Selling Out Or Buying In?

Can The Offspring compete with their past without alienating their fans?

When Offspring singer Bryan (aka Dexter) Holland gives you directions to the offices of his own label, Nitro Records, he'll tell you it's in a cluster of warehouses just off the split of the San Diego and Garden Grove freeways. But his two-year-old company, situated on the Los Angeles/Orange County border, is not housed a in a lof environment of dilapidated chic (you know the type- a cavernous structure that once held a booming '50's asbestos factory but now serves as a home to vagrants, crackheads, and odd punk-rock label). At the Bridge Creek Complexes you don't have to risk your life to make it inside. It's rock n roll commerce suburbia style: Nitro is set within neat rows of recently builtstucco units connected by a quaint wooden bridge making the development look more like a mini-mall than an industrial park. The tidy parking lot of adjacent businesses-a graphic arts firm, a financial consultant and various reality companies- are divided by manicured ivy islands. Even the parked cars look clean.

Inside, Offspring guitarist Kevin Wasserman (aka Noodles) waits for Holland to arrive. Wearing the trademark magnifying spectacles that make his eyes gargantuan, he's sitting in Holland's office talking about his seven year old daughter, Chelsea. When Holland finally comes rushing in, he plops down behind his simulated-wood desk and apologizes for being late. His hair is short and he's wearing a baggy T-shirt, cords, and tennis shoes- the basic dude uniform. Within a minute, he's talking about a recent death defying incident: "I was at Baskin-Robbins with my old lady eating ice cream and there was a drive-by. They shot out the plate-glass window. And Hunington Beach as voted the safest city in America."

Wasserman looks slightly deflated. "I was talking about my exciting time as a father, and you came in here with your being shot at story."

"Oh sorry. But remember, you were stabbed by skinheads once." Points out the 31-year old holland.

"Oh yeah," Wasserman says. "This rumor went around that I died."

Both pause, as if listening for quirks in the healthy hum of the building's ventilation system. Finally, Holland pipes up to make a request: "C'mon, Lorraine, you gotta make us look exciting."

But this multiplatinum- selling foursome, who shot from local to international fame with 1994's independent release Smash and its No.1 hit "Come Out and Play (you Gotta keep 'Em Separated)", are not whiskey toting, heroin- slamming, verbally assultive guys, and that's kinda the point. The band - which also includes bassist Greg Kriesel (aka Greg K.) and drummer Ron Welty (Sorry no aka here) - churns out mall-rat sing - alongs, offering normal-guy perspective on everything from low self-esteem to the South Cost phenomenon of freeway shooters. Live the Offspring hold stage-diving contests in which participants are scored on a 10-point scale. it's almost as if they cop to the fact that they aren't breaking any boundaries, but are simply offering an attitude-laden good time for future blue collars.

"Art-I hate that word," says a shuddering Holland, who like his other bandmates, is painfully normal. All of the Offspring recently bought houses in Orange County. Holland and Wasserman admit they're suckers for TV's Cops and Jerry Springer. When asked to recall an exciting event in the band's career, both recall the breathless moment when mentor Mike Ness of Social Distortion applied his legendary eyeliner in their presence.

Oh yeah, there's also that album they just finished, their major-label debut, Ixnay on the Hombre. "Most people expect to hear a band say, 'Ah no, there was no pressure'," says Holland of recording the follow-up of Smash. "But it's a lie. I think it's natural to feel that pressure. Last time I wrote stuff I was thinking that no one was gonna hear it. Then with this album, it hit me, and I became really critical.

"It bugs you for a while before you realize it's not really helping you get things done. It's not what got you there in the first place. But I did wake up in the middle of the night having nightmares of the Knack, Boston, and whoever else failed miserably on their second album. Like we're playing 'Smokin'' thinking, "Why don't people like this? They dug it so much two years ago?'"

It's a scary time for the decade old band. After selling more than 8 1/2 million copies of Smash and composing one of the most quoted singles of the past 2 years, the Offspring decided to leave indie label Epitaph for major label Columbia last may, and now they have to compete with their past while continuing to grow- without alienating their fans. Ixnay on the Hombre straddles the massive gap between drastic change and staying very much the same. It's less immediate then Smash and more complex than their first low-profile blast, Ignition. It's got more of the Middle Eastern - style riffs of the band's biggest hit, some ska-tinged numbers, and even a couple ballads. Mood-wise it's also more schizophrenic than the past albums and seems less comfortable with itself. It's not as powerful as Smash but is a riskier attempt at bending the boundaries of South Coast Punk.

"I didn't want to come back and re-create 'Come Out and Play' or 'Self Esteem'," says Holland, whose office decor includes stickers that read "Kill Your Rabbit" and "Fuck You," a serene salt water fish tack, and several untouched volumes of Value Live Line stock market reports. "I think it just would have been wrong. I also don't want to be reactionary. A lot of bands will purposely underproduce a record after they put out once that sells a lot. Or purposely write no singles. Or write songs like, 'Oh I hate the press.' I didn't wanna hear about the press when I was 16 years old, why would I start writing about them now? Like Michael Jackson's 'Leave Me Alone.' In that sense we purposely tried to continue in the same direction as before."

