Bad Religion

“I’m just a voice among the throng who want a brighter destiny/They say with me/We are the new america.” “New America”

For Bad Religion, the story of “THE NEW AMERICA” is about more than a distant point on the nation’s horizon. Instead, it’s about a creative journey into the heart of the unrelenting and demonstrably vital crew’s own punk rock origins and unflagging thought-provoking purpose. “So many bands are afraid to change,” says singer and chief songwriter Greg Graffin. “They’re afraid to step forward because they’re in a comfortable spot with their audience and they don’t want to mess up a good thing by offering them a challenge. Bad Religion and punk have always been about challenge and if we can’t do that on this record, then what good are we anyways.”

In addition, the album features Mr. Brett Gurewitz’s first contributions to a Bad Religion album since 1994’s RIAA gold-certified “STRANGER THAN FICTION.” Graffin reunited with the band’s former guitarist and a Bad Religion founding member to write the tellingly-titled “Believe It” which also includes a guitar solo performance from Gurewitz. “To me, the song does sound like a long-lost friend there’s an almost indescribable familiarity,” says Graffin. “It’s just silly to deny that there is something special between us. We are connected and we always will be.” Recording sessions for the group’s fifth Atlantic release found Bad Religion teamed with the famed Todd Rundgren in the role of producer. For Graffin, Rundgren’s participation in the project effectively brought him together with one of his true musical heroes and life-long influences. “Todd was kind of an underground sensation back in 1974,” reflects Graffin. “Here’s a guy who was making pop music but in a way that you wouldn’t hear on the radio. So much of my early musical identity was wrapped up in the way he conducted himself. At a very young age, it made me sensitive to the concepts of popularity and underground ideology the idea that you can make popular music and yet not exploit it to the extent that everyone has heard of it. It made me feel kind of special knowing that there was this underground that was growing. And only six years later, when I was 15, I moved to L.A. and we started Bad Religion.”

Recording sessions for “THE NEW AMERICA” began last fall with the band traveling to Rundgren’s stomping grounds on the remote Hawaiian island of Kauai from points across North America: bassist Jay Bentley from Vancouver, guitarist Greg Hetson from Austin, Texas, guitarist Brian Baker from Washington, D.C., drummer Bobby Schayer from Seattle, and Graffin from Ithaca, New York. With Rundgren’s involvement with the band growing out of a correspondence with Greg, all hands communed in a rented barn-turned-studio located on the grounds of an old sugar plantation. “The barn had these really wonderful qualities that made it perfect for a recording space,” says Graffin. “It was quite a rustic experience but the sound coming out of it was so sweet. It was one of the most beautiful-sounding rooms I’ve been in.”

The band quickly set to work shaping Graffin’s demos into what would become perhaps the group’s most pointed, energized, and communicative album of their now two decade-long career complete with the blistering counterpoint of its Hetson and Baker guitar work and propulsive Bentley/Schayer rhythms. Guitar overdubs were cut at Rundgren’s home studio while vocal overdubs were recorded across the street in a small project studio called Treble In Paradise. However, paradise did come with its more mundane challenges. “There was a renter in the neighborhood who took a little bit of umbrage to the constant pounding of the drums,” says Todd. “He got his revenge one day by getting out the driving mower and driving it back and forth against the side of the barn for about an hour kicking up a ton of dust that covered everything, including all the recording equipment. That was the down side of our tropical recording.”

Between recording sessions, Graffin explored the natural beauty of Kauai’s rain forest while Bentley took to the surf, Bobby practiced favorite Badfinger songs on his guitar, and Hetson and Baker generally soaked up the island’s atmosphere. The group also took the opportunity to stage-test some of the new songs with a one-off festival gig on the island of Oahu with the Vandals and Offspring.

Key to the album’s tone and direction, however, were Graffin’s lengthy discussions with Todd, which took place even before many of the songs had been written. With Rundgren acting as project mentor, Graffin rose to new heights of creativity, performance, passion, and perspective. Even having previously worked with other such top producers as Andy Wallace and Ric Ocasek, Bad Religion’s experience with Rundgren was a wholly new one. “Todd is more philosophical,” says Graffin. “When it comes down to it, one of the most important things to have is some internally consistent logic as to why you’re making a record. That was, from the get-go, Todd’s most important role in all this to figure out how the songs should be put together on the album so as to tell an accurate story of where our heads are at. And if you’re commenting on a social situation, how do they relate to what’s happening now. That was a great education for me. It taught me so much about the reason to make records and why certain records are great and other ones fail.”

“One thing I encouraged the band to do was to think from a wiser place admit that you have been through certain experiences and how those have tempered how you see the world,” says Rundgren, whose lengthy credits include his production of the New York Dolls’ debut. “I was encouraging Greg not to be self-conscious about writing things he really thought. But also, the band does have an obligation to inspire as well as raise ire. I think in that sense, the material has a prevailing thread of optimism that is not necessarily present in most of their other records.”

