You've Got To Keep 'Em Separated

If there's one thing that The Offspring's Dexter Holland hates, it's country music.

"I've always tried to be pretty open-minded when it comes to music," the California punk says. "I can appreciate pop, R&B, rap ... even that cotton candy disco bulls..t but, I'm sorry, I can't f..kin' stand country."

This aversion to country music would be less of a problem, he says, if American radio were not so saturated with the sounds of Tennessee. It's all over the airwaves and charts like some kind of hick rash. "This is the major problem with America today. There's so many hicks."

Keeping hicks away shouldn't be a problem for The Offspring any more, not after songs like Self- Esteem and Come Out and Play (keep them separated) brought punk back for another generation. Hollands says that following the success of 1994's Smash he band was encouraged to push the entire punk experiment further with its new album, Ixnay on the Hombre.

"We wanted to get away from the whole idea of a record just being a collection of songs," says Holland.

Thus The Offspring have innovated such "radical" ideas as Jello Biafra's spoken Disclaimer at the start of the album ("Hey kids, this record will really offend your parents") as well as a craaazy Intermission, with obligatory wurlitzer organ.

Despite his conviction about the band's continuing evolvement, Holland is refreshingly modest about The Offspring's achievements to date. He rejects any suggestions that the band may have contributed to the recent resurgence of punk music's popularity.

"It's pretty conceited for any band to say that they started some kind of movement ... we're just a bunch of guys who've always just enjoyed sinking a case of beer and jamming."

By Sid Taylor, from SMH Metro Features