*First, a disclaimer (though this really shouldn’t be necessary): Yes, this is ANOTHER interview with Bad Religion. Yes, an interview with guitarist Greg Hetson appeared on Rebel Noise not that long ago, BUT it must be remembered that interview was from TWO YEARS ago; this article, on the other hand, is based on a conversation with bassist Jay Bentley in April. I only preface this piece because of an ugly incident in the not-too-distant past… For those interested in perusing an up-to-date article about the great Bad Religion, by all means read on…!*
2004 must be The Year of Bad Religion. How else could one explain the reissues of such paramount BR material as ‘82’s ‘How Could Hell Be Any Worse?’, ‘87’s ‘Suffer’, and its follow-up, the classic ‘No Control’, to name a few, AS WELL AS a new album to be released June 8th entitled ‘The Empire Strikes First’ (all on Epitaph)? And after 2002’s brilliant ‘The Process of Belief’, an album that truly showcased a return to form for the band, there is no doubt that ‘Empire’ will be anything but monumental (and, upon hearing the disc, it certainly is…). And that’s not to mention the massive amount of touring that’s in store for the band, including a slot on this year’s Warped Tour and an in-the-works fall U.S./Canada tour from October till the end of November.
This so-called “return to form” I mention, is in large part, due to the return of guitarist/Epitaph head honcho Brett Gurewitz. Upon leaving the band after ‘94’s Stranger than Fiction, something was lacking in BR’s sound. That’s not to say that ‘96’s ‘The Gray Race’ – the first record to be released after Gurewitz’ departure and the band’s signing with Atlantic is bad; in fact, that’s the best album the band put out while bereft of Gurewitz. It is true, however, that the ones to follow, namely ‘98’s ‘No Substance’ and 2000’s ‘The New America’ – though they have their moments (see the powerful “In So Many Ways” and “The Biggest Killer in American History”) – let’s be honest, it seemed BR had possibly lost their edge. Yet, longtime bassist Jay Bentley believes all this (leaving Epitaph, splitting with Gurewitz, signing with Atlantic, etc.) had to happen in order to arrive at where they are now. He sums up the scenario thusly: “When we first started rehearsing again and the very first time that we ever stepped into a rehearsal room with Brett back in the band and all of us [Bentley, Gurewitz, vocalist Greg Graffin, guitarists Greg Hetson and Brian Baker, and newfound drummer Brooks Wackerman] were there, Brett and I were sitting there and I just turned to him and said, ‘If all this hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.’ And we both kind of laughed and agreed. It had to happen.”
So, just WHY does BR need Brett in order to create that signature sound? Jay answeres quickly and matter-of-factly, “First of all, he brought back his songwriting. That was something that from the beginning of the this band, we’ve always had two songwriters: Brett and Greg, and I think they’ve always complemented each other very well. And between the two of them, there was a healthy competition [where] one would write a song and go, ‘Listen to this song; it’s the best thing I’ve ever written.’ And the other would go back and write three more songs…, so we all benefited from these guys having a tennis match of songwriting.” Jay agrees Greg did a superb job writing the material for The Gray Race and also that then-new guitarist Brian (ex-Minor Threat, Government Issue, Dag Nasty…) brought a different style to the band. “But after that,” the bassist reasons, “I think Greg, writing on his own, just kinda felt it wasn’t as easy as it was with Brett in the band and that it was a lot more fun having him there to challenge him.” Jay next recounts the short time span after Brett came back when the songwriting was extremely prolific between the two. “You could see the spark between [them] start all over again.” What also helped the guys create such an intense record with Process was the fact that they didn’t have the stress of being pressed to finish by a certain deadline. As Jay says laughingly, if forced to be on a schedule, “we rebel.”
Therefore, seeing how much more relaxed and friendly the environment was with Epitaph (the label originally created in order to release BR’s material), I had to know, was it a mistake going on a major label or did they need that? “Going onto another label – it didn’t matter what label it was – at the time the feeling was that the band and [Epitaph] were both growing exponentially and probably smothering each other and we had to get out from underneath each other’s shadows. We just didn’t know where to go. How do you leave your own label and go somewhere else?” The bassist concludes, “I learned a lot and I had a growing experience being on a label that was different than Epitaph ‘cause Epitaph was the only thing I had ever known. Going somewhere else and learning how other people do things is how you learn.”
