said "I'm sure Greg G. has plenty of songs he's never shown the band, but I am assuming you mean songs that we all played on. And in that sense, even the majority of the songs I mentioned before were never recorded at all. so I would venture to say that these songs would be not obtainable at all, except for a very rare and old (pre 1982) live bootleg. I have never seen one though." They recorded 23 songs for The Gray Race and only 15 made it to the CD. Even if Universal Cynic and The Dodo were 2 of them, there are still 6 left. The people demands to hear them!!!!!

Unwritten Law

Played the whole first leg of the American The Gray Race Tour supporting Bad Religion. They had previously played with them in the concert for Board Aid.

Unwritten Law

At the Ljubljana Warped gig on 9.12.1998 Bobby left the drums to Wade (UL's drummer) for We're Only Gonna Die. Those who were there say he played it extremely well; with amazing power.

Unwritten Law -The Oz Factor

The day after The Gray Race was mastered in NY, Greg started producing The Oz Factor, also in NY (the Pyramid Sound studios). Brian plays a solo in the album. It was released 9/4/96 on Epic.

Vandals, the

1. Brett did backup vocals for The Anarchy Burger on the album Peace Thru Vandalism. It was released originally on Epitaph. The band was the first Epitaph release as a real label with signed bands. Brett appears on the credits as Brett Religion. Bobby knows Warren Fitzgerald (from back in Warren's oingo boingo days).

2. Their album Live Fast Diarrea has a song called Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, where they completely copy the beginning part of Fuck Armageddon...This Is Hell, and close with a pretty obvious segment from We're Only Gonna Die.

Vegetarianism

In a Buffalo show in September 1996 Greg asked the crowd "Who thinks meat is murder?" He then replied "I don't think you can murder anything that's not human."

Video clips

They have promotional videos for Atomic Garden, Land of Competition, American Jesus, Struck A Nerve, 21st Century Digital Boy (two different ones; one from the ATG era and for the STF version), Infected, Incomplete, Stranger than Fiction, A Walk, Punk Rock Song, Streets of America and 10 in 2010 (Tested version). Brian said he doesn't like making them and he thinks often videos don't reflect what the song is about. He'd rather not to have to do them at all. There was an article in the September 1997 issue of SPIN about "rock videos becoming extinct" on MTV, and it said something about "Bad Religion, who made two videos for their two previous albums, have decided to hold off for their newest record [No Substance], focusing attention instead on the Warped tour" and it mentioned how the band used money that could have been spent on a video to have their tent and radio transmitter for the Warped Tour. Greg said "We're taking the money and puting it into social interaction".

Video games

"You" is one of the songs on the soundtrack for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. The soundtrack to the computer game Crazy Taxi (1999) includes 10 in 2010 and Hear It as well as The Offpsring's All I Want and some other songs. It's fast-paced drivin' sort of thing, so obviously those somewhat turbocharged songs were chosen with that in mind.Hetson is famous for playing Nintendo. He used to be very good at it. He played Super Mario Brothers, Blades of Steel (a hockey game, since he plays hockey too), etc. He used to program Nintendo games too. He said it never was a real job, but more of a hobby, which allowed him to "destroy my existence a little more".

Violence

When Greg was asked about "the unabomber" (Ted Kaczynski) he answered that he had not read anything by him but thought that "anyone who bombs people without giving them any warning is a coward of the lowest degree. That seriously undermines anything he has to say, no matter how lucid. He doesn't deserve to have a voice. Nor do any terrorists". Brett: "I'm against violence in almost all cases, but as a last resort, I'm not against it. I think there's some groups who need to stand up for themselves, let's put it that way, get noticed by whatever means necessary".

Violet Isabel Hetson

Hetson's daughter, born on 1.17.1997.

Vocals

When Brett was asked how The Daredevils differ from Bad Religion he laughed, "I'm not going to overdub the background vocals 20 times. [They] won't sound like Queen." And in a more somber tone, "It also won't be Greg Graffin singing, and he's a wonderful singer. He's a much better singer than I will ever be".

Voodoo Glow Skulls, the

Brett's face appears in their album Firme. They just put his picture there, without consulting him.

