Kerrang! Interviews Dexter Holland

Top bloke, Dexter Holland - Offspring may have sold eight million copies of their 'Smash' album, but their singer is still an 'average-looking Joe' who does his own grocery. In his first interview this year, he tells Paul Brannigan why he doesn't ride in limos and shag supermodels.

So you're a punk rock kid, messing about with your mates in a band, playing tiny snot-and-sawdust clubs around your home town, flogging a couple of albums here and there, and generally having a laugh. Well, you might as well. It's not like anyone else is going to give a flying fuck. Punk rock is dead, remember?

Then you get a couple of tracks onto snowboarding and skateboarding videos, which is pretty cool because that's what all your mates are into anyway. Someone at MTV decides to show your video a couple of times. And a couple more times. And the record starts selling. And selling. And selling. About eight million copies. Or thereabouts. Your world goes distinctly pear-shaped and presumably you can never be the same again. You are Dexter Holland, lead singer with the Offspring, and I claim my five pounds.

So how the devil are you, braidy bloke?

"Very well, but busy as shit," Dexter Holland says, laughing.

Yeah, we noticed. You were supposed to call three days ago. So - tee-hee - what's it like being a rock star now?

"Man, I really hate it when people use the word 'star' in connection with us," he sighs. You can sense the cringe even down a phone line. "We're just four guys from the beach who happened to make a record that people liked," Dexter continues. "We were really delighted that anyone else liked it at all, never mind eight million people. The whole thing has been pretty crazy."

The limos, the supermodels, the leigions of adoring fans mobbing you in the streets... It must be hell.

"Yeah, right," he snorts. "I don't get recognised much anyway. People think you won't even be able to go to the grocery store once you sell a few records, but it hasn't been like that at all. I guess I'm just an average looking Joe."

"The whole mentality and idea behind ourselves and our friends in bands like NOFX and Pennywise is just to be a regular guy. I always believed that the kids should be part of our shows and we should share the music with them, rather than being a spectacle for the audience to look up to. We'll always have that connection with people reguardless of how many records we sell."

But to play devil's advocate for a moment, surely the Kiss reunion tour, besides being an amusing wallow in nostalgia, has proved overwhelmingly successful because kids are getting bored with the whole jeans and T-shirt 'ordinary bloke' schtick.

"I don't know about that - but Kiss were the shit, man. 'Kiss Alive' was my first hard rock album and I totally played it to death. They actually asked us to play with them once Stone Temple Pilots pulled out, but we couldn't do it because we're in the studio. We were totally bummed out by that."

Punk rock icon in dodgy glam metal past shocker, eh?

"Well, to balance my punk cred can I say that The Sex Pistols asked us to tour with them, too! No matter what anyone else thinks about the Pistols reunion, they were still THE punk rock band, and I still think they're totally awesome."

As a self-confessed 'Ordinary Joe', doesn't it freak you out to have your heros call you up out of the blue?

"Fuck, yeah!" Dexter replies. "I mean, the fact that Gene Simmons and Johnny Rotten know that we - four dicks from Orange County - exist is a real head-trip."

Have you met any of your heros in the the last couple of years?

"Yeah, we got to meet Charlie Harper from the UK Subs once and..."

Jeeeeesus... Did you ever imagine that such, er, heady heights would be within your grasp when you were kicking out the jams in Orange County garages?

"No way, not in a million years," he says. "I mean Kevin... Er, sorry, Noodles (Offsprings bespecticaled guitarist) was still working as a janitor in an elementary school when we were on MTV's Buzz Bin."

Rock and, in a very real sense, roll?

"Kinda funny, isn't it?" Dexter chortles. "People think it's easy treet when you start to sell records, but it's not as glamorous as it sounds."

I hear you bought a nice new house recently?

Long pause. Hello....

"It's nice to be able to surport yourself," Dexter begins hesitantly, "and it's strange for us to have a home at all after living out of a duffle bag on a tour bus for a year-and-a-half. But... I don't know what to say about that..."

Hey, don't be embarrassed, big guy. Everyone knows you can't sell eight million records without making money.

Longer pause.

"Yeah... Let's talk about something else."

Dexter Holland does come across as disturbingly ordinary and untainted by success. Offspring were friends for 10 years before anything started to happen for them, and several million record sales doesn't appear to have swelled any heads or affected any personal relationships.

But their success has led to one high profile ruck. After years of all-punks-together mateyness, Offspring had a falling-out with long-time label Epitaph, which led to them moving to major label Columbia in the US. Obviously this happens all the time in the music business, but it just seems a little stranger in the world of 'three chords and the truth'.

From press reports over here, Dexter, the whole thing seemed pretty bitter, what with your old pal Epitaph head honcho Brett Guerwitz threatening to sue you...

"It was pretty bitter, yeah. But..."

But?

"Well, when we agreed to do this interview everyone said you guys didn't want to talk about that stuff..."

Yeah, but we're sneeky like this sometimes. Y'know, gain your trust, then go for the jugular, that sort of thing...

"Ha ha, nice try! No, I'd rather not discuss it, because we feel that'll become the focus of every story. But bitter is about right, yeah."

Okay then, given that even arch druids of punk like ex-Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra get beaten up in California for not being 'punk rock' enough, isn't your move to Columbia going to fuel the 'sell-out' accusations?

Dexter sighs deeply.

"Everyone gets that sell-out thing," he says. "I don't know what to say. I'm not going to worry about that stuff; we've always done whatever the fuck we wanted to and nothing has changed in that respect. I've always loved punk rock music for the energy and the attitude, but I really don't subscribe to punk rock ethics because it's impossible to decide what they are. Everyone wants to be more punk rock than the next guy. So you get, 'I don't eat meat'; 'Well I don't wear leather either'; then, 'I don't eat meat, wear leather or buy goods from South Africa'. Ultimately, you get these guys living on organic farms and shitting in the woods just to prove a point to someone else. It's a no-win situation. I just enjoy the entertainment value of punk now."

At present, Offspring are holed up in Eldorado Studio in Los Angeles with producer Dave Jerden (Jane's Addiction, Alice In Chains), putting the final touches to the long-awaited follow up to 'Smash', which is due for release on November 6. While the US punk explosion shows no signs of fading away just yet, there must be huge pressure on you to deliver another, er, smash. Green Day found it extremely difficult to follow the huge success of 'Dookie', so how are you coping with the situation?

"You can think about the pressure until you blow up," Dexter says, "but in the end you just have to do what you always do. If you start worring about what other people think, then that's not what got you there in the first place, and..."

So what sonic delights can we expect this time around?

"It's pretty similar to 'Smash', actually," he says. "We're not one of those bands who decide we're serious artists just because we've sold a few records. We don't want to do an opera album now! It's the same old shit, really. Mainly fast punk with a few different things thrown in."

Do you want to give us the exclusive hot poop on the new songs and lyrics?

"Er, we don't actually have have titles or lyrics yet. That tends to get done at the last moment."

You better get a move on - you're playing the Reading Festival this weekend.

"Yeah, that'll be awesome," he gushes convincingly. "We had a brilliant time at Glastonbury, and it's always seemed that Reading is the biggest and coolest festival in Europe."

So any final messages for your devoted British fans, Mr Down To Earth?

"Yeah, stop putting us in 'Gagging for a Shagging'! It's getting embarrassing now.."

From "Kerrang!" magazine - 1996