Brett Gurewitz: Bad Religion, Founding Epitaph Records, Early Punk/Hardcore & The Shift to Spotify

Summary

HardLore Podcast Summary

Episode: Brett Gurewitz – Bad Religion, Founding Epitaph Records, Early Punk/Hardcore & The Shift to Spotify

Date: February 26, 2026
Host(s): Colin Young & Bo Lueders
Guest: Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion, Epitaph Records)

Overview

This landmark episode explores the impact of Brett Gurewitz—founding guitarist/songwriter for Bad Religion and visionary behind Epitaph Records—on punk and hardcore history. Live from Brain Dead Studios, the conversation traces Brett’s journey from his early West Valley days to shaping LA’s punk landscape, inventing DIY label culture, witnessing Epitaph’s explosive growth, and his evolving thoughts on modern music distribution (especially streaming). Along the way, Brett shares untold band stories, label lore, technical studio insights, and his philosophy on punk ethos, songwriting, and artistic legacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Epitaph’s Current State & Recent Releases

• Epitaph in 2025/2026: “Epitaph was crushing in 2025. 26 looks even better… New Drain just came out. New Converge is coming out. New Joyce Manor is about to drop.” – Brett (01:39)
• Brett recently produced the latest Joyce Manor album—his first production credit since Rancid’s prior record.

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2. Brett’s Musical Upbringing & Path to Punk

• Early musical influences:
  • Grew up listening to parents’ 8-tracks, AM radio (KHJ), Beatles, Zeppelin, Jackson 5.
  • First record purchased: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Cosmos Factory.
    • Full-circle moment: John Fogerty mentions Bad Religion’s “Sorrow” in his autobiography, a song Brett wrote (05:53).
• Move toward punk:
  • Early crush on Elton John led to glam (Bowie, Alice Cooper), then discovered Ramones at local shop Licorice Pizza: “That was the genesis of my punk rock transformation.” (07:53)

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3. The Birth of Bad Religion & LA Punk/Hardcore

• Formation story:
  • Five known punks at El Camino Real H.S.; Tom Clement introduces Brett to Greg Graffin, Jay Bentley, Jay Ziskrout—this becomes Bad Religion (10:14).
  • First rehearsal: “Greg said, I can sing.… I wrote two songs [Sensory Overload, Drastic Actions] and Greg wrote two… and all made it.” (12:19)
  • Early influences: Ramones, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Germs, Minutemen, Black Flag—shift toward LA’s nascent hardcore sound (14:28).
  • Defining punk vs. hardcore:
    • “Punk was slower…it wasn't as pissed off and confrontational…hardcore was more aggressive, faster.” (19:04)
    • Notable quote: “Punk… is a refutation of the idea that you need permission to be a creator.” (20:03)
    • “Punk said, you don’t need permission…hardcore said, there is no door.” (21:14)
  • LA’s claim:
    • “Hardcore started in Los Angeles…not Detroit, not New York, not London.” (21:20)
    • Foundational hardcore records: Germs' "GI" (the spark); Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown” EP (first hardcore record); Adolescents, Minor Threat. (22:27, 23:25)

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4. Iconography: Band Name, Crossbuster, and DIY Labeling

• Choosing “Bad Religion” & the Crossbuster logo:
  • “Bad Religion” inspired more thoughtful songwriting (science, philosophy themes) (23:54).
  • Crossbuster: Designed by Brett after first rehearsal (“It spread globally, easy to draw & recognize, international.”) (25:03)
• DIY ethos leads to starting Epitaph:
  • Intended as an “official look” for their self-released 7-inch (28:02)
  • Funded by a $1,000 loan from Brett’s dad—credited as “Big Dick Garrowitz.” (28:35)
  • Label name “Epitaph” inspired by King Crimson lyric; first logo featured a tombstone (29:56)
  • Initial distribution: Hand-delivered to local record stores on consignment (31:22); first printings ~2,000 copies, then mail orders and wider reach via Rodney on the Rock airplay. (34:00)

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5. The Scene: Small, Supportive, and Grassroots

• Early LA punk scene: Tight-knit; “Maybe 2,000 punks total, we almost knew each other.” (36:10)
• Consignment, networking, and playing shows with Circle Jerks, Social Distortion, Adolescents fostered momentum. (35:24)

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6. Recording & Songwriting Process

• Brett & Greg’s division of labor: Each wrote 7–8 songs per LP; collaboration fostered “brotherly competition” (39:40, 77:17)
• Studio tales:
  • Legendary studios (Gold Star), recording on little money overnight (Track Record in Melrose), gear theft in old Hollywood (41:14), early amps (“Music Man HD130 w/ weird 4x10”).
  • “How Could Hell Be Any Worse?” album: Recorded in a few nights, all live, on a shoestring budget (47:50).
• Notable songcraft:
  • Immediate musical rapport at first rehearsal.
  • Melodies, harmonies, and lyrics almost always brought in finished; arrangements refined through practice (66:19).
  • Notable quote on punk songwriting:
    • “Songwriting is music plus melody and what you want to say… You have to do both.” (85:51)
• Hiring future punk legends as replacements: Greg Hetson (guitar), Brian Baker (guitar), Brooks Wackerman (drums).

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7. Adversity, Experimentation, and Lessons Learned

• The synth-laden “Into the Unknown” LP—commercial flop and “lesson learned” on not straying too far from the core (50:09–53:13)
• Drug use and recovery: “All my best songs I wrote clean and sober; drugs don’t help creativity, inhibit productivity,” but said psychedelics “opened my mind and made me a better person.” (54:22)
• Brett leaves band (1983/1994):
  • Addresses his addiction, studio focus, and later steps back again as Epitaph explodes (rehab in 1987, business grows too large for band commitments in 1994). (53:17, 110:05)

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8. Epitaph’s Rise & the 90s Punk Explosion

• From a side operation to $60-million enterprise post-Smash (Offspring):
  • “We sold 5 million records… in 1994 I was offered $50 million for half the company. I turned it down.” (110:05–111:36)
  • Other bands: NOFX, Rancid, Pennywise (all selling ~100,000+ records in early 1990s)
  • Brett juggled Epitaph, West Beach Studio, and Bad Religion until label success became overwhelming (97:51)
• Major label offers:
  • Atlantic approach; band’s decision to move from Epitaph (Brett’s internal conflict, wanted band’s autonomy, honored their vote) (102:00–104:21)
  • Recipe For Hate: split territory release, then full transition to Atlantic with Stranger Than Fiction.
  • Revisiting “21st Century Digital Boy” as a single at Atlantic’s request (113:54)

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9. Song Highlights and Notable Moments

• “Sorrow” lauded as Brett’s "crowning achievement," inspired by Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” (138:39–139:25), and referenced by John Fogerty (05:53).
• Notable technical/musical moments:
  • Tape edits (analog engineering war stories, 83:13, 84:11)
  • Prolific songwriting cycle: Brett & Greg never had writer’s block (“It’s not hard for us to write” 84:49)
• Songwriting competition:
  • “No Control” (title track by Greg) gave Brett goosebumps (77:17).
  • “Supersonic” (Process of Belief) was a turning point in their collaborative rivalry (78:24).
• Famous collaborations:
  • Eddie Vedder (sang on “Watch It Die,” 100:42)
  • Johnette Napolitano (duet on “Struck a Nerve,” 99:53)
  • Co-writing harmonies and vocals influenced by California pop (Adolescents, Beach Boys, Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, 65:03, 139:25).
• Video/TV/Pop Culture
  • Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2—exposure for Bad Religion (80:41)
  • American Jesus video directed by future "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski (97:14)
  • TV appearances (Conan O’Brien, etc.)

