The Offspring Interview: Dexter Holland

Fanscape: I just wanted to ask you several questions about the Warped Tour. So, I think, most importantly, how come the Offspring has never played the Warped Tour before? You guys have been around for over a decade and this is the first time.

Dexter: Yea. Well, the Warped Tour started the same year things really started happening for us. We got busy and we've just kind of been busy ever since. A lot of bands go to Europe in the summer because they have huge festivals and the timing was just never quite right for us. This year, it all kind of worked out great because we're putting out, you know, the Greatest Hits record, but it's not really like our own tour and we're sort of in between records and it just seemed like a good time to do it.

FS: Does the Warped Tour rival those European festivals? Do you think it's better?

D: Well, the Warped Tour has it's own totally unique vibe - there's nothing quite like the Warped Tour. European festivals are different, too, but I'm having a lot of fun on the Warped Tour. I think it's a great time.

FS: Is the Warped Tour what you expected so far?

D: It's been better than I expected. I thought it was going to be fun and I'd get to meet a lot of people and that was all going to be good. But people also say it can be very grueling and I really wasn't sure what to expect in terms of the whole daily routine. But it's actually been a lot better than I thought.

FS: What's been your favorite part so far?

D: Well, the favorite part is always the show. I mean, that's what makes it all worthwhile. You know, you wait around all day - twenty-three hours of traveling and waiting around and one hour, in this case only a half an hour, of playing. The other great part is hanging out afterwards. The show all kind of wraps up around eight o'clock or so, and for the next couple hours, people really kind of just hang out back by all the buses and stuff. The different bands kind of mingle and there are a lot of barbeques going on and the buses don't really start leaving until around ten or eleven o'clock. That would be my other favorite time of the day, that time at the end there when you just kind of get to hang out.

FS: So what's been the worst part so far?

D: The worst part...the heat I guess. It's been over a hundred degrees, I'd say most of the days so far. Some stuff on the West Coast was cooler, which was nice. Over a hundred most days, I think Phoenix was the record - one hundred and ten, I think. It's pretty hot out there, and I know it's a dry heat, but still, that gets you.

FS: Is it hard to play in that kind of heat?

D: Well, you get tired. I'm just surprised that the crowd still has as much energy as they do. It's probably even worse for them, you know, they're out there packed in like sardines and they're going off. It's great.

FS: Did anyone give you any advice before you left for the Warped Tour?

D: Yea, I mean, I called up the friends that I knew that had been on the Warped Tour. I called a couple guys from NOFX - I talked to Eric Sandin and Fat Mike, I called Jim from Pennywise, just whoever I knew that I could talk to and say what are the tricks, what do I need to know? Pretty much, it was two things: figure out how to beat the heat, and that could be anything from bringing a canopy to put outside your bus that will give the guys shade and a place to hang out or whatever, the other thing is to get a mode of transportation for backstage. It really is true - there's a big parking lot, there's a long walk from your bus to the stage or your bus to catering.

FS: I saw you guys had mini-dirt bikes.

D: Yea, yea. What they told me is the first year most bands go out, they don't know it so they're just stuck walking and they're like, man, this sucks. So if they come back - a lot of bands do it more than one year - they come back, maybe they have a skateboard, maybe they come back another time and they're smart enough to have a bicycle, and by the fourth time, they've moved up to the little mini-bike. I wanted to skip the learning curve and we went right for a mini-bike.

FS: Good thinking. So what bands are you looking forward to playing with the most or what bands have you enjoyed playing with the most?

D: There are a lot of great bands on the tour, I mean, a lot of great bands that of course I already knew about that we're playing with, like MxPx and the Transplants. It's also been great learning about other great bands that I wasn't as familiar with, say, Avenged Sevenfold or what have you. Even just making friends with guys like Daniel from Time Again - he was friends with the Transplants, that's how I met him, and it just kind of goes on and on like that, where you meet new people and stuff. It's been a great experience.

FS: The Offspring has been touring for a number of years, so how do you keep your shows fresh and exciting for old fans?

D: Well, every show is different, every city is different. The people have - you know, their characters' are a little different; they're a little more fired up, the weather, the time of year, the venue. All shows are kind of different - you kind of just roll with it. There are certain songs that we tend to play - I know people are always going to want to hear "Self-Esteem" or whatever. We try to keep a lot of the favorites in our set. On this tour in particular, we actually rehearsed fifty old songs so that we could throw in a different song or two different songs every day. That's one way we're kind of keeping it fresh. It makes it fun for us, too, because we're mixing up the set list. It's really easy to kind of fall in a rut when you play shows day after day. We're trying not to have so much standard lines. We're trying to keep it spontaneous and just kind of goof around and talk a little bit onstage and have fun with the audience.

FS: That's definitely a better way to see a show.

