or those who like a little punk rock with their Sun God boozery, A.S. Programming has snagged Los Angeles vets Bad Religion to co-headline this year’s festival on May 16.
It’s not often that a band — a punk rock band, at that — hits its mainstream stride decades after forming; yet somehow Bad Religion has been able to pull it off. Sure, the band’s gone through its share of label changes, personnel rearrangements and, of course, many an accusation of “”selling out,”” but even after over 20 years in the business, Bad Religion’s integrity remains intact. And their music still kicks ass.
Listening to The Process of Belief, Bad Religion’s latest release, it’s hard to believe that many of us who will be in attendance on Friday were not yet born when Bad Religion first broke onto (or, depending on who you ask, created) the ’80s SoCal hardcore scene. Process definitely doesn’t sound like something crafted by a bunch of dudes pushing 40. In fact, ironically enough, it sounds a hell of a lot fresher than anything put out by MTV pop-punk poster children Sum 41, Good Charlotte, et al.
To make matters all the better, Process marks Bad Religion’s return to seminal independent punk label Epitaph Records. Fittingly, it was Bad Religion guitarist and songwriter Brett Gurewitz (who returned to the band for Process after a nearly 10-year hiatus) who founded the label, and it was Bad Religion, itself, that gave Epitaph early credit as one of the first SoCal labels dedicated to punk rock.
Bad Religion emerged from the suburban San Fernando Valley — if SoCal punk has taught us anything, it’s that suburbs equal angst — in 1980. After forming the band and penning some tunes, principal members Gurewitz, vocalist Greg Graffin and bassist Jay Bentley hit the L.A. hardcore dive circuit and released a self-titled, painfully lo-fi EP in 1981.
In 1982, the band released its first full-length album, How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, a classic epitomizing not only the Bad Religion sound, but the direction of SoCal punk rock to come. At the same time, by fusing fast, overdriven punk rock guitar with equally incendiary, politically-laced lyrics delivered in a trademark sing-song manner, the band crafted a style that is to this day uniquely theirs. Two of How Could Hell’s best tracks, “”We’re Only Gonna Die”” and “”Fuck Armageddon … This is Hell”” assumed anthem status in no time, and Bad Religion was off and running.
When Gurewitz left the band a few years later to focus more on other projects, Bad Religion recruited Circle Jerks guitarist Greg Hetson to fill the void, but it wasn’t long before Gurewitz returned to the band to help write and record Suffer in 1987. Like How Could Hell, the album was a punk rock watershed. The band had cleaned up its sound with tighter riffs and harmonious “”oozin’ aahs,”” but more importantly, hadn’t sacrificed an iota of intensity or social scrutiny in exchange for the album’s neat production.
Suffer finds Graffin flexing his literary muscles as he sings of “”obsequious”” masses, “”misanthropic anthropoids”” and personal “”jurisprudence,”” the band blazing through two-minute, four chord songs all the while. What the album lacked in diversity, it more than made up for with sheer breakneck aggression. The kids took note, as did punk magazines Flipside and Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll, which each named the album best of the year.
Bad Religion followed Suffer with the back-to-back release of No Control and Against the Grain in 1989 and 1990, respectivly. Much in the same vein as Suffer, the albums featured speedy, hook-filled tracks like “”I Want to Conquer the World,”” “”Automatic Man”” and “”21st Century Digital Boy.””
After several more solid Epitaph releases in the early ’90s, Bad Religion opted to go major, signing to Atlantic Records in a controversial move for the very independently-oriented band members and its fans. However, the move paid off, to some degree at least, as Stranger Than Fiction, the band’s most popular album to that date, climbed to 87 on the charts on the back of Bad Religion’s first radio hit, “”Infected.””
Subsequent releases, such as The Gray Race and No Substance, were met with similar mass approval, but by this time the band’s music was suffering from the loss of one of its key components, Gurewitz, who again left the band to focus more on his burgeoning Epitaph label. Minor Threat guitarist Brian Baker took the reigns at second guitar, and it was not be until 2002’s Process release that the band’s original members would reunite and kick Atlantic to the curb, much to the delight of the band’s followers.
It is no surprise then that Process has become Bad Religion’s most popular album to date. Bolstered by the signature track “”Sorrow,”” Process is a return to the band’s straightforward, punk- rockin’ roots, albeit, this time around with a powerful, if a trifle unnecessary, three-guitar backing.
A live Bad Religion show has always been something to behold, but to catch the band at the peak of its triumphant, corporate-snubbing comeback will no doubt be an experience for drunk punks and new converts alike to remember.
