“And
you sit there and watch the world go around/From your pseudo-benevolent
vantage point/While we who’ve been left to pick up after you/ Try our best
to make some sense for those who/Come next” “Sowing The Seeds Of Utopia”
from the new album “NO SUBSTANCE”
If
anything, the conditions that inspired Bad Religion to rail against the
prevailing winds of the Reagan Revolution and the forward march of the
corporate complex with their 1982 debut album, “HOW COULD HELL BE ANY WORSE,”
have continued on a downward spiral the disenfranchised remain fixed at
the fringes, tabloid-styled media has mutated from supermarket trash to
journalistic standard, and the pressures of exploding population and environmental
degradation have brought the world to an even more perilous brink.
With
the dynamic and passion-fueled “NO SUBSTANCE” the band’s tenth album, following
1996’s Ric Ocasek-produced “THE GRAY RACE” Bad Religion have fired off
an unyielding reexamination of today’s downsized American dream and our
overall human condition. Produced and engineered by Bad Religion, Alex
Perialas, and Ronnie Kimball and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge (Sugar Hill Gang,
Lindsey Buckingham, The Replacements, No Doubt, Savage Garden), the album
shines as a consummate group effort while spotlighting Greg Graffin’s continuing
evolution into one of today’s most thoughtful and clear-voiced lyricists.
From
the guitar-punctuated declaration of “Hear It” to the anthemic cry of “Raise
Your VOICE” (with guest vocalist Campino of Germany’s Die Toten Hosen)
to the castigation of American “self-indulgent enterprise” found its clarion
title track, Bad Religion’s “NO SUBSTANCE” is a determined rock declaration
that is as passionately personal as it is populist.
Late
last year, the band’s Cross-Buster bat signal issued its invitation to
the crew at large: Jay Bentley in Vancouver, Greg Hetson in Los Angeles,
Brian Baker in Washington, D.C., Bobby Schayer in Seattle, and Greg Graffin
at the de-facto BR bat cave in Ithaca.
After
having spent much of 1997 on official hiatus, the team assembled in rural
upstate New York and work began in earnest: The Schayer/Bentley rhythm
section cut its parts at the local Pyramid studios with its owner, Alex
Perialas, and the band’s live engineer, Ronnie Kimball, while a majority
of vocal and guitar parts were laid down at Graffin’s upstairs/downstairs
dual home studio dubbed “Polypterus.” Working in a residential area, the
neighbors and over-flying airplanes sometimes had their particular impact
on the sessions. “It’s not quite Dylan and the Band at Big Pink,” says
Jay, commenting on the band’s tendency for extracurriculars such as driveway
basketball, movies on TV, and grilled cheese experiments in the kitchen.
“It
was like everybody hanging out at Greg’s mom’s house again, except that
mom was Greg,” remarks Hetson.
As
opposed to working individually on songwriting demos before gathering in
the studio, songs for this album were written as a group throughout the
recording sessions. “Before we got together in Ithaca, these songs generally
didn’t exist,” says Jay. “It made it a lot looser. Our rule was that
we had to write a new song every day. We’d get started about ten in the
morning after Graffin would make us all pancakes but at some point before
five or six o’clock that evening, we needed to get a complete song down
on tape.”
In
addition to his griddle work, Graffin naturally handled the lyrical duties,
as the Bad Religion collective came together in crafting riffs, verses,
choruses, melodies, intros. “It was a total collaboration,” says Bobby,
now in his seventh year with the band. “We just thought, “Let’s go back
to the basics; y”’know, let’s go back to square one.”
“The
only consensus going into the studio was, “Okay, let’s try a new way of
making a record,” adds Jay. “I mean, we’ve done just about every way there
is to record, from a Tascam 4-track to going with the quote-unquote big-time
at Electric Lady with Ric Ocasek.”
“I
played the album for our original drummer, Peter Feinstone,” says Graffin,
“and the first thing he said was, “The boys are back.” He could hear it
there wasn’t anything forced about this record. We all got together and
just relied on our musical instincts.”