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10. Modern Era & Digital Shift

• Napster, piracy, and industry downturn: “Label not growing; grind to keep staff paid, hoping for next breakout.” (120:49)
• Spotify/streaming debate:
  • Brett defends the streaming model as the most equitable for artists in history—cites the democratization of access, perpetual value for deep catalogs, and more viable “middle class” musicians earning $50k–$200k/year compared to previous eras.(124:34–128:54)
  • 4 million Bad Religion streams/week = sustainable income for the band; “structurally the best thing that’s ever happened to musicians” (127:25)
  • On Daniel Ek/Spotify defense investments: Brett is against militarism but argues for perspective and points out hypocrisy (“You can’t ethically consume anything”) (129:18–131:13)

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11. Recent Work & Philosophy

• Return to Bad Religion: Rekindling partnership with Greg, co-writing “Process of Belief” and subsequent records, introduction of Brooks Wackerman (“one of the ingredients that made [that record] so magic, allowed us to write faster and more technically than ever,” 134:39)
• Writing & recording approach: “Each bring two songs to rehearsal, teach ’em, record in 7 days,” unrelenting productivity (65:51, 66:19)
• Touring: Eventually stopped playing live regularly due to workload and setlist unpredictability; only joins for select LA shows now. (143:34)

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12. Legacy, Taste, and Hardcore Canon

• Top Hardcore Records (151:31):
  • Germs – GI
  • Black Flag – Nervous Breakdown EP
  • Adolescents – Blue Album
  • Minor Threat – s/t EP
  • Modern innovators:
    • Converge – Jane Doe
    • Refused – The Shape of Punk to Come
      (“showed that hardcore doesn’t have to play by rules and can keep going forever.” 152:01)
• Influence of competing with Greg ("brotherly competition") to continually push each other's songwriting (77:17).
• Bad Religion’s ability to evolve without fundamentally changing: “The wheels have yet to come off.” (76:22)
• On continued relevance: “You’ve evolved, you haven’t changed, and that’s the secret.” (76:35)
• Next record teased, with writing in progress: “I think our next one will be better… I’m writing it right now.” (148:47)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Punk…is a refutation of the idea that you need permission to be a creator.” – Brett (20:03)
• “Punk said you don’t need permission and hardcore said there is no door.” – Brett (21:14)
• “I was offered $50 million for half the company…and I turned it down. I kept the company, stayed independent.” – Brett (111:36)
• On streaming: “Spotify and all the other streaming services for the most part give 70% of their revenue to rights holders… Today, thanks to streaming, there are more musicians making a middle class income than ever in the history of music.” – Brett (125:26)
• “Sorrow, I think it’s my best song.” – Brett (138:43)
• “Hardcore started in Los Angeles.” – Brett (21:20)
• On quitting Bad Religion: “I had all these plates spinning and I didn’t think I could keep them all going and be in a band at the same time.” – Brett (112:06)
• “We sounded good. Like we sound like a band. We knew we were going to be an LA hardcore punk band…We knew had to play insanely fast.” – Brett (16:22, 17:06)
• “Songwriting is music plus melody and what you want to say…You have to do both.” – Brett (85:51)
• “There are more musicians making a middle class income than ever in the history of music.” – Brett (127:25)

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Important Timestamps by Topic

• [01:39] – Epitaph’s recent releases & Brett’s production work
• [05:53] – John Fogerty praises Bad Religion’s “Sorrow”
• [19:04–21:14] – Defining punk vs. hardcore ethos
• [28:02] – DIY genesis of Epitaph Records
• [34:00] – Rodney on the Rock airplay changes band’s fortunes
• [47:50] – Recording How Could Hell Be Any Worse?
• [53:17–54:22] – Brett’s addiction, rehab, and creative process clean/sober
• [97:51–111:36] – Epitaph’s explosive growth, major label offers, Brett’s exit from Bad Religion
• [124:34–131:13] – Detailed defense of streaming/Spotify in the modern era
• [134:39–136:16] – Brooks Wackerman transforms the band with technical prowess
• [138:39–139:25] – “Sorrow” songwriting inspiration, Simon & Garfunkel influence
• [151:31] – Top hardcore records of all time

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Tone & Style

Throughout the episode, the hosts maintain an animated, reverent, and “punk brotherhood” tone—balancing deep respect for Brett’s legacy with irreverent humor and inside-scene banter. Brett is reflective, candid, and generous with anecdotes, speaking as both historian and active participant in the scene’s evolution.

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For Further Listening/Viewing

• Brett’s Spotify playlist: Christmas with the G’s
• Bad Religion and Epitaph back catalogs
• Seek out related episodes on Converge, Rancid, NOFX
• Watch for future HardLore Christmas music episode with Brett!

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Transcript

[Colin]

1994, huge year for Bad Religion. But you leave the band.

[Brett Gurewitz]

By the time I leave the band, Smash has come out. Epitaph Records was completely blowing up. But also Epitaph was requiring just everything. I had to figure it out. No one ever told me how to make a company. Major labels were circling me.

[Colin]

Oh, yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Trying to buy the company. I was offered $50 million for half the company.

[Podcast Co-host]

Holy.

[Colin]

Hello, welcome. It's Hard Lord Time. How you doing, Bo?

[Podcast Co-host]

I'm doing so good today, Colin.

[Colin]

Who do we have Special day. It's a special day for us, Special day for you all. It's a rare treat here. We're live and in person once again at the in sunny California at Brain Dead studios in Hollywood, California. We've got with us today one of my favorite songwriters to ever live, to ever grace this earth. A punk rock pioneer, a San Fernando Valley legend, Epitaph Records founder, Bad religion co founder, Mr. Brett Garrowitz. How are you, sir?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Good, good. Good to be here.

[Colin]

Thanks for being here. Beautiful day, January. The sun is shining, the moon is shining.

[Brett Gurewitz]

How you doing? Feeling good. Ready to pot it up?

[Colin]

Let's pot it up. Hell yeah, let's. How's 2025 for epitaph? How's 2026 looking for epitaph?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Epitaph was crushing in 2025. 26 looks even better. We've been on a roll, feeling it's a lot of fun. Things are going well.

[Colin]

New Drain just came out.

[Brett Gurewitz]

New Drain just came out. New. A new Converge is coming out. Just dropped a track Friday.

[Colin]

Is that fully Epitaph?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Wow. No, Death Wish does the vinyl. They've been on Epitaph for years. A lot of people don't know.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

In fact. Well, I won't reveal that here, but off camera, I'll tell you something about that. And New Joyce Manor is about to drop.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Colin]

You're a big part of that, right?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I produced that one. Wow. Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

No kidding.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah. I haven't produced a record since the last Rancid Record, so that was fun. Oh, welcome back. Wow.

[Colin]

Let's go back in time here. Let's fire up the flux capacitor. Tell me about growing up in the West Valley.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

And where you learned, discovered your passion for music and how that led to punk music. Ah,

[Brett Gurewitz]

well, I mean, I always loved music, you know, from being a really young boy. Although, you know, none of my parents are musical in the slightest. Really? Yeah. My dad's got tin ear and no rhythm and I don't know, you know, my mom can sing Happy Birthday, but that's about it. My dad can't even sing Happy Birthday on key, like so.

[Colin]

But he was, he was on record as being very supportive.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll. Yeah, we'll put a pin in that. Yeah, it's coming. But, but, yeah, but I always loved music as a kid. Like it just when I heard music, it would drive me crazy. I always loved it and sort of, you know, just grew up listening to my parents eight track tapes and AM radio in Los Angeles, 93 KHJ. So, you know, just grew up like a regular California kid on probably, you know, like a lot of, A lot of Beatles and Zeppelin and, and Jackson 5 and, you know, whatever's on the, on the radio and always loved it. Always had songs going through my head, always humming songs. And I know the first record I ever bought was Cosmos Factory by Creedence Clearwater.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Colin]

Banger.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. And the way I bought that one is my mom said, hey, do you want to. Do you want to buy a record? And I said, yeah. She was going to Sears. She asked, I said I could go with her. And so I went to one of the big kids on the block and I said, my mom's letting me get a record. What should I get? I think Cosmos Factory was new at that time. It was mid-70s or something. So he said, get Cosmos Factory. You know, so anyway, yeah, so that was my first record.

[Colin]

You never forget that.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Colin]

Did you take anything away melodically from ccr?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, I mean, those guys are such. They had so many great songs, but I'm sure I did, yeah. You know, but I mean, they were so bluesy and. But I will tell you an anecdote that I've not shared elsewhere that just. It just really is something that was a full circle moment for me much later, you know, in my. In my 50s. But Greg Hetson, who was a foundational member of Bad Religion, big part of the band, texted me a picture of a page of a book. And he said, dude, check this out. This is from John Fogarty's autobiography. John Fogarty, the singer of Creedence Clearwater, who. I grew up on my first record. And in the book. It was the part of the book where he was reflecting about when punk happened. Whoa. And he said, well, a lot of people won't remember that punk was really a reaction to disco, which that's not all it was, but it was if you were there, you know, because it used to be punk rock T shirts that said disco sucks with a safety pin or Whatever, you know, and you

[Colin]

can argue that, like, as was heavy metal, as was hard.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. But that's what Fogarty said. Sure said. And I never really got into punk rock, but there were a few good songs, like Sorrow from Bad Religion. That's a good song. And I was just like. I read that. I was like, holy.

[Colin]

You know, one good punk song, and it is Sorrow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's the one he mentions in his autobiography.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And I wrote that one.

