The Offspring: Pretty Fly White Guys

ARW was fortunate to catch up with Dexter Holland the lead singer of The Offspring. The new album is Americana and they are rehearsing for a tour. We are sitting in the office of Dexter Holland who is the band's lead singer, at his label Nitro. First impressions are that is not your common interior. Downstairs you find two huge iguana's and old wheelchairs that must have been props from a video or stage performance. All the walls are plastered with Offspring posters, as well as other Nitro acts, Guttermouth and the Vandels. There are a lot of people with green hair, bowling shirts, and creepers wandering around. With all of that going on there is also a radio blasting the local alternative station KROQ completing the picture.

ARW: This is your label which you started right after Smash took off?

Dexter: We are in my office of a label I started to help out a friend's band, Guttermouth. It's been really great promoting other bands and giving them tour support by putting them on the road for six weeks at a time. You know the Offspring has been around close to ten years before we hit. I know better then any record executive does what it is like to tour in a van or a truck or sleep on someone's floor. I don't think record executives at major labels really have any appreciation for what band's go through to be able to play in front of an audience and get the music heard! Having been there I know a band needs. This is not rocket science, a band needs distribution, some advertising in magazines, and tour support. You keep these things in mind, have some good acts, and the kids will support the bands.

ARW: You made some good comments, but let's go back to the touring experience. The Offspring have been around for ten years, what's an Offspring tour like now?

Dexter: We tour on a bus now, but The Offspring begin touring in a 1979 Toyota pick-up truck, which I still have for sentimental reasons. We did our own booking, made our own T-Shirts and pressed our own 45's, and actually glued the sleeve's together. You couldn't wait for the big boy's to find you and this way you had control.

ARW: You mention control which is interesting, that must be important. I have a quote of yours from another source that mentions that thinking, "It is still important to control The Offspring's destiny". This must be a mantra of yours, since it comes up often. You control every aspect, your own label, the band, the video's, artwork, etc.

Dexter: Yeahhhh, this is absolutely important to me, it's in the lyrics that I write, and the way I live and the whole punk attitude. To have control of what you really do with your life. Don't be influenced by what other people say is right.

This is where I came from. This is way of thinking influences us. It was exciting to start the band and to have complete control of all aspects, touring in a truck, and asking people at the shows for a place to sleep. We don't have to do this anymore, but that community and control factor is a big part of the Punk society. As you move forward you take the punk ideas of control and community and usher these to another level. Punk Rock, has always been about a band getting involved with the audience, not a spectacle of explosions with light shows and dancers. We still have the kid's stage diving and participating.

ARW: The control issue still at hand, how do you interact with Colombia Records?

Dexter: We are really fortunate that we had the big album Smash. Moving forward with other releases. We would ask them not to come down to the studio, we'll do the artwork, we'll do the mix-down, and hand over the finish product. This is important. I believe in making records today, let the bands do what they know best. I think you are now seeing a lot of good records by bands because the labels are accepting this formula for making records. This is isn't crazy; there are so many musical tastes. A label executive in a suit couldn't possibly have forseen Korn taking off, or how to make them sound harder!! I think they are getting smarter to let the bands go and make the music.

ARW: Let's talk about the record Americana, what resources were used in the studio? Were there any influence's that may have crept in on this record since you used Dave Jerden again as the producer, who had work on Ixnay On the Hombre, and is well known for working with Jane Addition's and Alice in Chains.

Dexter: Influences, sure starting as a band you have a lot of influences. A lot of times you target a sound, but as you go on, the band grows into its own sound. I don't think that The Offspring has a particular unique sound, but what we try to concentrate on is the songwriting. What I think is interesting in the last year is the fact that there haven't been that many rock records. You have the Beastie Boys and Foo Fighters, and what Prodigy did with dance music. That's why we like Dave Jerden, he goes for the throat and really gets the power of the band. I mean some of my favorite records are Jane's Addition's, Nothing Shocking, or off Ritual de lo Habitual, the song "Three Days", and Dirt by Alice in Chains. He worked out great on the last record, and really incorporated his sound. I think it's important to work with the same producer.

ARW: The title of the album is Americana!! You admit that some of the lyrics come from culture craziness and that society is one big daytime talk show.

Dexter: We chose the title Americana, because it has the connotation of a kind of happy suburbia Happy Days feeling, but inside America I feel it is more like a Twin Peaks episode. A lot of crazy stuff is going on with technology, for example, videotapes. I just read somewhere that the average person is videotaped 37 times a day at ATM's, grocery stores, freeways, and malls. If America was once BBQ's, big cars, and life in suburbs in the 50s, it's now totally a freak show. I wanted to show that ordinary, average, American life isn't so average or ordinary anymore.

ARW: The first single that is "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)", what a great sample of Def Lepard.

Dexter: That was my idea, I like taking things that normally don't go together and making them go together. That song is about a kid, who is trying to fit in, but doesn't which I see a lot. The message is you shouldn't try to be something you are not. The kid is trying to be cool, but just kind of misses the mark. He doesn't know the difference between Ice Cube and Vanilla Ice. You put out a song and never know that it may be something that the audience can relate too. The feedback has been that you know a guy like that in high school or in the neighborhood.

ARW: You chose a cover on this album "Feelings" which is a standard love ballad from the 70's. Why?

Dexter: A terribly romantic sappy song. The idea of thrashing a song like this isn't really new. Sid Viscous did this with "My Way". This one was funny, by finding the worst part of the song and adapting it, it went really well. The Woes, Woes, seemed like a big Orange County Punk anthem. I couldn't really see doing this with a Madonna song.

ARW: You are rehearsing for the tour now, what can we expect and who is on the tour?

Dexter: We are touring with Unwritten, a band from San Diego. We are going to play clubs and stay with the smaller venue. I like the idea of these types of places. We aren't one of those bands that must play Madison Square Gardens or the Forum in Los Angeles, and not connect with the fans.

It's great to be in a band and go to anywhere in the world and have people show up and know the words to the songs. That's what's important to me. Not playing to 50,000 people, but to play anywhere and have someone show up who cares.

ARW: You are not the first to make that comment. When was your first Rock n Roll Moment?

Dexter: I remember early on, while we were still driving the Toyota, we were booked for a show in St. George, Utah. We did the first 45, and it was the first time I saw someone singing along who knew the words. This was back in 1988. I thought at this time, we had made it. There is more to this music business than selling records and filling out the shows, it's connecting with the fans and knowing that a song affects their lives in a certain way. As long as I am making music which, I know I can do well, that will bring the whole control punk community around full circle.

By John Abraham, from ARW