The Offspring's Noodles

It's almost like a punk fairy tale: four friends in high school decided to start a punk band, before they even had instruments. They record a vinyl album by themselves, get hooked up with ex-Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz's label Epitaph and record "Ignition" in 1992. Even though "Ignition" didn't sell well, two years later they record "Smash." The album produced the hit singles 'Come Out And Play' and 'Self Esteem' and sold over 11 million copies world wide, the best selling release ever on an indie label. Their fourth release, "Ixnay On The Hombre" (1997), also sold extremely well, even if they were already in the middle of a break with Epitaph. "Ixnay" was released with Sony/Columbia in North America and Epitaph in Europe. Even though for a punk band to be signed to a major used to make a lot of fans scream "sell-outs," Dexter Holland, the Offspring's vocalist, had the answer's ready.

"We just told them (Columbia) what we expect. We told them that we don't want to see any of them in the studio, we won't give them material in advance and that we don't want them to supervise our recordings. Take it or leave it. What can I say? They agreed and that was it."

Their current album, "Americana," with lots of melodic punk and fast driven songs with addictive guitar riffs, was recorded with "Ixnay" producer Dave Jerden in Burbank, California. Despite success, the Offspring are still the Offspring, and they show that they have not forgotten their roots. Even if three of them are over 30 years of age - Bryan 'Dexter' Holland (vocals, guitar), Kevin 'Noodles' Wasserman (guitar), Greg Kriesel (bass), and Ron Welty (drums) show no signs of slowing down or that they are tired of punk.

Noodles explains that age has nothing to do with it, and that they're still enjoying what they do.

"I would even see our experience as an advantage," he muses, "See, we can do a lot of different stuff, we can experiment a bit more and write songs that are not so typical Offspring songs. It's a challenge and it's fun. It's really fun to mix in a song like 'Pay The Man,' something completely different. It's the only song from "Americana" that we tried live. I can't imagine that we'd ever be fed up with punk, no way."

An eight minute track with an endless intro doesn't seem to be quite an Offspring song; it must have confused their audience quite a bit and Noodles agrees that it's not a song made to be played live.

"We tried it, as I said, but it didn't work. Well, not quite as we expected, but it was still fun. The fans looked at us - they were clearly very confused. We could even hear some of them speculating, 'Are they stoned?', 'What's going on with them?'. It was certainly an experience. I think it was an experience for them and for us, but we really wanted to try that. We found out that it's not a good song to be played live, but we all like that song and I hope that some of our fans get used to it. They better get used to it (he starts to chuckle), it's on the album."

When "Ixnay On The Hombre" was released, Dexter's statements were pretty clear: they didn't want to repeat "Smash."

"... Nobody expected very much from "Smash" and all of a sudden it was a hit album and then the reviewers decide that the album 'wasn't so good after all.' What do they expect? We never planned a superior album or wanted to make history with it. It was simply a good punk rock album without great ambitions."

"Probably a lot of people expect more from us than we expect from ourselves. They probably waited for a remake of 'Come Out And Play' or 'Self Esteem,' but we aren't into that. We don't want to repeat ourselves.

"All we can do is give it our best shot and see what happens. If the people out there like it, fine. If not, nothing you can do about it anyway."

But even if it sold nowhere near as many copies as "Smash," "Ixnay" made the Offspring's fan base even stronger and was praised by critics as a major development. Is "Americana" also a step forward for them? Noodles doesn't want to be pushed in a corner and explains.

"I hope every album is a step forward, that we develop our style. On the other hand, we don't want to change too much. We're the Offspring and we still want to sound like the Offspring. I don't think that we'll ever record an album and people will go like, 'Huh? What's that? Which band is it?'. I think that's what we like about us, about us as a band, that we like the same sound and that we play our own style. Yeah, we definitely want to keep that style."

Noodles chuckles when asked how he would describe the typical Offspring style and with a grin comes up with "melodic, hard-core." He also explains that even though Dexter writes all the lyrics, the band talks a lot about them, and they're the focus of countless conversations among the band.

"Dexter puts the lyrics together. He writes them down, he makes the lyrics, but yeah, we talk about them - we talk about them quite a lot. Not during rehearsals or record demos. That's funny; Dexter sings the melody, but he doesn't sing the lyrics - not real lyrics anyway. Sometimes not even real words. When we're in the studio, that's when he comes up with the lyrics, because it's the emotion that gives the songs the lyrics."

He gives an example of what gets their emotions going and why "Americana" focuses so much on American culture, and that the band (especially Dexter) have the feeling that it's going completely crazy.

"Just look at the terrible talk shows we have, man, that's terrible. The way they treat people, it's unbelievable. A guy was fooling around and he's in the studio, they invite his wife and his girlfriend, mistress, whatever you want to call it, but none of them knows that the others are there too and they're there with the cameras, exposing them, their feelings, hoping that a big fight starts out and they get even better ratings. It's really terrible. It makes you feel degraded just watching it - they degrade humans. On one hand you really want to switch off - you don't want to be a part of it - but on the other hand there is that crazy fascination - you're sitting there wondering to yourself, 'What are they doing, what are those crazy people doing there?'. It's like seeing an accident. You want to know what happened, but at the same time you're disgusted; your own curiosity disgusts you."

In 'Pretty Fly (For A White Guy),' they make fun of the talk show culture and people pretending to be what they are not. "'Pretty Fly' means pretty sexy or attractive. It's a slang expression, very urban - the kids use it. The song is about a kid that tries to act as if he's inner-city; he wants to be one of the cool gangsters even though he's from the suburbs. It just doesn't work out. He makes a complete fool out of himself, but that's just a metaphor. It's about wannabes - guys who want to be something they're not.

"If anything, "Americana" was easy to record. When we recorded "Ixnay," Noodles explains, "we were under the impression that, or better, we had the feeling that we needed to prove something. We wanted to show the world that we're a band that deserves to be taken seriously, not just a one hit wonder - or a punk hit wonder. A lot of people thought that success, especially the commercial success of "Smash" was pure luck, just by chance. I think we showed them that we're capable of writing good songs and that it wasn't just luck. That's one of the reasons why we were much calmer, far more relaxed and we had a good deal of self-confidence!"

Given the distinctive punk style of the Offspring, what kind of music does Noodles like to listen to at home? What are the musical tastes of a professional punk rocker? He comes up with some very surprising musical choices.

"I listen to a lot of different stuff. Of course, a lot of punk stuff. Sometimes we get an album of the Descendants out, you know, we just rediscover them and then we're listening to it for like a month. Or the Ramones, or the Dickies. Personally I also like oldies, rock 'n roll stuff or really old jazz from the '20s or '30s. Or the Squirrel Nut Zippers. I really like them a lot."

Not what you would expect from a punk rocker, but then the Offspring are anything but predictable.

From "Circus" magazine - March 1999