Offspring's Jagged Slice Of 'Americana' Tasty, Tart

You would be well advised to stand near the back if you go see the Offspring tomorrow at the Worcester Palladium.

When half-full sodas, french fry cartons and half-eaten pretzels came raining down onto the stage at Great Woods last summer at the WBCN River Rave, it wasn't the first time the Southern California punk rockers had invited the audience to throw their trash onstage.

"It was the first time we asked people to come join us and help pick it up," said guitarist Noodles with a giggle when recalling the horde of fans that swarmed the stage to throw the debris back out into the stands. "Some people think we're just complete (jerks) for doing that. I think the place was a little cleaner after that."

"It's a rush," he said of such immense crowd control. There is a drawback, however. Lead singer Dexter Holland "can run around because he's got the microphone, so he can duck. But I've got to sing with a mike stand in place, and that's a little dodgy."

Less dodgy, however, is the recent chart performance of the band's second major label effort, "Americana." It leapt into last week's Top 10 at No. 6, amid stiff competition, by selling 198,000 copies. The future looks bright for the hard-hitting and funny "Americana," because the quintet's previous fast, hard and harmonious releases, "Ixnay on the Hombre" and "Smash," are both multiplatinum.

The concept of making a career of music still boggles the band's collective mind. Ten years ago "we couldn't sell out a telephone booth," he said.

"When I say it I realize that it's ridiculous," said Noodles of the term career. "First of all, we didn't have a career until four years ago, and I've been in the band almost 14 years. That's just crazy; it's over a third of my life. That's nuts. When it happened to us it was kind of scary, this chance to make this our career. You don't even dare dream about it, because it's not going to happen. It's just impossible to think that it could. It just snuck up on us; we'd have been foolish not to see how far we could take it."

Pretty far, it would seem, with the multiplatinum "Smash" and its infectious hits "Come Out and Play" and "Self Esteem," the deeper lyrical touches of "Ixnay" connecting with hits like "Gone Away," and now with the varied moods of "Americana." The album ranges from the hilarious first single, "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)," to a cynical, flip cover of "Feelings" and the serious "The Kids Aren't Alright," which is Noodles' favorite new song.

"I know where Dexter was coming from when he wrote that," he said. The singer drove through his old neighborhood ruminating on friends lost to early deaths for reasons both self-destructive and accidental.

"It's just a sad expression," he says of the questioning but still hard-rocking track. "But it's life; there's not anything that can be done about it."

As far as the classic "Feelings" goes, Noodles says, "It's just a song that needed to be made fun of, but at the same time it's got all the sing-along 'whoa, whoa, whoas' that is the Southern California punk band sound."

As for the old punk-vs.-multiplatinum-sellout question that dogs the band to this day, Noodles simply said, "Who cares? When I was 18 maybe I would've called Green Day or Nirvana a sellout, too. But at 30, when Nirvana came out I was like, (expletive), it's about time some good music got played."

The Offspring play the Palladium in Worcester tomorrow.

By Sara Rodman, from Boston Herald - December 6, 1998