It Came From OC: The Offspring

A few years back, 1991 I think, there was a movie called The Year Punk Broke. As good as the bands featured in that flick were, with the exception of The Ramones, they were about as punk as Newt Gingrich. The producers should have waited a couple more years and put out one called 1994: The Year Punk Exploded. That was when a lot of bands previously only known to the underground got a lot of exposure in areas not too familiar with the punk subculture.

One of the biggest breakouts was The Offspring, hailing from Orange County, south of Los Angeles, a land long known for its fertile music scene and as the home of bands such as The Adolescents, The Vandals, D.I., Agent Orange and Social Distortion to name a few.

Though many would think of them as a new band, singer Brian "Dexter" Holland, guitarist Noodles, bassist Greg K and drummer Ron Welty had been around for about ten years and a couple of albums before "Come Out And Play" and the album Smash shoved 'em into the public eye to the tune of eight million records sold.

The band's Greg K shares some views: "We didn't think it would take off like it did. We thought it could be cool if it was up there with a Pennywise record or maybe even a Bad Religion record, but that was kinda reaching.... But we never thought radio or MTV because that had never happened for bands like that. Bad Religion got some radio airplay, but that wasn't very extensive. You might see 'em on 120 Minutes, but you wouldn't see them in heavy rotation. KROQ [Los Angeles] started playing "Come Out And Play" before the record came out, but it started pretty quick, in about a month. It was a little weird."

So with that, the country got hip to melodic Southern California hardcore and one of the main purveyors of that sound, Brett Gurewitz's Epitaph Records. It seemed like band and label were poised to bring it to the people but industry rumblings proved true and the band pulled up stakes and found a new home at Columbia Records. What's the difference between indie vs. major label to a band that's seen both sides of the fence? "Well, for us, so far there hasn't been a big difference," says Greg K. "I think we were in a unique situation when we signed with Columbia where we could ask for a lot. I don't mean monetary-wise, but as far as our freedom and artistic control. We went in there and told 'em that basically we want to do everything and they said, 'Well, you did this last time pretty much on your own, so we'll let you do what you want.' So we didn't send a demo or anything like that, they didn't hear the album until it was done. We told them we didn't want anyone in the studio. We picked our own producer [Dave Jerden, who has worked with Jane's Addiction and Social Distortion], we have control over the videos and everything like that. So as far as that goes it's basically the same. On the business end, I don't know how much of a difference there was. Epitaph did a good job of getting everything out and marketing and all that stuff. It wasn't the bands or the people that worked at Epitaph, y'know, things just kind of fell through with Brett."

Fans of The Offspring shouldn't clutch at their new address, because if you liked any of the previous records, you'll dig Ixnay On The Hombre. "Mota," "Leave It Behind, "Meaning Of Life" and "All I Want" blaze in the traditional OC style and there's even cameos by Letterman icon Larry Bud Melman and former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra.

"We'd known Jello for a while. Dexter wrote the song "Disclaimer," and we were like, 'Who can e get to do it?' So we called him up. We didn't think he'd be into it but he was, he came down and did it. We thought that because of where we are now, y'know, major label, he might be losing credibility but he was like 'Well, I don't really care about that. I think I've already lost it so....'"

Which raises an interesting point about the purists out there who'll hate something just because of the label it's on, music aside. Remember that hugely influential bands like The Clash, the Sex Pistols and The Ramones were all on major labels from the beginning. So what about the inevitable backlash from certain factions? "Some of the letters we've got, some kid gets into punk a month before, someone introduces him to Pennywise, and all of a sudden he hates us. Y'know, the guy doesn't know anything about us but he has to hate us because he was told to. It's like there's some little punk manual that says what's cool and what's not and we don't fit into the cool category anymore. With Maximum Rock N Roll, a couple of years ago, every issue was ripping on us or Epitaph or NOFX or Rancid or Green Day and they turned into a total trash magazine. Well, whatever. For us, punk rock had always been just doing what you want to do, doing things the way you want to do them. Even though we're on a major label now, I think we're still doing it the way we want to do it. That's the thing I think has been lost with Maximum Rock N Roll and Tim Yohannan. He's become the punk rock god, where he's setting the rules about what's cool and what's not, and what's punk, and Maximum Rock N Roll is the little punk rock bible you have to follow. I think that's going against everything that punk started for. I don't think they understand that what they're doing is contradicting the whole thing."

And then there's Nitro Records. Not content with just being a band, The Offspring now have their own record label, as if they didn't have enough to keep them busy.

"Dexter and I started Nitro Records when Guttermouth was looking for a new label. They were having trouble finding someone to put out their new album so we were like, 'What the hell, why don't we just do it?' So basically, it started like that and just kinda grew. The next one was The Vandals and they were sort of in the same situation. That's how it's been, mostly. A.F.I. had trouble with their label so Dexter stepped in and said, 'I'll help you out.' So now the label has Guttermouth, A.F.I., The Vandals, Jughead's Revenge and One Hit Wonder, who just got signed."

The Offspring will be touring a lot this year, part of it with Nitro's A.F.I., and The Joykiller, fronted by the legendary Jack Grisham of the original T.S.O.L.

"Yeah, T.S.O.L. were a big influence, we did a show at the Hollywood Palladium and had Jack come out and do "Code Blue" with us and that was real cool. We'll be on the East Coast this March doing a club tour and then we go to Europe for a month. After that we start another U.S. tour, this one more extensive."

The title of the record is Ixnay On The Hombre. I wondered if there was a story behind that? And has the idea of who "the man" is changed over the past few years? "That was another Dexter idea. Y'know, a little play on words, pig Latin. Just basically 'Down On The Man.' It's not really about corporations or anything, more just authority, anything that's keeping you down."

By J. Bryan Stahel, From Music Monitor