On dramatic rock tracks ranging from the propulsive “You’ve Got A Chance” to the highly charged “It’s A Long Way To The Promise Land” and “A World Without Melody,” Graffin sings of a welling hopefulness tempered by stark reality. “I don’t want to live in a world without melody,” states Graffin. “But it seems like with mass-marketing culture, we could easily descend into a world without melody because individuality is not championed and is not rewarded.” Our turn-of-the-millennium moment is dramatically surveyed with such lyrically probing numbers as the cyber-sexy “I Love My Computer” (with keyboards courtesy of Graffin) and the anti-anthem of the album’s soaring title track. “When I say, ‘We are the New America,’ we are a small group of people in America who believe we need a New America,” explains Graffin with a laugh. “And that New America has got to be based on lessons that we’ve learned from the past. And it’s gotta be sensitive to the mistakes that we’ve made.” At the same time, such songs as “Whisper In Time” and “1000 Memories” find Graffin taking an introspective walk through personal crisis, powerfully related in embracable, universal tones. “A Streetkid Named Desire” details his experience as a spiky young punk overwhelmed by the indifference and hostility that always seemed so close at hand. “I don’t want to be Tom Brokaw, one of these people who’s a reporter who just tells the facts and doesn’t get emotionally involved in anything,” states Graffin. “If the songs are going to have any impact, if there’s gonna be any truth to my analysis of the way things are, I’ve got to show that I’m not only a world citizen but a real person.”

Work on the album was completed with a final mix from of one of rock’s true studio legends, Bob Clearmountain. Graffin explains the pairing of “THE NEW AMERICA” with the man who mixed “BORN IN THE U.S.A.,” saying with a laugh, “Bob has kids who are big Bad Religion fans.” Musically, “THE NEW AMERICA” reveals the results of new creative modes with such bold sonic statements as those of “You’ve Got A Chance,” “A Streetkid Named Desire,” and “A World Without Melody.” As true evolutionary advancements in the repertoire of Bad Religion, the tracks are dramatic testimony to the band’s commitment to progress. “I’m in a much better state in my life,” says Greg. “I’m more able to see the future clearly, accept who I am and my own shortcomings, and accept the privilege of Bad Religion and my commitment to this tradition. I went through a lot since ‘Stranger Than Fiction,’ with Brett quitting the band and my personal life in shambles but eventually things pass. I think this album is on the cusp of a very productive time in my life.”

With “THE NEW AMERICA,” Bad Religion adds fuel to the fierce, inquisitive spirit and penchant for provocative examination that took root with their founding in 1980 and continued to bloom with such influential albums as “HOW COULD HELL BE ANY WORSE?” (1982), “SUFFER” (’87), “NO CONTROL” (’89), “AGAINST THE GRAIN” (’90), “GENERATOR” (’92), “RECIPE FOR HATE” (’93), “STRANGER THAN FICTION” (’94), “THE GRAY RACE (’96),” and “NO SUBSTANCE” (’98). It was in conjunction with the release of “NO SUBSTANCE” that the band took the show on the road as the headlining act on the extreme sports/music carnival of the 1998 Vans Warped Tour. While traveling across North America and Europe, the group earned numerous fan kudos for their self-propelled Warped Tour radio station and wildly popular outdoor BR BBQ Tent.

Outside the realm of Bad Religion, the five band members apply their hard work ethic to any number of projects. In 1997, Atlantic released Graffin’s more personal but no less potent “AMERICAN LESION” solo album. 1999 saw the release of the new self-titled album from D.C.’s Lickity Split, highlighted by guitar contributions from Brian Baker. The always-on-the-go Hetson continues to play gigs with Punk Rock Karaoke, which brings together members of NOFX and Social Distortion, along with such guests as Mike Watt and Devo’s Bob Mothersbaugh, to play classic punk and hardcore ditties with audience members handling vocal duties. “Our credo is ‘we play, you sing,’” states Hetson. In addition to their extensive creative output, the group continues to sponsor its own Bad Religion Research Fund scholarship program for budding geniuses in the cultural or physical science fields. The special scholarship program was launched by the quintet in 1998 as a way to endorse and support fresh talents in the cultural and natural science fields. Graffin, who holds a degree in evolutionary biology from UCLA and is working towards his PhD. at Cornell University, typically takes charge of the application review process with final decisions made by the band as a whole. “I feel a sense of pride in being able to support someone’s research endeavors,” says Graffin. “The real reward for the whole band is our being a part of higher education while perpetuating the idea that Bad Religion has always stood for to question the prevailing dogma. It’s something you can do in science, the humanities, and in entertainment as well.”