[Colin]

That's awesome.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And, you know, it is. It. It does have the sort of the. The DNA of, like, a credence or a big time. Like a. Like a classic rock song.

[Colin]

And when you take away the drums.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah. The chord changes. It's got a. It's got an Americana feel.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah. To your point, their music is in the DNA of a lot of American rock music.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Colin]

Just is.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But the fact that, like, he knew my song.

[Colin]

Incredible.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was really powerful for me. Yeah.

[Colin]

Beautiful.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

So how does that lead to punk music? And what is punk music when you find it?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Ah. All right. Well, so my path was, you know, I. I discovered just popular music on the radio. Then I discovered, like, popular rock music. Sort of. My first crush was, like, rock and roll crush was Elton John when I was about. I was 13, that was 1975. So it was like he had put out Hunky Chateau and it was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, really. And. And that was sort of like I was still in elementary school, but it was the sort of the. The peak of glam rock. Right. And so Elton John was this gateway for me to, like, David Bowie and Alice Cooper and this glam thing that was happening now. I wasn't doing that because it was like the big teenagers were doing it. I was like. But. And then, you know, one day when I was, you know, probably in the late 70s, I walked into a local record store, which, as a fellow Valley kid, you'll know. Licorice Pizza, of course. And they had their import section and they had their. And the punk records were, like, mixed up with import section. But I always used to check things out. And the guy in the store goes, hey, man, you gotta check out this record. And it wasn't an import, but he gave me the Ramones first album. And yeah, as for many people, that was sort of the genesis of my punk rock transformation, my journey.

[Colin]

And that's not that long before Bad Religion would exist, it seems.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I mean, when you're a kid, three years, you know, when you're in seventh grade, tenth Grade seems really far away. No, it was. You know, Bad Religion's first record came out in 80 or 81. We made it in 80, but I think the 7 inch probably dropped in 81.

[Colin]

Well, let's get to that. How do you. Greg and Jay both went to El Camino with you?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, so I. You know, punk rock didn't exist in the Valley at that time. It was. It was in Hollywood. It was in the city. And. But who.

[Podcast Co-host]

Who would that have been at the time? Like, what bands were the bands.

[Brett Gurewitz]

The punk bands that preceded us were the. You know, the first ones that happened at the time of the Ramones were like, the Screamers and the Weirdos. Weirdos.

[Colin]

And Social D would have been one of the bigger local kind of things for.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, they were. They. They were this. They were the same wave as Bad Religion, and we played our first show with them. But. Yeah, so in my school, I knew of. Of one guy who was into punk, and it was my friend Tom Clement. Okay. And me and him were good friends. And then we knew this guy, Jay Ziskraut. And Jay introduced me and Tom. No, no, no, no, no. I was friends with Jay Z's crowd. I was also friends with Tom. But Tom introduced me and Jay to Greg Graffit and Jay Bentley. And they were in our high school also. But we were. They were great. They were a grade younger than us, though. Okay. Right. And Tom introduced and said, hey, you guys. You know, Brett plays an inch. Brett and Jay play instruments. You guys should be a band. Literally. He came up to us in the quad and introduced us.

[Colin]

He made this happen. Whoa.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, Tom did. Yeah. In fact, there's a song about. I think it's, you know, I give you, Me give you nothing on Sufferers.

[Colin]

Big pit in that song.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah. It's about Tom Clement. So long story short, there were five punk rock people at El Camino Real High School on Valley Circle.

[Colin]

Four of them.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was me. Yeah, me. Yeah. Four of them were Bad Religion, you know, And. And there was Tom. Okay. And, I mean, Tom was a troublemaker, Man. He was a crazy kid. I was pretty crazy, too. Me and Tom were best friends.

[Podcast Co-host]

Crazy how?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Just like juvenile delinquents, on a lot of drugs, getting in a lot of trouble, vandalism. Just Longbourn. I kind of gave up skating when I started taking up music.

[Colin]

Really?

[Podcast Co-host]

I did, too.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, same thing.

[Colin]

Gotta save those ankles, you know, and the wrist.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was just. I was just on to the. Next thing you know, I was skating as like a. Like When I was a little grom. But when I was in high school, I was about electric guitars and. And getting loaded.

[Colin]

Amen.

[Podcast Co-host]

Now, does Tom know what he did?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, Tom. Tom's not with us anymore.

[Podcast Co-host]

But did he.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, he knew. Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

He knew that he helped assemble this band that would go on to define.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, he couldn't not know. I mean, he was still like. He. You know, he was. He would go to shows with us, and he was around for a while.

[Colin]

When is the first time you hear Greg sing?

[Brett Gurewitz]

At our first rehearsal. So, yeah, we sat there in the quad, and I said, like. I said, well, I play guitar. And Jay Ziskraut said, I play drums. And Bentley said, well, I play guitar. And I said, I guess I was the pushy one. I said, well, I'm already playing guitar, so can you play bass? He said, okay, I'll play bass. And Greg said, I can sing.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so we had our first rehearsal at Jay Ziskraut's house in his mom's living room, and he had a Ludwig Vistalite kit. It was so sick.

[Colin]

That's awesome.

[Brett Gurewitz]

He had one. Yeah. I'm like, you know, this was. This must have been 79 or 80. Wow. And what were you playing? Oh, some piece of. I had a. I had a. I don't know if it was at this time, but I had a electric guitar. It was Gibson's cheap version of their Les Paul. It was called the Paul. Yeah, it wasn't even. It wasn't even. It wasn't good enough to be a Les Paul. It was like. It didn't. The wood wasn't even finished. It was like a. You know. But anyway. And I remember, like, Greg. Greg said, okay, well, let's go, you know, play. Let's have a rehearsal. And so I wrote two songs to bring to that rehearsal, and Greg wrote two songs to bring to that rehearsal. And my songs were Sensory Overload and I think either Drastic Actions or Bad Religion, the spiritual song.

[Colin]

So that made. I mean, those made it. They all made it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I mean, the first few songs we wrote.

[Colin]

And Are those the first two songs you wrote in your life?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No.

[Podcast Co-host]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But, like, they're probably, like, the fifth or sixth.

[Colin]

Okay, sure.

[Podcast Co-host]

Where are you pulling influences from to write songs to bring? Like, what are you thinking? Like, I want to do this kind of.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, so I was a music head. Like, as a kid, like, I. I got high and listened to music. Like, I didn't like. Like, as a really little kid, I did sports. But once I. Once I got into me. Like I. I would just listen to music constantly and so I had a lot of. I had a lot of

[Colin]

musical inclination,

[Brett Gurewitz]

knowledge or something, you know, but. But when I heard the Ramones, then I started getting into anything punk I could listen to. So, you know, I. I was listening to a lot of Nevermind the Bullocks. I was listening to a lot of the Ramones. Buzzcocks were a huge influence. I was listening to a lot of like a singles Going Steady and. And their other record. So. Because you guys are fast.

[Colin]

You're faster than a lot of those bands and a lot of what was happening at first.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, okay, right. Well, so those were my influences, but I knew that. Right. So maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. But by the time we formed the band, I'd been listening to punk. Yeah. So. So like me and Tom were listening to the Germs. Gi. That was my favorite record. And Minuteman record, Black Flags, Nervous Breakdown Episode. And so I was aware of. Of the LA hardcore scene. Right. Which was. I mean, it was brand new.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was just happening in that minute.

[Colin]

Does it feel like it's so far from you?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No.

[Colin]

Being in the Valley or does it feel. No.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right. It was far away, but it was geographically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a little bit far, but it felt like my music because it was people my age doing it.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah. And it felt attainable.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was just so. It was. Well, here's the thing that the Ramones made it attainable because when I'd been listening to the Ramones and I was like, I can play that.

[Podcast Co-host]

I can do this.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right. Like I. Yeah. You know, finally. I can't play like Mick Ronson. I can't play like Jimmy Page. I can't play like John Fogarty, but I can play like Steve Jones or Johnny Ramone. Right. Like when. When I heard those records, I just started like writing songs. I just started playing this. I could figure out their songs. I could write my own songs. And I was. People don't really know about this, but I was in a sort of a new wave proto punk band. Before Bad Religion, we didn't. Never played a show, but we did a few rehearsals. We were called the Quarks.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Because we were so small. We're such a small band. Smallest thing.

[Colin]

There's a little quirk in your description.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Not quark. Quark.

[Colin]

Quark.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Even crazier. Yes. Really, really small. Infinitesimally small. Right, so.

