The Offspring - Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

"Picture yourself in a band," starts the Offspring's lead singer Dexter Holland, "a little, tiny band. And you're a fan of another band whose guitar player owns his own label, which he runs out of his garage. Of course," he states, "I'm referring to Brett [Gurewitz]." As if there were any question.

As he sits in his office located in Garden Grove, the well-spoken and extremely amiable Holland attempts to explain what happened to his band, (which also includes guitarist Noodles, bassist Greg K. and drummer Ron Welty). By now, everyone has heard of the Offspring. Actually, throughout last year, you really couldn't avoid this band. Even if you've never heard one of their many hit singles--"Come Out and Play," "Gotta Get Away," and "Self-Esteem" from the aptly titled Smash--it was damn near impossible to avoid the rumors or the numerous magazine articles regarding the band's controversial leap from their indie label home at Epitaph Records to the very-major Columbia last year. In fact, that show-down between the band and Epitaph's outspoken founder Brett Gurewitz was well documented in almost every entertainment-related publication--trade and consumer. However, most of the comments during this break-up came from Gurewitz, not the band. "I didn't want to have a press war," claims Holland. "I didn't want to take that route because people always end up hating both sides after a while. We tried to shut-up, but the other side kept coming out. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that it does make sense to tell our side of the story."

"Anyway," he says, returning to the story, "you like this guy's band and you love the other bands on his label. It all seems so cool. So you get to know him and you hit him up to sign your band to his label, but he turns you down. That's what happened," he interjects earnestly.

"But you keep after him," he says, "and we, I mean, you play shows with bands like Operation Ivy and Fugazi and stuff like that. After a while, you finally get enough going with your band on your own that this guy--who's now your friend--agrees to sign your band and you're thrilled.

"Now, you've got to remember," he insists, "you're nothing. I mean, really nothing. So you don't care that this guy doesn't give you a lot of money to record. And you don't say anything when he insists on taking half of the publishing rights. Who are you to argue? So you do it. Anyway, the record comes out, it does pretty well and you're able to tour and everything's pretty good. After some time passes, you start to get a little smarter and you realize that you're paying for the promotion of your record..."

At this point, I interrupt Holland and ask: "Isn't it typical for an indie label, or even a major, to charge back the band for any incurred marketing or promoting expenses that aren't performed in-house?"

"With indie labels it varies," he replies. "But definitely not at a major label"

"But," I add, "at that point, Epitaph was still very small and didn't have the means to handle the situation. Wasn't it in your best interest as a band to do all you could to get your record promoted?"

"Yes," he nods. "It was the right thing to do. But you're really kind of stuck. It's like, well, do you want the services of the label, do you want to be promoted? I can't think of a single band that doesn't want to further themselves. That doesn't mean they all want to be rockstars," he adds quickly, "but if you sign to a label, you'd like to be promoted and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get that done. So, yeah, that's part of the deal. All of the independent stuff is charged back to the band. And, yeah, you're not thrilled about it, but at least it's being done.

"But then when your next record comes out, all of a sudden it starts going nuts. The record starts selling, it's getting played on the radio, and this guy is telling you to make a video. And maybe you have to pay for it yourself, but at least you're making a video, right? So you do it.

"As the record continues to sell, major labels start calling you. But we never met with a major label, not once the whole time. Seriously," Holland reiterates, "we never met with one major label."

"Meanwhile," he continues, "your friend back home is the toast of the town and he's talking to every single one of the majors. This friend even tells you that he was offered $2 million to sell out your contract. You beg him not to do it and he says he won't. But while you're out touring, you read in Hits [magazine] and the LA Times about all of the meetings he's having with the other labels. When you confront him about it, your friend denies it. And you really don't know what's going on.

"Then another band on the label starts talking to major labels and you tell them, 'Hey, maybe you shouldn't go to Epic, maybe you should stay here.' And that band eventually decides to stay. I mean, here you are, out there defending this guy because you believe it's the right thing to do and this is the right way to go. All the while, [sales] are so huge the label's basically just trying to keep up. So again, you agree to take care of all the marketing costs, all of the promotion, do your own videos, do your own touring.

"And then," he stops for a moment and laughs, "I'm trying to remember where it goes from here. It was totally insane. Anyway, no one you know has ever experienced anything like this before. There was no one to ask for advice. You couldn't just call up Eddie Vedder and say, 'Hey dude, what's up?' Because you don't even know those guys."

Those "meetings" that Gurewitz took with other major labels were, as Holland claims, well publicized, but the intent of the meetings was only speculated by the press. So I ask Holland: "Do you think perhaps Brett was meeting with other labels to get advice himself?"

"I really don't know what happened at those meetings," Holland answers. "From what I understand, those meetings were more involved with Brett saying how great his label is and asking which label would be interested in buying the Offspring...that's what we read about anyway.

