Interviews: Greg Graffin, Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion)

I had the opportunity to talk to Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion about their experiences in a band that spanned more than two decades and is one of the main reasons why this site is here today.

The band recently released The Empire Strikes First, which Adam reviewed. The band is also playing the Warped Tour this summer.

Because of the length, the interview is going to be split in two parts. The first part, with Greg and Brett will be posted today, the second half with Brett should be up on Wednesday. Click below to see what they had to say.

About a million bands claim that Bad Religion inspired them, which leads me to ask, what inspired you to play guitar or sing?

Brett: Well, I just wanted to be like my
heroes. My heroes were rock stars, they weren’t sports figures or athletes or
race car drivers

Greg: I really believe that there is
something inside of me; a genetic motivation - if you will - to sing. Ever
since I was three years old I was always singing in front of the mirror;
performing for my mom or my dad. I would sing for anyone who would listen. I
always knew that I wanted to be a singer. How I was going to do it was a
complete mystery though. When I was thirteen I really wanted to sing rock and
roll and then I discovered punk rock when I was fourteen.

That’s when you met Brett?

Greg: That’s when I met a guy named Tom
Comez. And he introduced me to Brett. Brett and I had a couple of rehearsals
with a drummer and they went really well. I had written three songs and he had
written three songs. We were going to be like the White Stripes and just do
guitar and drums. And then we thought that really sounded lame, and I’m glad we
made that decision because we found Jay who was a friend of mine from school. I
asked him "Can you play this stuff?" And so he traded in his guitar for a Sears
bass.

What do you think you guys have
outlasted your peers?

Brett: What makes us so durable?  I’m tempted to say that it was
fortuitous circumstance. I dropped out of the band for a few years and Greg
kept it going, and then Hetson joined. I started the label, and it was right
when they came around and asked me to rejoin. It seemed to me that there were a
few happy accidents that helped us keep it going.

It wasn’t for any virtue like perseverance
or. It also wasn’t a plan or foresight that punk rock would be popular. We were
just lucky.

Greg: A huge part of that was having
outside interests. Brett was always interested in the music industry and I was
always interested in academia. Those two pursuits took us away from Bad
Religion, and they still do. We didn’t tour very much last year because I was
finishing my PhD. working on my dissertation, which I finally finished in
August.

I think there is something to be said for
those outside pursuits and how they make the band members more interesting
because there is a story behind them. It shows that there is a life out there
that they’re willing to take part in; they’re not completely consumed by music.

Music is a wonderful part of life, but
that’s the point; it’s a part of life. A lot of
bands get burned out on themselves. They just think "The band is everything"
and I think that can drive you crazy. It’s like having a smothering family.

What motivated you to remaster the
records?

Brett: When we started making records, the
best way to make a record was analog. You record to analog tape and then you
would go into mastering. At that time, mastering meant transferring from
magnetic tape to lacquer. That was something you could use to stamp into vinyl
and make records. I still feel that the sound of that is unsurpassed in terms
of the clarity and the high end.

Then the CD came along. When they were
first invented, they sounded like crap. You would take the very clear,
excellent resolution of an analog recording and through digital sampling,
digitize it onto a CD. Through that process, it would invariably end up
sounding grainy and quiet and the high end wouldn’t have the detail that the
original recording had.

Over time, the process of creating digital
recordings has gotten much better. So now CDs are loud and clear and comparable
to analog recording. It’s not quite as nice as analog, but the level you can
get is much higher than analog. CDs today are extremely loud when compared to
old vinyl.

What does this mean for someone who made a
record back in 1987? I’m not trying to polish something that wasn’t meant to be
polished. Let’s say you have a camera that takes clear pictures, and you also
have a crappy disposable camera that takes crummy pictures. Say you take a
picture of something dirty and crusty, like a nail. When you take a picture
with the excellent camera, you get a clear picture of every bit of crust and
rust as it was meant to be seen. That’s the way the nail really looks.

If you took a picture with the disposable
camera, it’s going to be a fuzzy bad picture. Is the clear picture cleaning up
the rusty nail? No, it’s showing it in all its crusty, rusty glory; how it
really looks.