“The
idea was not to overthink it,” says Brian of recording his second album
with the band since signing on in 1994. “One thing we’ve learned is that,
working on demos, you find yourself constrained by what’s on the tape.
In this instance, as an example, Graffin would just sit down with a guitar,
play some chords, then everybody would come up with their own variation
on what he was doing, and we’d run with it.”
“When
you stop to think of the creative songwriting process, most of it is usually
a matter of “how about this,” adds Jay. “And either you get that squinty
eyed look of “that really sucks” or you get the wide-eyed “hey, yeah, yeah”
look.”
With
the two separate studios at Graffin’s house, the band was able to up the
creative give-and-take to a fast-paced process, with ideas flying from
basement studio to bedroom studio. “I’d be upstairs doing vocals and, simultaneously,
Brian and Greg would be downstairs doing guitars,” explains Graffin. “Then
we’d just switch the tapes and I’d sing over the guitar parts, and they
would play their guitars over my vocals.”
During
a break in the action, a number of tracks-in-progress were road tested
at a series of super discount all ages New York City club shows (And how
were Bad Religion able to perform for such low prices? Volume! Volume!
Volume!). Placed in intimate proximity to their audience “ many members
of which found themselves pushed onto the stage between floor monitors
“ the band was at a pitch. “It was a cleansing move,” says Jay of the shows.
“After being locked away in the studio for five weeks you start going insane.”
“The
last three times Bad Religion has done a New York show, we’ve played the
same Roseland to the same 4,000 people for the usual fifteen dollars,”
adds Brian. “So we said, “what the fuck, why don’t we go down and play
a couple of little shows for almost no money just because it will be fun
for us to do.””
The
shows also resonated through the closing recording sessions. Sonically,
“NO SUBSTANCE” may be the first Bad Religion album to so-accurately capture
the dynamic intensity and powerful drive of the band on stage. Through
the course of the album, the group moves across a wide spectrum of tempos
and rock modes from the downstroke derby guitar of the “Hear It” opener;
to the buoyant melodic pounce of “Mediocre Minds”; the sophisticated arrangements
and aural depth of “Victims Of The Revolution”; and the visceral mid-tempo
stomp of the “Shades of Truth” debut single. In the end, Bad Religion stands
up having expertly linked medium to message.
Thematically,
the band has added even more weight to its celebrated potent lyrical expression
and added fuel to the fierce individualism that took root with the group’s
founding in 1980 and continued through their influential late-‘80/early-‘90s
albums: “SUFFER” (1988), “NO CONTROL” (“89), “AGAINST THE GRAIN” (“90),
“GENERATOR” (“92), “RECIPE FOR HATE” (“93), the RIAA gold-certified “STRANGER
THAN FICTION” (“94), and “THE GRAY RACE.” Through Graffin’s focused and
energized vocal performance, the band addresses many of its hallmark subjects,
but points the discussion in a new, bold direction.
“This
album goes back to a style in my writing that I lost a little bit on our
most recent albums,” says Graffin. “Like some of our earlier albums, “NO
SUBSTANCE” has a lot more harsh criticism, but here it’s done with authority
and confidence. If you’re going to criticize, it has to be done that way
or you fall flat on your face. I think I can be accused of a little bit
of that in the past.”
In
that light, new songs such as “All Fantastic Images” and “Sowing The Seeds
Of Utopia” cast a wary look at surface perception, whether it relates to
institutions, countries, or leaders. “The Voracious March Of Godliness”
examines the ignored lessons of history as they apply to exploitation of
the planet and the struggles for power and control. “Mediocre Minds” reveals
the destructive course behind lowest common denominator solutions, while
the more spiritually centered “In So Many Ways” puts forward the idea of
a collective human suffering.