[Colin]

So those are the first four songs you wrote.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I wrote some songs for the Quarks and so I knew I could write songs, you know.

[Colin]

Okay. But anyway, when does it become Bad Religion?

[Brett Gurewitz]

That first rehearsal in the quad there, we said. We said, let's do a band. We did that rehearsal, right. I couldn't have had the song Bad Religion because we didn't have the name yet. Right. So that first rehearsal was with Sensory Overload and. And we played Drastic Actions. Right. And of my two songs. But that's the first time I heard Greg sing. And it's like, we sound good. Like we sound like a band. Yeah, but. But we knew we were going to be an LA hardcore punk band. It wasn't like, hey, be in a. Hey, you guys should be in a band. It was just.

[Colin]

We knew what kind of band, Seven

[Brett Gurewitz]

Part Harmony should be doing. Yeah. We all knew what our favorite bands were, right? It was Black Flag. It was like the shit that's happening, right? The Germs, Black Flag. So. So we're. We're forming a hardcore band from. From day one. And so we. We knew, had to play insanely fast. Right. We're playing as fast as we could and aggressive and. But I do remember, like, when we started playing that I was shocked that I thought it was good. I thought it was going to suck.

[Colin]

It shouldn't have been good.

[Podcast Co-host]

It shouldn't have been good.

[Brett Gurewitz]

There's no. It should not have been good. Like from like the. Know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, and I think so, like, our first show, we probably only had seven or eight songs, you know, and that was. We got invited to play a garage, like a warehouse party.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And that was with Social Distortion.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And we played it and I remember Tom said, you guys are actually really good. Don't break up. That's what he said, you know, which we followed those instructions for a little while. Right. We didn't break up.

[Podcast Co-host]

Let me. So let me ask you, you've used punk and punk rock and then hardcore. Punk rock and then hardcore. Yeah, In. In that order. Since we've started talking, how at that time were you distinguishing between the two sub genres?

[Brett Gurewitz]

There was punk and then there was hardcore and hardcore. We didn't call it hardcore punk, we just called it hardcore. Unless you'd never heard of punk. Sure. Yeah. Right. If I was explaining to my mom, I would say, it's hardcore punk, Mom,

[Colin]

I know you're listening. That's the difference.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But, yeah, punk was slower and it wasn't as pissed off and it wasn't as confrontational. Okay. Yeah, but it was, you know, hardcore was, you know, it's the difference between porn and hardcore porn, I guess. Okay. Okay.

[Colin]

Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's just more.

[Colin]

So the confrontational hardcore aspect is what leads to the name Bad Religion. It was just kind of a. Kind of a.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You. Well, yeah, I mean, it didn't. It's not that it. We were thinking we have to be confrontational. It just had to be harder. It had to be more aggressive, faster.

[Podcast Co-host]

You couldn't be the spoons or something.

[Colin]

It had to be the quarks.

[Podcast Co-host]

You couldn't be the quarks.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It wasn't about fun. It was about. It was about full commitment and aggression. And, you know, I mean, you're bound to get to the question this podcast. I'll just. I'll just go there now. Like, what is punk? Right.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Because if you're gonna be more of something, then we have to know what the something is. Right.

[Colin]

I think, you know, when you hear it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, right, right. That's the Louis Armstrong answer, which is. Well, if you have to ask, you'll never know.

[Colin]

That's right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So there's that. That's a good answer. That's how we describe jazz. Right?

[Colin]

Of course.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Okay. But I think, I think punk itself is a refutation of the idea that you need permission to be a creator.

[Colin]

Whoa.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's saying you don't need any credentials, you don't need any experience. All you need is a desire to express yourself. And we refute the idea of permission, you know, and that's what, that's what punk is. That's what the Ramones were doing. Like, no, we're not virtuosos. No, we're not good looking. We just want to fucking rock, you know, we're gonna fucking do this and you know, and they fucking did it well. And they sort of opened that door for the whole generation of punk rockers. They opened the door for hardcore punks to take that even further, you know, and that's what it was more of, you know, I think, you know, punk said, you don't need permission and hardcore, you know, you don't need permission to open the door. And hardcore said, there is no door.

[Colin]

You know, so well said, prolific, incredibly well said.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So, yeah, so it was just. And that's something that's, I think, important to document. And I think a lot of people know it, but a lot of people also don't. That what we call hardcore today started in Los Angeles. It didn't start in Detroit, it didn't start in New York, it didn't start in London. I think the first British hardcore band was discharged. Was discharged. And that was 1982, you know, but it started in LA, you know, and, you know, and then it went to. Then it went to, you know, D.C. and then Chicago Native Approach maybe perfected

[Colin]

it, and then New York perfected it again.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, well, that's your opinion.

[Podcast Co-host]

What would you attribute to being the first hardcore record? Is it out of vogue?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I think. Well, so the, the, the. The first, the. The first one that was the first punk record that was sort of pure chaos. All the rules are gone.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Was Di By. With Gi. By the Germs. Yeah. Okay, okay. But it wasn't a hardcore record, but was a spark that, that, that lit the hardcore movement. Okay. Black Flag invented hardcore with the Nervous Breakdown ep. That was it. And I was there, trust me. I mean, nothing came before it and nothing was ever that hard. No shade on negative approach. But to me, you know, then a lot of bands in LA put out hardcore punk records. Bad Religion did it, Adolescents did it. But I think the one that sort of perfected the template in terms of how fast, how tight it can be was Minor Threat. And so those first Two minor threat EPs, I think, were sort of the pinnacle of the form for me. But anyway, and then a lot of great hardcore records after that.

[Colin]

We'll bring those up again a little later for something. The Crossbuster.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

How soon after the name does the logo come into play?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Really fast. So we had a band meeting in. In Jay's living room, throwing out a bunch of shitty names. Don't ask me to say what they were. They're embarrassing. But we. We ended up with Bad Religion. And. Can we have one?

[Podcast Co-host]

One embarrassing?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no, no, no, no. I mean, they're so bad off camera, maybe. I'll tell you.

[Podcast Co-host]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But thank God we didn't pick any of those. We wouldn't be here talking today, but. But we came up with Bad Religion and that was auspicious and especially for me and Greg as songwriters, because even though we. We love, you know, we love punk rock and we love rock music, we're also kind of deep down, we're nerds and we're both interested in science and philosophy. Random, I know, but. And so Bad Religion was a great name because it let us write about all kinds of things that were different than what other punk bands write about.

[Podcast Co-host]

Makes you kind of wonder, what is that? Like, what does bad religion mean?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Exactly. But anyway, so we came with Bad Religion. And then next rehearsal, I came to the. You know, and I. I was a Creative kid. I like doing music and. And poetry and creative writing and. And art too. I used to draw, including making flyers. But even before that I used to just draw pictures. So I went into my little art table at home and I came to rehearsal with a crossbuster. Next rehearsal. Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

Do you know how many detentions you handed out with that?

[Brett Gurewitz]

How many what?

[Podcast Co-host]

How many detentions you handed out across the country for the next.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So I feel so grateful for that. Yeah.

[Colin]

A lot of bodies soil. Beautiful.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. But you know though, I mean, I have to say it was interesting. I think probably the greatest punk logo of all time has got to be Black Flag because nothing bars. Yeah, the bars are so just.

[Colin]

They're everywhere too. You see them in ferns on the street.

[Podcast Co-host]

I was obsessed with the Dead Kennedy's logo when I was a kid. It was one of those ones that I would try to draw over and over.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. DK was another one of the great ones. And circle jerks guy.

[Podcast Co-host]

The guy.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, but that's not as strong. Cuz you. You can't draw.

[Colin]

You can't draw. Anybody can do crossbuster is if you got a. If you got a hand, that thing can come out.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So. But yeah, but so that. That crossbuster logo was this kind of thing where spread across the world like wildfire. Like just, you know, because it's. It's not just easy to draw and recognize, but it's also international.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know, like, you know, it's.

[Podcast Co-host]

The cross is recognized all over the globe.

[Brett Gurewitz]

After we dropped our 7 inch, we started getting fan mail from Italy and Spain and Netherlands and Germany. Like 81 that I had no idea. But I think the crossbuster logo for a generation of kids who were growing up under. You know, it just. It just hit him. You know, they're like, oh my God, you could do that.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Colin]

You know, and there's another side of like you can't do that in that time. Where is there blowback around you and around the world for the band name and the logo?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, not really. I mean, I think we were too small in the beginning for there to be blowback. But the people who liked it were. Were connected by it.

[Colin]

And so Fritz Quadrata Pro when I say I just.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Just stole that bold frisk first.

