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“It’s not like the slick, fashionable, commercialized product that most people are used to seeing, but it’s really what they want.”
Bad Religion vocalist/songwriter Greg Graffin is talking about engaging, thought-provoking art in general, and his quintet’s latest release, The New America, in particular. Graffin is something of an optimist when it comes to humanity; for pundits who never mined his lyrics deep enough to discover the nuggets of hope that are always there, this fact may come as a surprise. Even after nineteen years of sometimes-scathing societal observations, his belief in the better side of human nature remains intact:
“People want substance. The people crave substance, it’s just that nobody’s giving it to them, because you have a lot of complacent bands who aren’t working very hard, who are being put together by fashion stylists, and you’ve got a media who’s happy to write about it and show it on television.
“It’s not the people who are the problem,” Graffin continues, “it’s what they’re being fed.”
What they’re being fed, circa now, the week that Bad Religion’s eleventh compelling mix of hooky, slashing riffage and intelligent cultural discourse is due to drop, is ‘N Sync and Limp Bizkit, Britney Spears and Kid Rock; Houdini couldn’t possibly be any more escapist than America’s popular-music pantheon du jour. And they’re eating it up. The question of whether or not music fans en masse want to be informed as well as entertained seems nearly secondary, when it’s tough to discern that they know such a thing is possible in the first place.
But bands like Bad Religion have little use for such market-analysis semantics. For them, having something to say is at least as important as making great music. That doesn’t make them all about The Message, manic soapbox zealots screaming to be heard above a superficial carnival din. They just believe that the style needs to be balanced by the substance. So they front-load their aggressive, compelling sonics with insight and inquiry. They make their record, and the label worries about how it’s going to promote the record beyond the band’s already impressive fanbase, and it really doesn’t matter, because the record always reaches new ears, no matter what kind of pap happens to be en vogue at the time.
“We’ve never paid attention to what’s hip, or what’s hot at the time. We don’t really strive for that,” confirms Graffin. “I think our goal has always been to write songs that are timeless, and I think it’s been part of our longevity, our success formula, if you will.”
Granted, The New America is Bad Religion’s most varied and accessible release to date, both musically and lyrically. While the expected breakneck rhythms, searing guitar interplay, and impassioned vocal delivery remain intact, the band has expanded its palette by experimenting with tempos, effects, and songwriting structure beyond their usual turf. Doesn’t it seem like all the songs on every Bad Religion album can sort of fit into one of four aural categories? Now, there’s, like, seven. But they refrain from pushing the envelope too hard, and allow themselves to grow without sacrificing those elements that render every single Bad Religion tune immediately identifiable as such.
“I think that would happen if I sang opera,” agrees Graffin with a laugh. “There’s a recognizable sound, no matter what I do. You can’t get around it. So you know that’s it’s immediately Bad Religion. But hopefully [fans will] immediately recognize that there’s some new evolution; I think it takes a step towards expanding what’s acceptable in punk.”
He explains that The New America is, among other things, a reaction to the narrowing of punk’s definition, the speed-is-everything mentality, and a throwback to the genre’s anything-goes origins.
“Punk has become so streamlined, it’s really quite the opposite of what it started out being. In the earliest days, there was so much variety to be seen at a punk venue on any given week, and everything was accepted as punk. Today, everyone’s into these tempos, but tempo isn’t what makes something punk – some of the most influential punk albums of all time had slow songs that were no faster than a typical pop song. So we, in a sense by reverting to some of the old traditions, are expanding the acceptable limits of punk, to the modern punk [listener].”
Graffin’s lyrics have also continued to evolve. Formerly broad characterizations have been refined; the subjects of tracks like ‘A Streetkid Named Desire’ and ‘The Hopeless Housewife’ come across more real, specific, and fully-developed, and ‘1000 Memories’ and ‘Whisper In Time’ are startlingly personal in the context of Bad Religion, a band not really given to first-person issues and intimacy on earlier releases.
“I think that may have been something that was lacking in the past, so it’s good to be exploring that,” Graffin reflects. “Especially because this album is about time, it’s about the calendar, it’s a time to reflect on the past, and if you don’t have an emotional connection with the past, then you’ve lived kind of a dead life.”
Graffin attributes much of the disc’s more concise, textured lyrical bent to the involvement of punk pioneer and skewed-pop icon Todd Rundgren, who produced The New America. Rather than imposing his will upon the band’s sound and style, Rundgren served more as a sounding board and fine-tuner for individual song concepts.
“It was…clarity, crystalizing the ideas and the focus. As a writer, you can analogize it as having a good editor. They don’t really write your stuff for you, but they will certainly tell you when it’s not making sense. And a good editor can help you create a much better piece of work,” he avers.
The New America is an excellent piece of work. And it’s undeniably a Bad Religion record, despite what punker-than-thou pundits have been muttering ever since they found out that techie-freak Rundgren was involved (“they’re going to be shocked unless they’re familiar with his early punk productions,” Graffin confides), layered and multidimensional, yet still taut and raging. Perhaps the most important developmental steps the band has made, broader musical reach aside, are reflected in the album’s more overtly positive vibe. Bad Religion have never been joyless; as their music has always been enriched by its content, their cynicism has always been tempered by a sense that the solution to society’s ills lies within reach, and that feeling has never been as readily apparent as it is in their latest effort.
“I felt the only way to really move us ahead was to try to do what we normally do, which is social analysis, but to try to warn people, and at the same time, give them some hope,” says Graffin. “Because there is a lot of hope for the future.”
“I believe that Bad Religion has never been a nihilistic band - we’ve never been a band that says ‘fuck everything’.”
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