About the new record, at first all I could extract from Jay was that it’s “the best record we ever made,” that his favorite song is “All There Is”, and that “there’s not one song I ever get the urge to push the forward button.” With a laugh he explains how he can listen to it over and over again: “I’m like sweeping or something, it plays like 100 times, and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is cool! I listened to it again,’” leading him to deduce that the record in its entirety, “plays very well from front to back, and that’s something that it isn’t very easy to do. And usually you just kinda luck into things like that.” Pausing for a moment, he adds with a laugh, “I shouldn’t say you just luck into it, ‘cause I know Brett worked on it really hard.”
I still wanted to know more about why this particular album is being deemed by the band as the best record they’ve ever put out. With a hearty laugh (as was the case on numerous occasions…) Jay expounds, “Well, having put out a few really crappy records in the past and knowing it and [now] thinking, ‘You know what? For right now in 2004, this is the best record we’ve done.’” And of course he adds, somewhat like a disclaimer, that this idea of “best” record is subjective, as everyone will have their own favorite BR album, that still, at least for himself, ‘The Empire Strikes First’ is it. And he logically explains why we should believe his judgment, stating, “I’m pretty sure that my opinion is probably pretty heavily weighted on the side of knowing more than everybody else about what we do,” eliciting (what else?) a robust laugh.
As always, lyrically, ‘Empire’ deals with current affairs and focuses on, in Jay’s terms, “What it’s like to be a person on this planet, as a human being with human emotions…just like everybody else, [asking] why do we do the things that we do?,” elaborating, “Everything we do deals with current affairs, whether it’s the War on Terror or the war in the Middle East; it’s something we’ve always dealt with because people are inherently mean to each other, so it’s a fairly easy subject to delve into and stay relevant because it never stops.” And this is nothing new, after all, these guys are simply THE punk for the thinking man/woman, with highly intellectual, thought-provoking lyrics (some of which will have the uninitiated running to their dictionaries…). And it’s no wonder when taking into consideration vocalist Greg completed his doctorate in evolutionary biology-paleontology last August…
As for the re-issues, they’re surely welcome releases for those who missed out on this legendary band’s highly-influential early material, from the frantic hardcore of the ever-so-young band on ‘How Could Hell Be Any Worse?’ (one of THE greatest early American hardcore albums EVER) to the career- and sound-defining ‘Suffer’ through to ‘92’s ‘Generator’, as well as the band’s fine ‘Along the Way’ DVD, which first surfaced on VHS and is live footage of their ’89 European tour. So, why now for all these re-issues? Jay discloses it’s been something they’ve been discussing for a while, primarily because they realize how far technology has come. “The technology available to us when we made those records when we changed from analog to digital [all these releases came out on vinyl and then were transferred to CD] wasn’t that great,” adding, “If you go and listen to one of our records, it’s not that they’re not good, but they were quiet. The CDs didn’t quite have the same punch that CDs today have.” He says the CDs needed a bit of a “freshening up” and also, for a less urgent reason, specifically that they receive myriad letters requesting lyrics for ‘How Could Hell Be Any Worse?’, which was included on the album ‘80-85’, which comprises their earliest material – their s/t EP and ‘Hell’ on one disc.
So after almost an astounding 25 years of being a band and having self-admittedly “mastered the art of the two-minute punk rock song,” have their views and goals changed throughout the years? The answers to these questions, respectively, are a no and basically, not applicable. In greater detail, about his own views, Jay believes he’s reached a higher level of maturation, where he’s learned the fine art of focusing his anger rather than simply raging at everybody, and that he “hopefully [has] an eloquence in the way that I can word my displeasure with people. But,” he finishes, “the overall sense of distrust of other people and dissatisfaction with how people are, I don’t think that’s changed.”
As for the second part of my inquiry, once again I’m met by a good dose of laughter and these telling words: “We never had a goal! I swear, never! I think our goal at one point was to get enough songs to record a six-song EP, and after that was done, it was like, ‘Well, now what do you wanna do?’” He continues, “We just kinda do whatever we want and if it’s good, that’s cool, and if it’s bad, that’s cool too, and just kinda roll with it.”