Our original analog recordings had
distortion and noise and flaws. The digital recording process back was akin to
a crummy disposable camera. It took an inaccurate picture of what really made.
By remastering it, you’re hearing the way we heard it when we recorded it; the
way it sounds on vinyl.

Digital mastering is better now, so I can
dig up the original tapes and get a very accurate representation of how those
master tapes sound. In 1987 when we did Suffer
and 1998 when we did No Control and 1991 when we
did Against the Grain, the digital mastering was
primitive and sounded foggy and grainy. It also upsets me that if you put it in
a mix with our new record, the songs are so much quieter; Another function of
the enhanced process is more volume or "level" in the CD.

I wanted the old stuff to sound as good as
it can be without in any way tampering with the original intention. There is
nothing remixed, we didn’t tamper, we just brought it into a much better focus.
Greg: I’m really into it, because I believe
music should be heard as close to the analog as possible. That’s why I still
haven’t jumped on board with iPods and all that. I just don’t like the way it’s
digitized, I just don’t like the sound of MP3s. I’m not ethically opposed to
that stuff, but I really don’t enjoy the sound.

Brett: I recorded those records [originally] and I’m finally
satisfied with them. I know there has been some dissent about the motives for
putting those out. But the fact is that Epitaph has lowered the prices on all
the back catalogue; all the old releases. My thought was, if we’re going to
lower the prices, why just lower the price, why not make the record sound
better at the same time?

I think a lot of people thought it was
going to be like when Lucas went back to Star Wars.

Brett: Well, that was cheesy!

I think that’s what people were worried
about.

I was watching the (recently reissued) Bad Religion DVD, and you guys spoke about what the "No Crosses"
logo meant. Now, looking back, what does the logo mean now?

Brett: It still means no religion. It
doesn’t mean "no Christ". For the record, I think that Jesus Christ was one of
the greatest dudes ever, I just think that the sum of religion’s contributions
to mankind has been a big negative. If Jesus was around today, I hope he would
be a Bad Religion fan.

Greg: It’s the same as the international
sign for no parking. Basically, it means don’t park your fucking vehicle here.
It means that this is a place where you’re not going to find Christian
theology as a foundation for our beliefs. It’s not
hateful, it’s simply a statement of our own personal belief. It doesn’t mean we
hate Christians; many Christians are some of my best friends.

Brett, you released a single as The
Daredevils with Gore Verbinski and Josh Freeze; why didn’t you end up recording
a full length?

Brett: I really just can’t stand my voice
as a lead singer. I think I have a pretty good voice for background vocals,
because it has an edge to it. It also helps to keep the backgrounds from
sounding like a wall of "Greg." I don’t like when the backgrounds sound like
multi-tracked lead vocals. Combining my voice, Greg’s voice, etc. I have decent
enough pitch and I think I’m good at arranging background and lead vocals. I
cringe whenever I hear myself doing lead vocals. I do it when I’m doing demos.
I can’t tell what a pleasure it is when I have Greg’s voice on my demo. His
voice is so wonderful and goes so well on top of my writing that it’s like
discovering something magical every time it happens.

He’s got a one in a million kind of
voice. It’s completely unique.

Brett:I love it.

Greg, most people have heard of your
side project, American Lesion. Have you considered doing it again?

Greg: Interestingly, Brett has been very
encouraging of me lately to start writing some more for that. Because he really
wants to produce it so I thought "that’s an interesting combo." Brett and I in
the studio doing something completely unrelated to Bad Religion.  I think later this year after the
touring is over I’ll start pursuing it some more.

Every Bad Religion song is credited to
you or Greg?  Have you always shown
up to rehearsals with completely songs and lyrics?

Brett: Yes, that’s how we’ve always done it.

So some of the "thesaurus" rock
reputation is because of your writing as well?

Brett: Definitely. I stopped doing it though. I
can tell you the exact record I did it on. I stopped doing it on Generator. That’s when I thought I’d attempt to be more poetic and more
journalistic.

I think I give credit for my SAT score
to Bad Religion.

Brett: I’ve always enjoyed vocabulary. I’m a high
school drop out. I’m not an educated guy, at least not through traditional
methods. But I’ve always been an avid reader. I’ve always enjoyed looking up
words rather than glossing over it.