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Waiting for the Fire

Song written by Brett in 1982/83. It is a ballad lead by a piano and acoustic guitars. It is found in an untitled 7" bootleg of which only 500 copies were made. It was originally included on the compilation The Sounds Of Hollywood Fanzine 2, put out by Mystic Records in 1983. As for CDs, it can only be found in the CD bootleg Unknown Infections (the easiest way to get the song really). The lyrics seem to be (from what I understand): Two young lads on distant shores / Tending to the riggers of their daily choice (chores)/ Their parents told them what's going on / and they're waiting for the fire // Two young men on distant shores / Tending to the riggers of their social noise / The news will tell them what's going on / and they're waiting for the fire // waiting for the fire / the heat is rising and their tongues are getting drier / the culmination of an ancient time

Walk Away

1. Astream recorded a cover version, which is somewhat faster but still pretty similar to the original, for the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion.

2. If you take the main theme from Bedrich Smetana's "Der Moldau" (that's classical music in case you never heard of it) and play it faster and with a couple of smallish changes, you get the solo from Walk Away.

3. In Ocean City, MD (a resort town on the east coast that is really big on both surfing and skateboarding) in September-October 2000, they had a show on TCI Public Access for the Ocean City area called What's Up TV which potrayed local skate and surf footage as well as punk music videos. Walk Away was always aired on their title intro on each show as well as being played on the commercials for it that were aired.

Walter Graffin

Greg's father. He is a professor of English in the University of Wisconsin.

Washington

In a gig Greg chided the audience for living in Washington, "this dismal place", and asked "How many of you capitalize the 'DC' in hardcore?". Brian raised his hand. Both Greg's and Brian's mums were in the audience.

Watch it Die

Hi, check <A HREF="watchitdie.html">this</A> out.

Watch out!!

This is what Greg used to say all the time in his songs. It's sounds like Watch-o or Tcho. He also says Seek Out and it sounds like Sikow. In March 2001 a fan asked Greg to write Watch Out on his T-shirt and Greg wrote Watch O. He said "it's Watch O, not Watch Out".

Water

Greg used to ask the audience if they wanted water (he did this for sure in Philadelphia in April 96 and two other concerts but it looks like he probably did it in virtually every concert of the first leg of the US TGR Tour). The pit would go ballistic begging for a sip and then Greg would call them pathetic and say that they live in the most privileged country in the world, and there they are a bunch of spoiled brats begging for a sip of water.

Wayne Kramer (of MC5)

He does extra vocals and plays lead guitar on Incomplete. He also played guitar on another song but I'm not sure which. Brett guest stars in his CDs The Hard Stuff (on the track The Realm of Pirate Kings) and Dangerous Madness.

We're only Gonna Die

Some people haven't noticed the piano. It comes in at once with the acoustic guitar and is best heard during the word "took" (you'll hear two notes). Then it gets faster and faster with the hastening of the vocal part until it stops with "mind". It has been covered by Biohazard, who called it We're Only Gonna Die From Our Own Arrogance. Greg himself has introduced the song live with this title, as it is the title which originally appeared in the liner notes to How Could Hell Be Any Worse. Also covered by Sublime and the Trippin' Daisies. In All Ages both titles are given to the song. It also gets called "We're all gonna die" in the 7" Live in Italy and it gets called "We're Gonna Die" in the CD bootlegs Nevermind the Cat, Live 94 Radio, Promise of Prosperity and Turn On the Music.

We're only Gonna Die

The song can be heard in the movie Glory Daze.

We're a happy family (by the Ramones)

Found on the Ramones tribute album Gabba Gabba Hey, available from Triple X Records (51057 2). The song was recorded live during soundcheck in Tijuana on May 26, 1991. The lyrics are as follows: We're a happy family we're a happy family, we're a happy family me mom and daddy,

Westbeach Records

(Also spelled West Beach).Brett had been working as a studio engineer and, in 1987 he set this studio up with partner Donnell Cameron. It would also become the early home of Epitaph.

White Trash (2nd Generation)

In a gig on 9.12.96 somebody from the audience yelled for it and they started improvising the song. Well, Brian didn't play it.

White Trash (2nd Generation)

In a Houston gig Greg referred to the locals as "white trash".