[Colin]

Quadratic Pro Bold.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I just took it from Black Flag.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

My favorite punk confirmed. There you go.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

So was that the font?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. No one's ever. No one's ever asked me about that. But yep, straight.

[Podcast Co-host]

I bought it.

[Colin]

I've spent 40.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, it has to be.

[Colin]

I did a lot of our subtitles with it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It has to be this font. This is the punk font.

[Podcast Co-host]

And we went to the Punk Rock Museum in Vegas, and it's. It's the black flag for us. And he went. I think that's the bad. You know, like, it is.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's great.

[Colin]

It has to be.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's killer.

[Colin]

I think there's no Effects. No Effects has used it for. So then it would come time to put out the first seven.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Some. Some bands from. Some punk bands should call themselves Fritz Quadrata.

[Podcast Co-host]

That's pretty good.

[Brett Gurewitz]

There's a Berthold singer or a punk singer. It could be Fritz.

[Colin]

That's good. Fritz Q. Fritz Quadrata, baby, how you doing?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Nice to meet you. Fritz. Fritz. Fritz.

[Colin]

So it's time to put out the first bad religion single, 7 inch. What gave you the idea to do this to yourself? Did people think you were insane? And how do you logistically go about starting a record label in 1981?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right. Yeah, so I didn't. I wasn't starting a label. We were just. We were a band from the Valley and we were putting out our 7 inch. And back then, a lot of bands put out their own seven inches.

[Colin]

So that was common.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, it was common. That's what you did. It was kind of like trying to get your. Using distrokid to put your thing on Spotify, but. But a lot harder. Yeah, you had to come up with. With like, you know, a thousand bucks.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Approximately.

[Colin]

That's like $500,000 now.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was. You know, and so anyway, I basically borrowed the money from my dad.

[Colin]

Big Dick Garrowitz, Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. His name's Richard.

[Colin]

Richard.

[Brett Gurewitz]

In the 50s, when he was a kid, it was. You could have the nickname Dick.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Because Dick, it wasn't a bad. You know what didn't mean penis. It meant. It was like, cool name, like Dick Tracy.

[Colin]

Totally.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah. Now they. Now he calls himself Richard.

[Colin]

Okay. Is he credited in the.

[Brett Gurewitz]

He's credited. Thanks to Big Dick. Yeah, we thanked him. Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

That's awesome.

[Colin]

So he made Epitaph happen. That is very cool.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But. But to be fair, we were. You know, my dad was proud of me because I was. I was doing something. You know, I was doing something on my own and taking some initiative. And so he lent me the money.

[Colin]

But.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And we weren't. I wasn't starting a company, right. And. But we wanted it to look official. And. And some bands, right, like Adolescents were on Frontier, you know, records in Indie one Word Black Flag was on sst, you know, so we didn't want it to look like we weren't on a label, but really we weren't. There was no label.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So we said, oh, what can. What should we call it? You know, what should we put on here? We should call the label. And so Greg and I were big fans of King Crimson. Yeah. And they have this song called. I can't remember the song's called. But the lyric in the song is, confusion shall be my epitaph. And we thought that was really cool.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's a cool word. And we looked it up and it's the words on your tombstone.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So we. Let's call it Epitaph. And then the. The graphic designer who made the COVID for me because it was called Epitaph, he came up with a tombstone for the logo. That's an E, right?

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So that's. That's how that all.

[Colin]

It's on a lot of good shirts. How is the reception to the 7 inch? How many do you press?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah. I'm a bad historian. There were two pressings. I can't remember exactly how many of each one, but I think the first. I think we made like 500 of one of them and 1500 of another. Something like that, you know, really small numbers flying off the shelves.

[Podcast Co-host]

Did that seem like. Oh, I'm sorry. Did that seem like a lot at the time?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I just. I didn't know anything. I just. I thought like that, you know, when I first made the first batch, maybe I made a thousand, maybe it's 500. I just thought, like, this is how much money I have to make them and I'll. It's what I had for to like to get everything done. And, you know, I hope we can sell all of them. But it wasn't like flying off the shelves. Basically. I had, you know, I had a car and so I would just. And there were like five record stores within driving distance that would let me put the records in their store on consignment.

[Colin]

On consignment, right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So I would drive to Zed Records in Long beach and give them five, and I drive to Moby Disk in Van Nuys and give them five RIP.

[Colin]

I think that's long gone. Right?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. And I would drive to Middle Earth Records in Downey, I think it was, and give them, you know, five or seven.

[Colin]

Hell of a trek for five. Seven records.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. No, but. So I was just driving around and putting them in, and I think Licorice Pizza took some the local one. And then I'd like, I'd wait a week or two and then I drive around and I back to them and they'd. They say, yeah, we could use some more. Wow. So they put more in there, you know. And like. So that's how. That's how it went. Yeah. Went through. We did go through all of them and. Oh, and then what happened was that the guy over at Moby Disk told me that he would take like some boxes of them because Moby Disk, he was involved with the distributor called Gem Distributors. And so, you know, they didn't fly off the shelves, but they probably sold them over a few months, you know.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But the reception was really good. Like, I didn't do a mailing or anything, but there were like music writers who would buy things from those stores. And we actually got reviewed in the LA Times and that, and it got a good review, you know, and finally

[Colin]

a band from the van.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And somehow I guess people ordered them from the stores and, and mail order. And so we were getting started getting fan mail from like other states. And so it's just happening. You're not even. No, people liked it. People liked the record and people in LA liked it. Like. So we, we started playing shows with other bands and. And then, I mean, it's a well known story, but we, we were friends with the Circle Jerks and we were friends with all the bands. So Greg Hetz. Well, I always say Greg Hetson walked the record up upstairs to Rodney on the Rock at kroc, but Keith Morris says it was him that did it. So I. I really don't care. So damn. Long ago. But. But one of the Circle Jerks walked our. Our. Oh, this is before this. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Okay. Before the 7 inch came out, we had the tape of the 7 inch. Okay. And one of our friends in the Circle Jerks walked it up to Rodney on the Rock and he. And he. And we waited out in the car and we're listening to Rodney on the rock on the radio while he walks up there and he played it on the radio. So. And Rodney liked it. And so.

[Colin]

So that worked immediately.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. So the song Bad Religion started getting played on Rodney on the Rock. And you may not know this, but so back then there was no punk rock on the radio. And it was even hard to find punk rock records, so. Especially ones from. From England or New York. Yeah. So what Rodney would do is he'd play like the best song from all the punk bands on his show. And his show was like, on Weekends at midnight. Right. And so all the punks would record his show. It was like a two hour show.

[Podcast Co-host]

Oh, wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So everyone had all these cassettes of Rodney's shows and that's how you would discover new punk music. Right. And so if you got played on the show. So suddenly all the punks have. Have our song. They're all trading it around and they have Rodney. Rodney. He called us Bad Relgeon. Like, all right, that was Bad Relge on what? Yeah, I mean, the first time he ever said that.

[Colin]

Maybe saved you in that. In that one instance there.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. But anyway, so we started getting popular in the scene because we'd gotten played by Rodney and we were on a bunch of people's mixtapes of punk. And that really helped us. And, and then, and then the 7 inch came out after that.

[Colin]

Okay, so that informed the success of the seven Inch.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, that, that helped it go. And then, you know, and the, the people promoting punk shows back then that were these guys called Golden Voice and

[Colin]

you ever heard of them?

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so Golden Voice started putting us as, like, they put us on support as a, as a main support for a lot of the punk shows, you know, and that really helped us a lot too. And also we got, you know, our friends with, you know, adolescents always asked for us to open for them. Jerks would take us up to San Francisco with them.

[Podcast Co-host]

You know, it sounds like in addition to writing good music, a lot of things fell in place, really.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Fortunately, it was fortunate. But it was also like, but you're

[Podcast Co-host]

driving, you're driving to Long beach and you're driving to the Valley and you're doing the work.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But also there weren't that many. It was a small scene. It was like, I don't know how many punks were in the whole scene, maybe 2000.

[Colin]

And they were all actively searching for stuff at all times, basically.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And we all almost knew each other, you know, it was like, you know, like if. If you were walking down the street and you saw another punk, that wouldn't be normal, right? You'd be like, oh, do I know that guy? And if you didn't know him, you'd. You'd go up to him and then you knew him, you know, So I

[Colin]

kind of felt that way until like

[Brett Gurewitz]

10 years ago maybe.

[Colin]

If I saw a fully tattooed guy, I could assume he's heard hate, right?