I still remember looking up
"jurisprudence"

Brett: From "You are the Government" right? I
still forget what rectilinear means. That was from one of Greg’s songs. It
seems that nowadays there is a terrible lack of proficiency with the English
language. People in general, including our president.

It’s a point of pride, unfortunately.

Brett: It’s Karl Rove’s unique genius. Americans
don’t trust intellectuals. To them a regular joe is someone who isn’t too
curious and doesn’t read. And that’s someone you can trust.

How did it feel to incorporate Sage
Francis on the record?

Brett: What we did was a traditional hardcore
breakdown with a tribal tom-tom rhythm. Punk rock has a rich history of songs
that break down to a tribal beat. And then, rather than having Greg put lyrics
over that eight bar section, I invited Sage. He’s an exceptional poet and an
important part of the slam poetry scene, and very politically outspoken. I
really thought he could add something and I think he really did

And though he’s delivering it in his own
style, it sounds like a Bad Religion song with a guest vocalist, it doesn’t
sound like a drum machine or something. I think it sounds cool. I expected it
to be controversial but I’m proud to be able to collaborate with Sage because
he’s one of  the coolest up and
coming artists around. I think the under ground hip hop scene has a lot to
offer and it has a lot in common with the L.A. punk rock scene as I remember
it, not necessarily as it is today.

You’ve been involved in the punk scene
for 25 years now, and you’ve seen it from a very underground scene to right now
where it’s the biggest thing. It’s become such a powerful thing at the
mainstream; you hear it at hockey games.

Brett: It is mainstream; when I was coming up in
the LA Hardcore scene, the major labels weren’t paying attention to our scene,
but the first punk rock bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols were on a
major label. Even the Stranglers.

Major labels invested in punk rock at
first, and then it didn’t sell very well, and then major labels pulled out of
it. And it turns out there was a real scene there that was viable. And so the
bands were forced to do it themselves. The thing that sprung up in the vacuum
that the major labels left was the LA hardcore scene.

It was very counterculture, it was very
anti-establishment, it was very fun. But it was also, unfortunately, very
violent. It was very liberal. There was no such thing as "conservative" punks
back then I can tell you.

Now, so many years later, punk rock is
mainstream, and there is no other way to put it.

How do I feel about that? I will admit that
I’m conflicted. I don’t feel just one way about it. When Epitaph started out we
were doing our own thing, and we were minding our own business and it was fun
because it was something other than what major labels. We didn’t’ have to go
head to head with them. We weren’t in competition with them.

Now major labels love putting out punk rock
records. So how do I compete with a major labels?

Quality?

Brett: That is very sentimental of you to say, but
those companies are powerhouses with bottomless pockets. In the real world you
can’t go head to head with those guys. 
On the other hand, I don’t think everything major labels put out is bad.
I love the new Modest Mouse record, and that’s what I’ve been listening to
lately.

I’m not really anti-major label, but where
I come from and where Epitaph sprung from is from the DIY scene of early 80s.
LA hardcore.  Now that punk rock is
mainstream, in some ways it’s cool and in some ways it’s bad. There isn’t
really a simple answer.

You’ve had some good luck with the
mainstream, most obviously the success of the Offspring

Brett:I benefited from that. My goal is not to
keep bands a secret. I want them to get huge, but then they’ll be in the
mainstream. I don’t think it’s the right thing for label to keep bands to
themselves.  That’s not why a band
signs to label.

But everybody likes to feel like they’ve
got there own little secret. I have a neighbourhood restaurant that I think it
my little secret. It’s great and my girlfriend and I like to go to it. And we
don’t want anyone else to discover it. And it’s kind of like that with
underground music.

If something’s great, and everyone else
discovers it it’s a little sad, but it’s also selfish to want that not to
happen.

As I got older, I started to understand
that. Those bands probably want to pay their rent and they don’t live to serve
or something. 
Bands like Green Day don’t bother me because they stuck to what they
wanted to do.

Brett: I don’t begrudge anyone for making a
living. I think it’s when kids get pissed at bands for doing something that
makes them some money, and yet they go on Kazaa and get all the music for free.
Not only do they not want bands to make money, but they want them to give away
their records for free.

Was the old scene more inclusive than
right now? It seems very tribalized nowadays.