"We did feel a little more freedom to try different stuff, Wasserman says. "But people said the same thing about Smash. Our friends were like 'what's this "Come Out and Play" song? It's so weird'."

Although the Offspring have played at the Billboard Music Awards and the Reading Festival, they still remain a fan's band. "You always hear about all the famous people who were at the Hole show Danny DeVito, Drew Barrymore," Holland says. "Madonna came to see Rancid when they were opening for us, but she left before we came on. Then we played with Iggy Pop; he had Slash and Johnny Depp come up. But no one likes us. Cyndi Lauper is the most famous person who ever came to see us. That's about the top of the ladder."

"My dad struck up a conversation with her," Wasserman says. "They were talking about Miles Davis doing 'True Colors.' He'd just asked me if I'd heard from Cyndi Lauper lately. I've gotta explain, 'We don't hang in the same circle dad'."

But like Lauper, the Offspring became an MTV sensation and an artist that defined the moment. Though they were lumped in with the "punk revival," the Offspring were one of the few bands to deviate from and expand upon the genre rather than just to regurgitate it. They made '80's hardcore a very 90's thing.

"Everyone considered us a punk band when Smash came out," Holland says. "But as it went on and on , those same people were saying,' Oh this sucks, it's not punk anymore.' I don't know how that could be though- its the same record it was three years ago. We may not necessarily fall into the rigid definitions of punk but we've always liked bands that were outside those lines anyway. We played with Fugazi, who aren't punk like Minor Threat was. We did stuff with Operation Ivy, who were doing the ska-punk thing, and we played with Iggy Pop and Social Distortion. They all have a real variety of musical styles, but a shared attitude of rebellion, independence, and controlling your own destiny. If that's the definition, then I'd say, sure, we're a punk band. I wouldn't abandon it now."

But the Offspring are also a kick-ass pop band. There's a big booming feeling about their sound, a careful organization of hooks and melodies behind the raw power. Its as snotty as the Adolescents, yet as candy-store accessible as Cheap Trick. "I wouldn't consider us a pop band, but I think what we try to do is to put real songs into music," says Holland, who writes all the band's songs. "I always liked the attitude and energy of punk music, but I think a lot of bands weren't so into songs as just screaming. We try to combine all of those elements. We are also going beyond just the revival thing. I think what makes us unique is we try to put different elements into stuff, whether its the Arabian riffs in 'Come Out and Play' or whatever. I wanna keep experiment and keep pushing it a little bit. That's what makes it fun to continue be a band and make albums."

Three of the four Offspring grew up within 5 miles of each other in LA's suburban Orange County. Hollands parents, a hospital administrator and a school teacher, encouraged their son in school and he took their advice to heart, eventually becoming class valedictorian. It was his older brother who first exposed him to punk when he brought home the original Rodney on the ROQ record, a compilation by the So Cal Deejay that included that included many local bands such ass the Adolescents. "I started listening to a lot of O.C. stuff: Channel 3, the Vandals, Social Distortion, and the Dead Kennedys," Holland says. "I also like Creedence and the Stones. Now, I throw them into the mix, too."

He began reading punk 'zines like Maximumrocknroll and Flipside, and discussing them with his cross-country-track teammate at Pacifica High-school, Greg Kriesel. The two stared their first band, Manic Subsidal, in 1984, the same year Holland started studying molecular biology at the University of Southern Cal. After writing such riveting songs as "Sorority Bitch", they pulled in neighborhood local Wasserman on guitar. When the band's drummer, a med student began to study more than practice the band inducted then-16 year old Welty, who had just moved into town from Portville in Central Cal.

The Offspring officially began in 1985. "We practiced in Greg's house where him and his brother had the run of the upstairs" Wasserman says. "We'd be up there every Friday and Saturday night with a case of beer, until Mrs. Brooks called the cops on us. She lived alone next door and was a little senile and I guess we didn't make her life any easier."

Wasserman intermittently attended junior college while working full time as an elementary school custodian. Holland entered USC grad school, Kriesel got a B.A. in finance at Long Beach State, Welty earned a degree in electronics from a trade school. "I used to be a biology guy. I really don't wanna talk about it though. People really went off the deep end about that last time. It was like 'lets take a picture of you in a lab coat!' I just don't think it portrays me in a way that has anything to do with the band."

"How come nobody ever asks me about being a custodian?" Wasserman asks. "I spent a hell of a lot more years sweeping up after little shits than you did going to school."