"It was frustrating," he continues, "because when all was said and done, you find out that your friend made a total of about $25 million, while you paid for the bulk of the marketing costs. Remember, we went out on tour for over a year, we never met with a major label, we defended the guy to the end, and we helped keep the other bands on the label, only to find out that the guy has gone out behind our back to try to sell us out to a major label.

"Finally, you confront him." Holland says. "This was right before the Rock for Choice show [in '95]. And he admits it. He apologizes, but he tells you he's looking to sell about half of the company because of a personal issue. You feel totally deceived and betrayed. It's at that point you realize going to a major is like choosing a devil that you at least know, otherwise we would be sold out to the highest bidder, because that's exactly what this guy was looking to do."

I interrupt Holland again, because, to date anyway, Gurewitz has not sold his label. "When you confronted Brett," I inquire, "he was honest with you. He told you exactly what he was doing. Yet you still felt that you could no longer trust him?"

"Yeah, he was honest with us," Holland replies with a grin, "but that was a year and a half later. And he admitted that he was looking to sell the company at that time. Basically, the Offspring had a lot to do with the company at that point. We comprised, like, 85 percent of the sales for the label. I brought up that fact to Brett and he said to me, 'I don't tell you how to run your band, so I don't expect you to tell me how to run my business.' And I was like, 'Well, at this point, I feel like you'd better consult us.' But he wasn't going to do that. I felt like a fucking commodity. It had gone so far beyond what it was like when it started," he says shaking his head. "Just two years before, the label was being run out of a garage, and it had come just so far away from that.

"So, uh," he says sitting back in his chair, "that's really the gist of what happened. It was a real bummer to feel like you put in all this effort to try to build something up and keep this solidarity going and everything. There really was that spirit in the bands, between us and Rancid and NOFX. But to put all that effort into it and then feel like you were totally betrayed. It was a real bummer."

After he finishes this story, I wait for him to say, "So, what would you have done?" Thankfully, he doesn't.

If nothing else, it seems that the decision to leave Epitaph for the world of big business was a very difficult decision that came from maybe some conjecture and many hurt feelings. And let's not forget a lot of money made very suddenly. Because whether it's under the guise of punk rock or anything else, when a band starts generating sales in the millions, the business end becomes unavoidable. These days, however, when a band does make the jump to a major label, fans often tag that band with the dreaded "sell-out" label and abandon them entirely.

"To a certain degree," Dexter states, referring to the "sell-out" question, "everyone has to deal with corporations. You shit on a corporate toilet, you watch a Sony TV. It's all corporations. And for as long as it's worthwhile and makes sense, you can stay away from that corporate stuff. For us, it became impossible not to deal with it anymore. After a while, you realize it's punk not to be an idiot. Isn't that what the whole DIY thing is about? I mean, is it punk to let yourself be ripped off? That's like saying it's punk to be a heroin addict.

"Like it or not, we're in a position where there's business involved," he continues. "We just try to make it as fair as can be. The bottom line is if there's a bunch of money out there, the band has to be treated fairly. That's what it comes down to. So that's why we decided to take our destiny into our own hands."

After the band unanimously decided to leave Epitaph, they immediately set their sights on making Columbia Records their new home. "We didn't want to do a big bidding war thing," Dexter states, "and we really liked Columbia and their sister label Epic. I also like a lot of the bands on those labels like Rage Against the Machine and Pearl Jam. Those bands appear to be in charge of what they do with their careers. You know, Pearl Jam says they don't want to do videos and the label allows it. Rage Against the Machine doesn't want to do glossy stuff, and the label seems to be OK with that, too. I really like that, so I figured they might be the right place to go.

"Besides," he adds, "our manager [Jim Guerinot] also handles Social Distortion who are at Columbia, and he had good things to say about them. So we met with Columbia and it worked out. That was it. But it wasn't an easy decision to make, you know. We signed for less money and more records. Brett was offering us a good deal to stay, I've gotta give him that, but I still think it was more of him trying to keep us so that he could sell it to the next guy. In order for us to leave Epitaph, we actually had to sign for less money, but I'd rather do that and be able to do exactly what we want to do."

According to Holland, Columbia gave the band complete and total creative control. In fact, he claims the label never even asked for demos of their new material; Columbia signed the band sight unseen--and unheard. "We told them we didn't want to be up for audition at this point," he states. "And they said OK, so they never even heard [our new material]."

Taking that control issue one step further, the guys banned the label representatives from coming into the studio while they recorded their new album Ixnay on the Hombre. Holland claims: "We chose the song sequence, the title, the artwork...we delivered an entirely finished product to the label. We just handed the whole thing over and said, 'Here it is. Thank you very much.' And they were great about it."