D: Yea, I think so. I think the audience can tell if you're having fun or if you're going through the motions.

FS: The Offspring just released a Greatest Hits album. Did the band pick the songs for the album?

D: Sure, yea, yea. I think sometimes people - maybe different bands are different, they think that somehow the band isn't in control of their own destiny. For us, you have to understand that when we started, it was DIY for us, but that was out of necessity. No one was interested in us, so we did because we had to. We had to make our own t-shirts, book our own tours, and figure out our transportation and all that stuff, make our own records. As time went on and we actually became more well-know, of course we stuck with that. We're in charge of what we do.

FS: Are there any songs that didn't make it on to the album that you wanted on there?

D: At first, we had the idea of doing a cover album. There are so many great, old songs out there that maybe people wouldn't be familiar with. That's what you're always trying to do when you record a cover is to find that diamond in the rough or a great song that didn't quite get the attention that maybe it deserved. That's partly why we recorded an old Police song, "Next to You." I was really happy with the way it turned out, but somehow it just didn't feel representative of what I wanted the Greatest Hits record to be like. We have so many, you know, the group of songs that represent some of our best stuff over the last few years, and I wanted our new song to kind of feel like it was kind of part of that group. When we got done, we recorded this cover, and although it sounded great, it didn't feel like that. We actually went back to the drawing board and wrote a new song pretty quickly. We wrote "Can't Repeat" and we all liked it and thought it sounded like a straight up Offspring song and decided to put that on the record instead.

FS: After the Warped Tour, can your fans expect a Greatest Hits tour, or will you be heading back to the studio for another album?

D: This is our greatest hits tour. Warped Tour is pretty extensive, it's eight weeks through the US and a little bit of Canada. We figure that's good for now. This isn't really a new record for us but, we put a new song on it and we're excited about it. We're anxious to get some new material. We are going to Europe in September for a few weeks, and just kind of hit a few places there. We might go Japan in October for a short while. And that will probably be it. We are going to get back and get into the studio by Fall.

FS: If the Offspring hadn't been so successful or you had never been in the band to begin with, what do you think you would be doing today?

D: Oh my God. I'd probably be one of those guys that stand at the intersection with the window washer and clean your windows whether you want them to or not. Not out of necessity, but that would be my backup dream.

FS: Really?

D: Yeah I thought: Rock Star or homeless window washer.

FS: What was it like flying around the world for nine days on your own.

D: It's something I wanted to do for a long time, about five years now. I was already to go, the date I was leaving was September 20th 2001, so when September 11th happened, I was like, oh man I'm not leaving now, the world is all fucked up, I've got to stay. So I put it on hold for a while and we did another album and toured all over. After that I thought, it's been a couple of years, I should really do it now. So I went around the world and it was great, it was a super great fun adventure.

FS: So, for someone that has never flown a plane before, what goes through you head when your up there? What are you thinking about?

D: Oh shit, I can't believe I'm up here by myself.

FS: So are you flying to each Warped Tour date?

D: We're mixing it up a little bit; I've been on the bus for some of them and on some planes for a lot of them. Part of the fun is, I know it fascinates people, because a lot of people haven't been on a private plane before. What I'm doing is, I'm offering up the plane everyday to a different band. So the first day we went from Columbus to Milwaukee and I took Tim Armstrong from the Transplants, the next flight I took MxPx. I also took Jordan from Strung out and Rory from No Use For A Name. I took Avenged Seven Fold on one trip, and tomorrow I'm taking Rufio. You know, you got to share the love don't you think?

FS: Defiantly.

FS: Do you still feel the same about your music today, as you did when the Offspring first began?

D: Yes I do. As corny as it might sound I feel passionate about making music, I feel inspired to try and make great music. I think if I had felt like I reached a mountain top, I've done it, whether it was Smash or Americana or whatever, and I think you just kind of give up, you kind of just do something else. But I still want to strive to make the best music that we can and that keeps us going and playing shows in front of crowds, like the warped tour which has been really great, we have had a great response and seeing the excitement come off the crowd get us so pumped up that we're stoked to keep on doing it.

FS: Most people would define the Offspring as successful. What is your opinion of success?

D: We are damn successful! just kidding. When we started the band, there were no punk bands that had "made it." All my friends in punk bands that wanted to make it changed their band style. They turned into a "Guns and Roses" kind of band. They moved up to Sunset because that was the way to try and make it back then. That really wasn't what we wanted to do. We started the band because we loved it, because it was fun. I love [punk] music and I loved being in a band that was like that. The idea of "success" meaning money and fame or whatever, wasn't what we were in it for. We did it because we loved doing it. As long as you come from that point and love coming from that point and love what you are doing and its fun than I think you're a successful band.

By Ashley Mateo, from Fanscape - 2005