On
the tongue-in-cheek “The Hippy Killers,” a reflective Graffin sings of
“Our apocalypse nineteen-eighty-one,” and Bad Religion’s experiences during
the rise of Southern California’s punk rock renaissance. “I went straight
out of being into Kiss and wearing Levis bush pants right into the Sex
Pistols and wearing cutoff shirts,” says Jay with a laugh. “Punk rock killed
the hippie in me.”
“But,”
adds Graffin, “I’d like to clarify that no hippies were actually killed
during the making of this record.”
Composed
as an imagined soundtrack to a CNN disaster video montage, “The Biggest
Killer In American History” makes sharp reference to Dr. Edward Teller,
father of the hydrogen bomb, in the song’s naming of a recipient for its
nefarious title. “I’m sure it’s insensitive, but I think the song makes
the point that the intellectual leader of the military industrial complex
is certainly culpable for a lot of dead people,” says Graffin. “He should
be exposed for that.”
The
album takes an oratory turn with its “End Of The Millennium Address,” which
places Graffin in the role of the proudly indignant politician shades of
“The Voice Of God Is Government” from 1982. The spoken-word composition
got its musical foundation when Baker and Schayer were cutting loose in
the studio. “It was completely spontaneous,” says Brian. “I had been listening
to a lot of Hank Williams and there are all these B-sides of his old singles
with what he called re-sigh-tations. Basically, it would be Hank pontificating
on the usual country and western topics, so when it came to recording this
track I thought about that and said “great idea.” Greg had written out
what he was going to say while he was at the supermarket, came back
to the house and... there we go. It was amazing how it came together.”
“With
“NO SUBSTANCE,” I’m basically saying enough is enough,” states Graffin
definitively. “We’ve come this far in our society and yet still we spend
90 percent of our time scrambling to pay the bills and 10 percent of our
time is spent on compassionate and emotional stimulation we need to be
human beings. We’re kidding ourselves if we think technological innovation
equals progress. As we’ve become more technologically innovative, we certainly
have withdrawn from one another; we’ve become stale and meaningless, less
of a real society and more of a community of robots. That’s why I can say
we lack substance.”
Leading
up to the release of “NO SUBSTANCE,” Bad Religion is the subject of an
upcoming words-and-images book, authored by punk historian and noted music
journalist Jack Rabid. At the same time, Graffin is working to complete
a book of his own. Titled BandAid: The Music Industry From A Band”s
Perspective, the book takes a scientific approach to helping up-and-coming
artists avoid the pitfalls as they navigate their way through the world
of record labels, club owners, and studios.
Last
year, in yet another side project, Graffin released his more personal but
no less potent “AMERICAN LESION” album. Brian Baker, on the other hand,
spent time with Ric Ocasek on his “TROUBLIZING” solo album and subsequent
series of U.S. tour dates. Baker also teamed with a number of punk alumni
to perform and record a new album as Lickety Split, also featuring members
of Avail, the Suspects, and the Pietasters. Greg Hetson has co-founded
the independent Porterhouse Records, which has just released albums from
Speed Buggy and Rosemary’s Billy Goat. The guitarist also plays recreational
gigs with the L.A.-based Punk Rock Karaoke, which brings together members
of NOFX and Social Distortion along with such guests as Mike Watt and Devo’s
Bob Mothersbaugh to play classic punk and hardcore ditties with audience
members on vocals. “Our credo is “we play, you sing,”” says Hetson.
In
addition to their extensive creative output, Bad Religion recently launched
a special scholarship program for budding geniuses in the cultural or physical
science fields. Graffin, who has a degree in evolutionary biology from
UCLA and is working towards a PhD. at Cornell University, is reviewing
proposals for field studies from high school and college students and will
announce the winner of a $3,000 scholarship grant during this summer’s
Vans Warped tour which the band is headlining.
The
all-star ramp-riding/punk-o-rama outdoor festival begins June 30th in Phoenix,
Arizona and runs through August before moving on to Europe. “I still think
of us as just Bad Religion, the little punk band from the Valley,” says
Jay, reflecting on the upcoming Vans itinerary. “This tour will be like
nothing we’ve ever done before. |