[Brett Gurewitz]

But it was really like that, you know, I mean, so it was very close in scene. And if a band was pretty good, you know, they could, you know, they could get shows and yeah.

[Colin]

So you're playing a lot locally.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You.

[Colin]

You blow through. You kind of blow through 2000 records.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

It's time to do an LP.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

How does that come to. How does. How could hell be any worse come to fruition?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I. You know, just kind of the normal way we're all going to school. Well, I was getting ready to drop out of school because I dropped out of school in 11th grade, so I might have. It was either still in school or. Or just took the equivalency exam.

[Colin]

Okay. But you did take the equivalency?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I did, yeah. Yeah.

[Colin]

Congrats.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Thank you. Yeah. I've got it hanging on my wall still.

[Colin]

Just kidding.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And we said, yeah, we said, hey, let's do an album. And we started. Me and Greg started writing songs, and we started rehearsing them, teaching them to the band. Going into demo studio, that was. It doesn't exist anymore. I can remember the name of that place. But, you know, we demoed out a couple of the songs, you know, a few of them, and. And, you know, when I had made the 7 inch, I had learned how to make records. Right. Which is one of the things you have to do is you have to get the. The. You have to take the tape. Yeah. And you have to have it mastered, and then you have to have it. You have to cut lacquers, you know.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so I went to this place, which also no longer exists. It was on Santa Monica Boulevard called Gold Star Studios. Legendary place. You know, Phil Spector worked there. It had the legendary echo chamber that Phil Spector used. Oh, wow. Ramones made into the century there. But, like, a lot of the, like, Beach Boys recordings were done there. Legendary California studio. But. But Johnnette Napolitano was the receptionist at Gold Star, and she was sort of this punk rock chick with, like, long purple hair and piercings. She was cool, right? She was older than. Than me. I was super impressed by her. And she's like, hey, you know, you guys are great. You should, you know. And we actually became friends, but she goes, if you ever make an lp, you should have my boyfriend Jim engineer and produce it. And so her boyfriend was Jim Manke, who was in Sparks, another pretty legendary band. Jim's brother Earl Mankey was, like, the main guy in Sparks.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But anyway, so I took her up on that, and we hired Jim to make.

[Colin]

How long does the writing take before all this stuff? Like, what do you have? Do you just come in loaded with. We're only gonna die right off the bat?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No. So, you know, It's. I've always felt grateful that I have Greg as a co writer. Yeah. Because punk records have a lot of songs. You know, it's not like a Pink Floyd record. It might have six songs. Is one of them takes up a whole side. You know, like you, you know you have to write like 15 two minute songs. Yeah.

[Colin]

That's a lot.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But I always wrote like seven or eight and Greg always wrote seven or eight. So it's easier to. It's easier to do.

[Colin]

Right, of course. And so with some rare exceptions of like joint credited songs.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, we started taking joint credit around the time of Process of Belief.

[Colin]

There's a couple earlier ones too.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right, right. So those couple of earlier ones really are.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Like. Like Suffer. We sat down and wrote together. Wow. The song Suffer. But Process of Belief on. We just are sharing credit. We still wrote them separately.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah. Gotcha.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But anyway. Yeah. So we only each really had to write seven.

[Colin]

And do they get refined when you get together and all that or are they pretty done?

[Brett Gurewitz]

They're pretty done.

[Colin]

It's then you guys think so similarly.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's crazy. I know.

[Podcast Co-host]

Are there. Are there veto situations? Like does anyone bring something where the

[Brett Gurewitz]

other is like exceedingly rare?

[Podcast Co-host]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. And I can't think of any.

[Colin]

And there's a couple JB sides maybe, you know.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No J. Like everyone, everyone's welcome to contribute a song, but. And Jay does write songs, but I just think he. I don't know, like he. He has certain amount of insecurity or something. Like he, he. When he. He brought a song in, we do it. But I think maybe is intimidated by how fast and how prolific Greg and I were.

[Colin]

Totally 100% by this time for this

[Podcast Co-host]

first LP had you upgraded from the Paul. Do you remember what you were playing at that time?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. So the Paul got stolen. Like I like the la LA punk scene used to be fucking crime ridden. Like I, I mean I used to have gear stolen just because I parked my car in Hollywood. Hollywood, Didn't I? I call the old Hollywood the, like the shitty old Hollywood. Like people think of Hollywood like it's Beverly Hills. People don't live here. But in the 80s when the punk scene was happening, Hollywood was like a bad neighborhood. It was run down. It was junkies and pimps and gang bangers.

[Colin]

You saw pimps, huh? You saw pimps?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. What are they wearing? Where they look cool? Did they look cool? They look like Huggy Bear.

[Colin]

Okay. Pretty cool.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no, I mean their election, you know. Yeah. Hollywood was run down. You know, it was. And so, yeah, I used to have guitars stolen out of my car. Like. Like windows broken, you know, so you end up. Yeah, I learned to keep them in my trunk.

[Colin]

But smart.

[Brett Gurewitz]

By the time I made. How could I be any worse? I don't know what guitar that was, but it wasn't the red rocker yet.

[Colin]

She's coming.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And it wasn't. It wasn't anything good. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I can tell you what the amp was.

[Podcast Co-host]

Please.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So I had. This is partially why it sounds so weird and groggy, but I kind of like it now. But it's. I had a. I went and got a music man HD130 head. I got that out of the recycler. Right. So it was like a lot of power. A Music man head. And I thought I was buying a cabinet with it. Right. So I bought a Music man cabinet. But what I didn't realize was I didn't know anything about equipment at that time. And this cabinet was a music man410 open back cabinet. Because what it was, it had been a Music man combo that the guy took the brain out of.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah, you're right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And it just had the 4 tens in there. Wow. So that was super weird sounding. So I had this head with this combo speaker cabinet that didn't go with the head or match it.

[Podcast Co-host]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And because it has an open back, there's no.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No low end coming out the front at all.

[Colin]

But then, like, nothing can literally ever sound like that again. Which is pretty cool.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Very true. True. And then. But then the other thing I did is I had a. A box called an Orange Squeezer. Right. Which was. It's basically a compressor with gain. Oh. And I didn't know what compression was, but I knew. But when I put that on my guitar and I cranked. Drove the. The head harder. Okay. And would give me more distortion. So. And this wasn't a pedal. The Orange Squeezers were this thing. You'd stick it in the jack of your guitar and then stick the guitar cord into that.

[Colin]

So it's like an XLR gain booster. But for.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, it was like a. It was like a pedal that doesn't go on the floor. It was a weird thing. Yeah. Battery powered.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Colin]

Was it like a. Just a small little cylinder?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, it was like a little square.

[Colin]

Weird.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Just look it up. Orange Squeezer. Orange Squeezer. And did it. They're killer. I have one now that's built into a pedal, but.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah. Did it have any kind of adjustments

[Brett Gurewitz]

to it or was it yeah, it had compression and output.

[Podcast Co-host]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right. So the. It's like fixed threshold and then the. Or I don't know. I think it's a fixed ratio. And then the compression was just lowering the threshold. Right. And then the gain was. Makeup gain. So I just. I just squashed it and cranked the gain and I've got. Got the sound. So that's what that. That was the sound. I don't know what the guitar is, but was. But it's probably something with a stock. So with.

[Colin]

How could hell be any worse? You have bands like Agnostic Front collectively calling it one of the best hardcore records ever. Who's anyone to argue at that point?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Thank you, guys.

[Podcast Co-host]

To that point. Last year my band played a fest in Europe and Mad Ball played, of course, are directly related to a dasky front. You guys were also playing this fest. I think it was Full Force or Brutal Assault. The one with all the. The machinery.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah. There's like.

[Podcast Co-host]

Like. Like Diggers Big. I don't know. It's a weird one in Germany.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

I don't know. And Freddie said this goes out to one of the. No, he says this goes out to the greatest hardcore band of all time. We have royalty. This is for Bad Religion.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, man. Yeah. I love Freddy. We did some Mad Ball records at Epitaph and I think Big Chris is part of their crew. It's interesting to me because when I listen to How Could Hell be any worse. It doesn't sound hardcore anymore, but we were making a hardcore record.

[Colin]

I think when I hear that's hardcore.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Cool. That's cool. I appreciate that. But I think there's a breakdown. Yeah, but it's just. It's not as. You know. But hardcore evolved.

[Podcast Co-host]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so. So I think a lot of. A lot of fans of the genre or a lot of new kids into the scene won't think that's a hardcore record. But it was. And then Hardcore Evolved. But that was a hardcore album.