The band released a seven-inch single in 1987, but had trouble unloading the 1,000 copies it had made. The Offspring later signed a contract with San Diego's Nemesis label and put out a single in '89 called Baghdad. After appearing on a couple of underground compilations, they sent off some demos of a new record, Ignition. Brett Gurewitz, founder of Epitaph Records (and Ex-Bad Religion guitarist), had passed on an earlier Offspring tape, but decided to release this one.

Ignition was an indie hit, eventually selling more than 380,000 copies. Two years and a million shows later, 1994's Smash would catapult the band and label into the mainstream world of billboard charts and MTV.

Wasserman says he found it particularly hard to deal with the attendant hype and attention and stayed drunk for a year. News of his behavior eventually leaked back to his parents. "I know they're proud of us, but when my dad read that I smashed up a some hotel rooms, boy, did I hear about it." the 33-year old says. 'I only did it twice- OK, maybe more then two times. He was upset at first and then he calmed down. I just told him, 'Hey I paid for it all, 'Besides, it was only a chair and a bed.

A sorry looking stuffed animal hangs by its neck in the back storeroom of Nitro records, where all the label's product is kept- releases by bands from Guttermouth to Vandals to Jughead's Revenge. In and adjacent room, Guttermouth posters, portraits of Kiss and Motor head frontman Lemmy, and various clippings of Offspring reviews adorn the walls. Nitro employees include a women with pastel- colored dreads and overplucked eyebrows working the phones and various friends writing bios, hanging out, doing whatever.

Contrary to poplar belief, Holland did not start up his label in reaction to his problems with Epitaph. Nitro was formed in May 1994 a year before the Offspring began falling out with Epitaph's Gurewitz. But the breakup dominated more stories and news articles then any of the Offspring's other exploits. S year of failed negotiations was reported in everything from the L.A. Times to Rolling Stone; mud was slung and dirty laundry was aired. "What it came down to was, as we got bigger and the label got bigger, I kept hearing rumors that Brett wanted to sell [epitaph]," Holland says "He finally admitted that he was thinking of selling part of the company, but at that point we were, like, 90 percent of the sales. I felt like we were being sold off, like a fucking commodity. It's like whether we wanted to or not, we were gonna be on a major label. We just wanted to at least make the choice for ourselves. We needed to control our wen destiny, and we could not do that at Epitaph because of Brett's views and what he wanted to do with the company."

"To me it was like a divorce," Wasserman says. "It was a fucked feeling. I felt such a sentimental bond to that place. We like the people, and the bands there were some of out closest friends. We were like family. There's still so many great bands on that label. I'm hopin us leaving will benefit those bands, and that the resources that would have gone towards an Offspring record will now go to a Rancid, Pennywise, or Descendents record."

"We signed to Columbia for more records and less money." Holland says. "It wasnt like we were out there to see what we could get. We had to. We couldn't be our own band at Epitaph. With this record we recorded in the studio alone. We asked, 'Please leave us alone.' [Columbia] never heard a demo tape; we said 'We're not gonna be auditioned and we'll give it to you when we're done.' They took some risks- I mean, they knew nothing. We did the songs, the sequence, the album title, the album art, everything. I don't think artistic control has really been an issues at major labels for a long time now. Not like it was 10 years ago. I think they finally realized that they don't get it. It's, like, 'how can we do any worse? Go ahead, make your record.'"

Indie-vs.-major label politics seems as clichéd as Doc Martens and flannel now, but the Offspring have already gotten some verbal barbs from former fans. It's no surprise, though; they've been through it before. "We even caught flak with our last album," Holland says. "We thought, 'Hey we wont get any backlash 'cause we're doing everything right. We're on an indie label we're not doing TV shows, we didn't do the cover of Rolling Stone. Certainly everyone will understand that we're great.' But it didn't matter. We still got it just as bad. It was, like 'Why are you charging $7? It's too much.' But it's only a small percentage of people who base your worth on who else likes your music: 'I wont like you cuz this dork likes you.' That's elitist crap. What am I supposed to say? 'Excuse me, you're too dorky to like my music go away.'"

Both Holland and Wasserman say the feel like they're growing up, from punks who knew nothing about the business end of music to punks who know a little more now. "It's like when you start making money you never had made before, you just don't know what's going on," Holland says. "I just don't wanna be taken advantage of. There's a lot of hands in the kitty. Money wasn't the primary goal, but now that I have it, I'm not gonna be an idiot about it."

"Nah, you just start a business and put out punk rock," Wasserman says with a smile.

"That one thing I'm really proud of," Holland says, "putting out other bands, a lot of O.C. bands that wouldn't have gotten a start otherwise."

Holland started Nitro with Kriesel a little more than 2 years ago, but he now runs the company. "We've been around for a long time now," Holland says, "We finally got the drill down. Part of the thing of where we came from is that we had the be self-sufficient to get along. There wasn't managers and huge labels. We did our own tours. We figured out how to make our own shirts, records, and get along in the studio and to be able to make out own decisions, and now that's just what we're doing."

By Lorraine Ali, from "Request" magazine - February, 1997