William Blake

English poet (1757-1827). God Song borrows heavily from his poem And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time (composed ca 1804-1808 and published ca 1808), which says "And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England's mountains green? / And was the holy Lamb of God / On England's pleasant pastures seen?". The same poem is used in its entirety in the song "Blake´s Jerusalem" of the english singer-songwriter Billy Bragg (released on "The Internationale" in the same year as Against The Grain / God Song). Bragg's commend to this poem: "My belief that Jerusalem is a left wing anthem has got me into arguments with public schoolboys at Eton and Trotskyist newspaper sellers in Trafalgar Square. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that this song does not belong alongside "Rule Brittania" and "Land of Hope and Glory" at the last night of the Proms. William Blake was a radical and a visionary. A friend of Thomas Paine, he was harassed by the Establishment of the day, eventually arrested for sedition. Written at the time of the Industrial Revolution, I believe this song is an attack on the new breed of capitalists that Blake saw in his midst. It asks how can the moral of Christ be compatible with the morality of exploitation, both of people and of the environment." Pretty badreligious. Billy Bragg also recorded an album called "William Bloke" released in 1996 by Cooking Vinyl.

Wryebo Martin

An old friend of the band. He's credited on a version of Back To The Known as having co-written Frogger with Greg. But Hetson claims he co-wrote it and "Wry" only came up with the title or the chorus or something.

WWW

Greg on Bad Religion websites: "I make it a principle not to look at any of the web pages that are set up for the purpose that I want the people involved in them and more importantly the users of those pages (the fans) not to feel like they are being patrolled and controlled by the authority who the page is supposed to be subjectively about. It is in the interest of complete freedom and unhindered fan-involvement that I stay clear of them. However, I don't mind answering questions to be posted on them, nor do I mind sharing information about the band". In spite of these words, Greg told me personally that he had read The Answer (and that there things in it which he himself didn't know). Jay: "It's good to have something like the WWW where the biggest thing on it is Pornography". Bobby only heard about The Bad Religion Page in May 1996 and he didn't even have a computer back then. Brian bought one on early 1997. Greg is always on-line even from Hotel rooms while on tour. Brian: "The internet is really good for punk rock. It kind of culls out the Beavis and Butt-heads because they don't really know how to operate a computer well enough to get in there and if they accidentally do, people get rid of them". Brian: "On the Bad Religion Web sites, you can find incredibly cool stuff I never even knew was there. I learned about my own band from the Internet!". At a show in October 2000, Greg spoke about the internet and how it is a great way to locate unrealeased material, and said that the next song (referring to The Fast Life) is very hard to find (not really true, but that's what he said). He also commented that he hoped that someone with a tape recorder at the show would post the entire show on the www.

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Yesterday

In April 1996 at Asbury Park, NJ Greg made a point to acknowledge a request for 'Yesterday' from a very persistent fan. He offered to sing it by himself since they hadn't rehearsed it. After the first few a capella bars, Hetson joined in with Jay and Bobby following a beat later on the drums and bass. After fifteen seconds they all were committed and played it through, half-laughing because of the spontaneity of the whole thing. Puffball contributed a faster and punker cover version to the album Fuck Hell -This is a Tribute to Bad Religion. The song is entitled Look Behind in the CD bootleg Hate Yourself.

You

The line "there is no time for fussing and fighting, my friend" comes from the Beatles song We Can Work it Out.

You

Is is featured in the game Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.

Your Mother

An East Bay band. On their CD, there is this song called "Color Me Badd Religion". It's a medley of Bad Religion songs with the lyrics changed to make fun of Bad Religion. Another song is called "Greg-Ex Masturbator", a bit of stolen riffs here and there. There's about 49 songs on it. The song Color Me Badd Religion is also found on a compilation called bakamono CD sampler #1. Here are the complete lyrics for the song: [to the tune of "No Control"] Hello, my name is Greg, I teach at UCLA and I'm the

Your Mother

They say, in the liner notes, that "if Bad Religion don't beat us up for blatantly ripping them off/ripping on them, we'll be their best friends." They called the song "Color Me Badd Religion" because there was a bad boy-band (like backstreet boys/n'sync/98degrees) from the 80's called Color Me Badd so they mixed the two. But they say they were not equating Bad Religion to a boy band by calling it Color Me Bad Religion. "It just sounded funny. Like Fugazi Osbourne or Duran DuRancid".

Your Mother

Craigums said that "of course we all like Bad Religion. Anyone who has heard our parody can tell that we listened to Bad Religion with a lot of scrutiny. I haven't heard them in a few years, but the first 4 albums are some of the most thought-provoking and melodic albums punk has ever produced. Our drummer still listens to them a lot. I don't listen too much anymore because I liked Brett's lyrics better. Greg's are sometimes too negative while Brett's were often more thought-provoking".

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Contents: Top - 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z