Brett: I don’t know how inclusive it is right now,
since I’m not kid and I’m that guy from Bad Religion and most kids are cool to
me so I have a skewed world view, but back in the day, it took awhile. If you
wanted to part of the scene and no one knew you, it wasn’t inclusive at all.
You couldn’t just go and not fit in. You had to have punk hair and a leather
jacket and the right boots and the right t-shirt. They couldn’t look new or
kids would think you were a poseur with a rich mom.

Nowadays it seems that if you have a credit
card you can buy some Dogpile pants and "cool" punk rock t-shirts and a new
pair of boots and get all geared up and go to a show and "be all that." When I
was a kid and you had new stuff, kids would call you a poseur and beat you up.

It wasn’t terribly inclusive.

Greg, can you tell us a little about
your dissertation?

Greg: I wrote about two things that I’ve studied
my entire life. That is, evolution and religion. My dissertation is actually
more for a popular audience than my earlier work in my masters which was on
bone tissue. If people are interested, they can visit
href="http://www.cornellevolutionproject.org/">cornellevolutionproject.org. That has a good summary of what I’m
doing these days. I hope to write a book next year.

Are you working as a prof.?

Greg: I’ve actually gotten away from teaching
because it’s too consuming. I wouldn’t be able to do Bad Religion at the level
I’d want and be a professor at the level I want. I decided to use my PhD to
write books.

The PhD gives you a certain credibility
when writing books.

Do your students recognize you?

Greg: From No Control to Stranger than Fiction when I was
doing most of my teaching, students didn’t give a damn. I was teaching pre-med
students. Pre-med students don’t have the time and really don’t have the
interest to pursue music. They’re not really interested in music at all. That’ was
true at UCLA and here at Cornell.

A bit about the book: I heard you were
going to do a talk called Atheism and the Naturalist World?

Greg: How’d you find that out?

I went through Cornell's site.

Greg:I had to cancel it because I was doing a
press tour in Europe for Bad Religion.

That’s the topic of the book too.

It sounds interesting.

Greg: Thanks. That’s where my dissertation leaves
off. It comes from the suggestion that if the average citizen was alive three
hundred years ago, they would probably be persecuted - or prosecuted
- as a heretic. We just know so much more about the world, and it’s
completely contrary to the teaching of traditional theology.

Is it for academia?

Greg: I don’t think so, it’ll be in general
science; not a speciality books.

It must be frustrating to see battles
about the nature of scientific theories, debates about evolution,  and bans on stem cell research in
Washington.

Well, it is a problem. But it’s not just
evolution, it’s a deep seated problem with education. People to accept the
implications of their modern lifestyle.

You guys put a song on Rock Against Bush
and the new record seems to be most direct political statement yet. Most of your
statements have been much more subtle. This seems like the first time that you seem to be
directed at specific people. What pushed this to the forefront?

Greg: 
I don’t think the record is that much
more directed. This record has three songs that are criticisms of the right
wing. We’ve always had a few songs like that, but this album might be more
heavily laden. The other songs are about topics that we’ve been talking about
in regards to modern society being bogged down by traditional theology.

You’re right in that the criticisms
themselves are very direct  on this
album.. We’re not pulling any punches this time, and I think it’s because we’ve
reached a point in the band where we don’t have to be careful anymore. We’re as
established as we’re going to get; we’re more informed than we’ve ever been.
And as writers, Brett and I aren’t shying away from these issues. It’s an album
that reflects our maturity and our "senior status" as a band.

Brett: I think that I didn’t mince words
because I didn’t want to risk being misunderstood. I think the need to be
understood clearly has never been more dire.  On several songs I tried to express myself in a creative
way, and at the same time as expedientially as possible. I’ve written anti-war
songs in the past  - "I Want to
Conquer the World" is an anti-war song, another is "Heaven is Falling," we have
a number of them. But I don’t think everyone understands those songs. I don’t
know if the average fan even cares.

Well, besides being really catchy, "I
Want to Conquer the World" really had a strong sense of irony.

Brett: I’ve had jarheads come up to me and
say "fuck yeah, I feel the same way maaan." And
that’s not what it’s about. The current political climate is the scariest and
the most dangerous that I’ve seen in my entire lifetime. And so, what little I
can do to talk about it I want to do and not be misunderstood.