The label imprint isn't the only change you'll find on Ixnay. For this album, the Offspring decided to part ways with producer Thom Wilson. Although Wilson had produced the band's previous four albums, both he and band decided it was time for a change and Jane's Addiction producer Dave Jerden was hired to man the knobs. "[Jerden] was the first guy to come to mind after Thom," Holland exclaims. "I really liked what he'd done with Social Distortion, Jane's Addiction and Alice in Chains. To me, those records sound really powerful yet still rough around the edges. Also," he adds, "they each sound unique. There's no Jerden signature sound. " And if the Offspring's aim was to release another Offspring-sounding record, they certainly achieved that goal. This new 14-track CD contains more of their trademark driving, guitar-heavy punk rock complete with undeniably catchy hooks and infectious melodies all backing Holland's cleverly sarcastic lyrics.

However, there is something totally unique on this album, which jumps right out at you on the very first track, "Disclaimer." Just when you expect to hear Holland's high-pitched yet fierce growl, you quickly realize that this voice is not Holland at all, but it becomes immediately recognizable as former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra. "Ladies and gentlemen," snarls Biafra in his distinctly sarcastic sneer. "Welcome to the disclaimer...that American apple-pie institution known as parental discretion will cleanse any sense of innuendo or sarcasm from lyrics which might actually make you think and will also insult your intelligence all at the same time..."

Holland explains: "I wrote 'Disclaimer' because I wanted to make fun of it. And being that it was totally sarcastic, I thought who better than Jello to perform it." Appropriately enough, because if you're at all familiar with Biafra's background, you'll know he's gotten into many battles regarding censorship himself. Biafra was charged with obscenity for artwork included in the Dead Kennedy's album Frankenchrist.

More recently, Biafra was brutally attacked at Berkeley's punk asylum Gilman Street, where several youths accusing him of being a "sell out" beat him severely damaging his knee. With that incident in mind, I ask Holland if Biafra was at all concerned about being on the Offspring record -- was he worried about getting his other leg broken?

"Actually, I talked to Jello about that," Holland replies. "I said to him, 'You know, you're probably gonna get a lot of shit for being on our record.' He said he didn't really care. Jello's not part of that real die-hard punk-rock purist thing. In fact, he gets really frustrated with all of that. Just the other day, we were talking about Ben Weasel of Screeching Weasel. That guy's almost made a career out of slagging Jello and [Fugazi's] Ian MacKaye in almost every issue of [punk rock bible] Maximumrocknroll. He's torn apart everyone from us to NOFX for being sell outs. But then he turns around and takes his band out on tour with Green Day.

"People can be real hypocrites," he says flatly. "My intention isn't to destroy Ben Weasel, but I'm just saying that there's a lot of people out there who will rip on someone like Jello when he's really done a lot for music and punk rock in general. He could've gone to jail for that whole PMRC thing, but he stood up to all of that. And for someone to give him a hard time for not being into it for the 'right' reasons--that's just ridiculous!"

Holland's work with Biafra isn't limited to just this new record. Actually, the two have joined forces to organize a charity foundation based on the Grateful Dead's Rex Foundation to be funded by several punk rock bands. "I like the idea that a foundation could be set up for more than one charity and donated to from more than one band," Holland states. Although Biafra and Holland recently met with Rex Foundation founder Danny Rifkin to further work out the details, the project is still far from completion and is still too early to formally announce.

And if Holland's band and charity work isn't enough to keep him busy, there's also his self-owned punk rock label, Nitro Records. Although Nitro has only a handful of bands on its roster--Guttermouth, the Vandals, Jughead's Revenge and A.F.I.--it's more than enough for this small company for the moment. "I definitely have a little insight as to what it's like to be on the other side," Holland says regarding his position as label owner. "All a band really wants is to have their records pressed and put in the stores. And maybe put out a few ads, promote it a little, and give them a little tour support once in a while. It doesn't really take a lot, it's not brain surgery."

"But you'd be amazed," he adds, "both indies and major labels just don't pay attention to a lot of the details. It doesn't have to be a media blitz or anything. You've just gotta get the records out there. So we try to make sure we do that.

"Sometimes I feel [Nitro's] like the 'Friends of the Friendless,' Holland laughs, "you know, from that episode of I Love Lucy, because all these bands come to us from other labels that either have no distribution or no ability to promote the artists. We just try to make sure those things get done."

"Would it have been possible for Nitro Records to release the new Offspring record?" I ask Holland.

"It would've been possible," he admits, "but it would've been really tough. If I had tried to do it, I probably would have had a nervous breakdown."

I then ask: "What if the next Guttermouth record takes off and sells 8 million copies. What would you do?"

"God, where do I start?" he says with a laugh. "But I know exactly what not to do."

By Jennifer Schwartz, from "BAM" magazine - January 10, 1997