Why Be Cool When You Could Be The Offspring?

For Offspring guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman, there's one crucial difference between the group's latest album, Americana, and its 1997 predecessor, Ixnay on the Hombre.

"I think we're looking, really at one song," says Noodles, referring to the hit "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)," a tongue-in-cheek look at misguided attempts to be cool whose saturation airplay has propelled Americana, released last fall, to sales of more than three million copies so far - and prompted a parody from that arbiter of hip, Weird Al Yankovic, called "Pretty Fly (For a Rabbi)."

"We all kind of had the feeling that song was gonna be the single off the record," Noodles says. "It was just funny and had driving guitars. It was just fun - fun to play, fun to listen to. So we kinda had a feeling that song would take off, but we had no idea it was going to do what it did." More than spur sales, what "Pretty Fly" really did was bring the Offspring back from the precipice of being just another of the '90s one-hit wonders, a band that had one massive album and then did a quick fade. The quartet - Noodles, frontman Brian "Dexter" Holland, bassist Greg Kriesel and drummer Ron Welty - formed in 1986, stoked by the burgeoning punk rock scene in California's Orange County though its pop sensibilities and quick wit made it a somewhat friendlier listen than some of the bands Noodles and his cohorts moshed before forming the Offspring.

The group's breakthrough was 1994's Smash, which sold 11 million copies worldwide and launched hits such as "Come Out and Play" and "Self Esteem." Along with Green Day's Dookie, Smash epitomized the "new punk" of the '90s, in which catchy hooks and humor replaced nihilistic anger. The Offspring was happy enough to be selling records and playing to bigger crowds, but the group was ambivalent about seeing punk become a mainstream commodity.

"It meant a lot more to us than just spikey green hair and torn-up overalls and all that stuff that you saw on magazine covers," says Noodles, 36, who has a nine-year-old daughter from his first marriage and is expecting a child with his current wife in December. "It was all of a sudden becoming very diluted. Now every family has some kid in it with green hair and piercings and tattoos."

But like most pop culture phenomenons, the fall was inevitable. As the Offspring prepared Smash's follow-up, Ixnay on the Hombre, Holland - whose doctoral studies in biochemistry give him a certain cache outside of the punk rock world - says "I knew ahead of time that it was going to be characterized as a sophomore slump, no matter what. I pretty much knew it wouldn't sell like (Smash), and unfortunately most people in the press gauge our success solely on what the record sells."

He's right; Ixnay sold a more-than-respectable three million copies worldwide (it eventually reached a million in the U.S.) but failed to generate any radio hits and was subsequently viewed as a disappointment - though Holland and Noodles profess to be perfectly happy with the album. And the silver lining, Holland says, is that neutralizing the hype allowed the Offspring to approach Americana more comfortably. "There was so much scrutiny on (Ixnay) ... but this time I didn't feel like there were so many people looking over our shoulders anymore," he explains. "It was more like 'Oh, the Offspring. I know what these guys are like. I know what they sound like,' and you like it or you don't like it. "So we just went about making a regular album we would make. The really fast, energetic and melodic stuff is a big part of what we do, but I never wanted to just stand still with that. I always want to throw a few curve balls on every record."

That would include a punk rock version of "Feelings," which appears on Americana. But "Pretty Fly" counts as one of those surprises, too, with what Holland calls a "weird ghoulash'' of hip-hop rhythms and fly girl backing vocals and Latin rock touches inspired partially by War's "Low Rider" - all following the sampled introduction from Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages," for which the British hard rock group gave its blessing. "There's a message to the song, too," Holland acknowledges, "but I always hate coming across as preachy. So we try to do it in a humorous way." More than humor, however, Noodles thinks "Pretty Fly" hits a cross-generation chord that gives the song resonance even while listeners are dancing or body slamming to it.

"Everybody knows the kid that's song about," he says. "Everyone at some point in their life tries to be cool in a way that doesn't work. Everyone puts on a funny hat from time to time to try to be cool; we understand what that's all about and we also understand when other people are doing it.'' That's made it surprises and angers the group that the song has been criticized by some - including performers such as Everlast - as race-baiting and disrespectful to one particular audience. "Well, we're not making fun of white kids that like to listen to rap," Noodles answers. "We're making fun of this kid that hears it for the first time and all of a sudden dresses up and jumps out in everybody's face trying to be the coolest thing when he's really just being foolish. Maybe he would sit back and watch and listen for a little bit instead of trying to tell everyone what it's all about.

"But it's not really that serious. That's why we made a hip-hop flavored video for the song, with us dancing. I mean, just look at us! We're not afraid to point the finger at ourselves, either, y'know?" Whether Americana will spin off other hits and reach Smash's strata remains to be seen. This time, however, the Offspring's members feel like they're better prepared for that scale of success. Four years ago, for instance, they eschewed arena shows and an offer to tour with Stone Temple Pilots.

But this year they're willing to embrace the demand and are confident they can do so without sacrificing the punk-bred integrity they cherish - even before hundreds of thousands at this year's Woodstock festival. "Honestly, I just want to see a lot of the other bands play," Noodles says. "It's not gonna be all peace and love and 'see, we can do it if we all hold hands.' I'm not buying into that. For me, it's just going to be a music festival with a lot of different styles - a varied, eclectic music festival. I think it's going to be great."

By Gary Graff, from Punk On Deck for Woodstock.com - July 1999