[Colin]

And I think if you think that there's no way to deny that it is cool. Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

There's no moment on this record that feels like kids making music. You know, it's like. Or young people even. It's timeless. Great songs ahead of the curve. Do you have any fond memories of putting it together?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, yeah. So getting back to it. So Jim Manke was producing it.

[Colin]

We.

[Brett Gurewitz]

We had very, very little money to make it and so we had to find a cheap studio. And Jim found this place called Track Record. It was on Melrose and he got this deal where they would give us the studio for, like. I think it was like $300. But we had to go in after they closed and leave in the morning before they got there. So we were going in at midnight.

[Colin]

This is a very common thing we're learning about older bands.

[Brett Gurewitz]

We've heard this. So we went in there and did that. And we did it, I think, over two or three nights, evenings. So we must have been in there for like, eight hours until the sun came up, like eight or nine in the morning.

[Colin]

And are you tracking separately or are you tracking?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, we tracked all together. But I think then we would have had to have overdubbed the vocals after. But we were. We were playing together live. And the drummer. By that time, this crowd had already quit the band. And so Pete was his drum roadie or tech friend, whatever. We weren't professional, but Pete could play drums, sort of, and he practiced his ass off. And so he was our drummer on that record, or was it. I think he actually played drums on half the record.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

This crowd quit during the record.

[Colin]

That's insane.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I think it's probably one of his biggest regrets because I'm still in touch with him. But anyway, though, so, yeah, it was really fun. We were really one of our. Maybe our third or fourth recording experience because we'd recorded demos, we recorded the ep, we'd recorded for comps. And I always used to get super nervous recording. I remember one of the vivid memories I can never forget is when Jim would say, okay, recording, and I'd hear in my headphones, my ank. I was standing. You know, we're all standing like we were at rehearsal. My ankles got weak. Like, my ankles started wobbling because I was so nervous that I didn't want to make a mistake on the recording, you know?

[Colin]

You don't feel that anymore?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I mean, you know, I mean,

[Colin]

Now I'm recording LPs later.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, no, I mean, 16. I probably made 300.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

As a recording engineer and producer. Yeah. So now I know if you make a mistake, you just go over it. It's just. You're recording. It's not live, you know, but with the.

[Colin]

With, like, tape at the time. How big of a pain in the ass would punching something in?

[Brett Gurewitz]

It wouldn't have been. It wouldn't have been. I don't think. But. But I just. I was just a dumb kid, and it was just. It was so important to me.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

That, like, sitting there, I'm like, I'm recording my record. Yeah. And my ankles got weak. Yeah. Well, that's cool. Another thing I remember is, like, you know, the studio just had some stuff laying around, right. So, like, there was a timpani sitting there. And so that's how we ended up having. I don't know if you've ever even heard it, but we have a timpani in that song. In the Night. Yeah, in the Night. You know, Pete's like, oh, there's a timpani. Should we. Yeah, let's use it. Cool.

[Colin]

Is that like the. The like acoustic guitar that comes in. In the. In the bridge. If We're Only Gonna Die, is that just.

[Brett Gurewitz]

We always meant to do that. And there was a piano there. And there was. I think, you know, because there was a piano there, we got to have piano on. Fuck Armageddon, this is hell. And on Only Gonna Die, which sounds superb. Good. Yeah. So I'm glad those were happy accidents.

[Colin]

Do you get asked to repress or re release into the unknown all the time. Tell me of the story. What happened with the records in the warehouse?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Bad Religion was pretty popular when we put out into the Unknown.

[Podcast Co-host]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so we. Actually, I think I made 10,000 and we got orders for all 10,000.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right now the record is such an abortion, a musical abortion that, you know, Jay ended up quitting during the middle of making the record. And I. I now fully agree that he was right to do that. It should not have made that record. And I know I'm gonna get people to tell me that they disagree and they really like it. And maybe you'll even say that. I hope not. But anyway, whatever. But I think the people say that to me are just trying to be. They're just trolling contrarian. Yeah. Yeah. But we shipped 10,000. They all came back. Like, no way.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I mean, there's. I think we got. You know, I think we. I don't know how it worked, but I think we got 10,500 returns. Just kidding. Like, you know, it didn't. It sold like nothing.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. So. So it was a great. It was a great failure. Disaster.

[Podcast Co-host]

Are these orders to stores?

[Brett Gurewitz]

To distributors.

[Podcast Co-host]

To distributors, yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

By then I. I figured out that I could sell to distributors instead of driving to stores.

[Colin]

And I mean, it is a completely different band sonically, you know?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah. But it wasn't like. I don't know, you know, it was just. Greg and I had both been fans of Prague before. We went punk around the same time. I was listening to Glam, I was listening to Prague. Those were like the left of center forms of music.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Which I always gravitated to. And. And we had that in common. Like we both liked yes and ELP and King Crimson and so anyway, I don't know what we were thinking, but in 83, the LA hardcore kids were growing their hair long and getting keyboards, right?

[Colin]

Yeah, totally.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Tsol, who we loved and looked up to, had a keyboard, but. But they were. They were going more like post punk with it. Right. Doing like what the British bands were doing. And so I brought a keyboard to rehearsal. Roland. Juno 6 monophonic.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. You couldn't play a chord on it. And Greg was like, cool, now we're doing this. And he started writing songs. He wrote a full on prog song. Yeah, right. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll do that too. It was just. But it's.

[Colin]

You weren't alone though. Because if you go back to like most hardcore or punk band. Most hardcore bands especially the second LP is something else.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Colin]

There's a second lp. Itis that like everybody's got to get through.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. It's like, you know, you dumb kid, you have to learn your lesson. I'm glad I learned it. I'm glad I learned it early. That's what I chalk that up to. You know, it's. Success is not about never making mistakes. It's about never making a catastrophic mistake. Right.

[Colin]

From failure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. As long as you don't make any catastrophic mistake. Yeah. Your mistakes just make you better because you just learn from all of them. So. So that was. That was a really good lesson that we learned early.

[Colin]

And you would leave the band in 1983 to go to rehab.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. So it's. It would be convenient for me to blame drugs on that record or blame that record on drugs. Yeah, sure. But. Yeah, but I would. You know, through all of this that we've talked about thus far, I was, you know, I was a. I was a recreational drug enthusiast.

[Colin]

Oh, enthusiast.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Big fan.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Big fan of it and highly accomplished. Okay.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

All right.

[Colin]

Congrats.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Outstanding in my field.

[Colin]

You got the GED and you're an enthusiast.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I was great at writing punk songs and getting high.

[Colin]

Is there. And this is. This can be discography wide. This may be a crazy question. Is there a song that you can attribute to drug use that you hear and you go, that was fucking awesome. I'm glad I did those drugs that day.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no, no, no, no. Not at all. I mean, drugs don't help me as a. Drugs don't help me be creative.

[Colin]

Excellent. That was a trick question.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. No I mean they. In fact I think I wrote all my best songs when I was clean and sober.

[Colin]

You hear that? Hear that, Hear that shit kids? Straight edge.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I'm not. I'm. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not straight edge, but I'm clean and sober and you know, no shade on straight edge either. But you do not need mood altering chemicals to be creative. In fact, I think it inhibits creativity and I think it inhibits productivity. For those who are straight edge and never tried mind expanding chemicals, I would say you're missing out on something. I do think all the acid and psychedelics I experimented with really opened my mind and made me a better person. I will not say that for narcotics or alcohol or anything like that. Understood.

[Colin]

As far as my head's big enough, I don't need to expand my mind.

[Brett Gurewitz]

All right, we'll talk later.

[Colin]

Pardon this interruption. We gotta tell you about some very important things before we continue this landmark episode with the co founder of one of the greatest bands to ever exist. Speaking of guitars which this man Brett plays, we know a little thing or two about guitars as well.

[Podcast Co-host]

Mm, Bad religion. Good guitars.

[Colin]

Well said. This episode is brought to you by Dunnable Guitars. Which are in my opinion and many others, the guitars for heavy music.

[Podcast Co-host]

Listen, you guys heard of a band called Sanguine Sugar Bog because that's what they play and they sound great. You heard of a little band called God's Hate because Anthony uses one and

[Colin]

Taylor uses one, Alec uses one.

[Podcast Co-host]

They sound fantastic.

[Colin]

They have a variety of different tones and the 25 and a half scale allows for better tuning, stability and lower tuning. So if you're going down to C sharp standard like all, all my favorite bands or if in your you're in east standard like Battle Religion, Dunnable is the move. And you can either find your dream guitar in the Dunnable USA custom shop, design it, make it, spec it out exactly like you see fit, or the more affordable, essential Dunnable de guitars.

[Podcast Co-host]

Dunnable just recently started putting out a seven string guitar. Now a lot of you might be thinking seven string, what do I need that many for? I'll tell you exactly why. Because you can go even lower, even heavier, you know. You know who plays seven string guitars? Little band called Crowbar.

[Colin]

Then who? Who has anybody to argue with that? And they ain't using done them with seven strings yet. Wait till they find out about them. That's gonna change the world may change.

[Podcast Co-host]

That's right.

[Colin]

So head over to the Dunnable site right now. Use code hard lore and get 15% off. This is the. This might be the craziest deal we've ever offered considering what it costs to build a custom guitar.

[Podcast Co-host]

15% off a guitar is insane.

[Colin]

This is insane. Please go now. We're so lucky to ever do anything with them, ever. They're my favorite guitars on earth. They're gonna be yours. This episode is also brought to you by the great Timeless Coffee. The first ever vegan roastery and bakery in America. Founded with the sole purpose of being the pumpkin hardcore hangout. The spot in the Bay area. They ship beans nationwide. You can set up a schedule, you can send them as gifts, you can set up your grind size, your frequency, how often you want your beans, if you want beans at all, if you want some pre ground stuff. It's unbelievable.

[Podcast Co-host]

They got baked goods, the cookies, don't even worry about it.

[Colin]

They're unbelievable. And they ship within 24 hours of being baked.

[Podcast Co-host]

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[Colin]

It's. Everything is possible at Timeless. And if you live in the bay, get a custom cake made. They're insane. I've had them. They look beautiful. These bakers are taking over the world now. Okay?

[Podcast Co-host]

And also, lest we forget, this is an operation owned and operated by punk hardcore adjacent people.

[Colin]

So head over to Timeless Coffee, use code hard lore, get 15% off your order and get caffeinated. Right. The Timeless way. Back to the episode. So between 83 and 87.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Are you. What's epitaph up to? Does the label grow incrementally in this time?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No. So, yeah, so where we left off, I went to rehab. Greg is really diving into his studies at ucla. He's a serious student, always had been. Drug Jeff. I mean, sorry. Greg never messed with drugs. You know, he was around them, but he never did. Never did any.

[Colin]

Do people give him for that at the time?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no, we all. Everyone respected it in the scene and you know, he'd be around it and he was interested in it from a scientific standpoint.

[Colin]

I mean, you know, that tracks analytical.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah. But so I went to. I dropped out of school, took the equivalency, I went to junior college, I went to art school, I went to vocational school to learn recording. I was just trying to find my path.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And. And I really loved recording. I discovered I really loved sound recording. Yeah. And I started doing a lot of that and I started a recording studio with my friend John Girdler and then with the D G I R D L E R. And so I was doing a lot of recording. Greg was doing a lot of going to school.

[Colin]

Smart stuff.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yep. And you know, Greg called me up. We hadn't, we hadn't done anything for a few years. And so I guess it was around you say between 83 and 87. Yeah. Yeah. So I got clean and sober April 14, 1987. Wow. And that was the first time I got clean, which. And so I just gotten clean. And I get a phone call from Greg. He's like, hey, man, you know, the band's been playing the whole time. Hudson kind of started, took my place as the full time guitar player. A lot of people think Battle Religion always had two guitar players, but it wasn't, it was just I was a guitar player. Greg did a solo on, on the first lp, but he wasn't, you know, when we play live, it was just you. It's just. Yeah, just one guitar. And then. And then when we sort of broke up after into the Unknown, Greg kept the band going. Greg Graffin with Greg Hetson on guitar. Right. And they would just do sporadic shows on and off.

[Colin]

And would they play mostly? How could it help me Any worse stuff?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Nobody. Into the Unknown only got ever. A couple songs got played at a couple of shows, right?

[Colin]

Yeah, they got the message.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. So Greg goes, hey, we have a show at Gilman street and Hudson can't do it. Will you do it? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. And he's like, oh, come on, it's fun. You won't believe how big the, the crowds are. Kids go off. It's super fun. It's way bigger than it ever was. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, like, well, all right. You know, I've just gotten clean and sober. I was like, I was in my studio, you know, so like, okay, let's do it. So we played a show. Gilman. It was super fun. Right.

[Colin]

I mean that's still like the best room for hardcore music on earth to this day.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, it's great. It's a great club. And so. So that happened and then we sort of dipped our toe back in by doing the Back to the Known EP by saying Back to the Known was sort of our wink of saying like, okay, just kidding, you know, like, can we have a do over? Right.

[Colin]

How was that received?

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was received fine. Okay. And it was, it was an okay record. I. I don't know why we re recorded the song from the ep, but sort of like we're still figuring things out. Yeah. But then what started happening was that my Studio was doing well. Like, I was recording tons of bands. You know, art bands, noise bands, punk bands, country bands. Like anyone who's sort of underground in the, like the LA scene, were using my studio. It was really cheap. It was $15 an hour. It's called West Beach Recorders. $15 an hour, you got me and the studio and I was doing the recording.

[Colin]

That's McDonald's rates now.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I know. I mean, I was barely. I could. I could hardly live off what I was making, but it was like I was probably working 80 to 100 hours a week just recording. Recording. We loved it. I loved it. I was getting really good at it by doing so much of it. And I started to get a reputation. Like, you know, you want to get a good sound for cheap, go here. Like, if you had 150 bucks, you know, you could get in my studio for 10 hours. So for 300 bucks, if you knew your music, I could make you a record in two days. I can make a record for $300. I was doing that for bands.

[Podcast Co-host]

And do you think, was it like, hey, the guy from Bad Religion?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, it wasn't that so much yet. Because we hadn't done suffer yet. But, but, but I was cutting my teeth. I was like, you know, so I was making all these good sounding recordings for other people. So then. So when Greg in 87ish said, hey, let's make another album, I was like, fuck yeah, let's do it. I'll record it. I can make it sound good. Yeah. You know, because punk records didn't really sound good except Ramones and the Clash and the Pistols, you know, like most punk records had sounded bad prior to that.

[Colin]

87 is kind of when they start to sound like age of quarrel. 86 sounds really good.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Colin]

And then like anything, all the Don Fury stuff, late 80s.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Suffer sounds unbelievable.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Suffer sounds good.

[Colin]

It sounds fun.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I had spent 10,000 hours learning how to record other people's bands just because I love doing it. Yeah. And so I'm like, yeah, let's do that. So then the band agreed to do it. And so now we were two guitar players because we wanted to keep Hudson in. And even though Circuit directors were circle jerks were still going, so. And with two guitars we sounded really good. Yeah. And Hetson was a way better guitar player than me. And so.

[Colin]

And the jump. Come on, you know. Yeah, he's a jumping bean.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, he's got a good jump. Weird. And he had. And he. And he invented it.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Both Greg's had hair at that time still had hair.

[Podcast Co-host]

So where did the harmony come from? Bad Religion is a band that has a signature type style of harmony.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, it came from the adolescence.

[Colin]

A good answer.

[Brett Gurewitz]

That's where it came. But where. Where did those come from? Yeah, it came from the. The Beach Boys. Okay. Wow. You know, California. You know, we all grew up on. On the Beatles and the Beach Boys growing up in California, and Adolescents were my favorite band in the scene. And, uh, I tried to do that style of stuff on How Could Hell Be Any Worse. Like a couple of the songs like White Trash, Second Generation and. And also American Dream. Like, we. We did a little bit of harmonies and background vocals, the oohs and ahs. Yeah, yeah. We did a little on How Could l Be Any Worse? And I was trying to be like the adolescent.

[Colin]

You really dialed it in.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. So when we did Suffer, I knew I wanted to do that. And so we did suffer and recorded it in seven days. Greg and I wrote it over the course of, I would say, two months where we were going to rehearsal. We'd each bring two songs in each time, teach it to the band, go home. Two weeks later, have a rehearsal, two new songs, go home.

[Colin]

Now, when you bring in a song.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Is it lyrics, melodies, done, everything.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. So I have to teach it. I bring him in. I write down the chords on a piece of paper, and then I would write down Greg's lyrics for him. And if I. To show him the melody, I would sing it. Although I had my studio by then, so sometimes I could demo without him, but I didn't have, you know, like, usually not usually I just bring the chords and, you know, I give him the song, then I would sing it and he'd be like, okay. And then he'd do it 20 times better. But you get the idea of. But yeah, yeah, they're finished songs. You can play them on acoustic guitar,

[Colin]

you know, so Sephir comes out and is like this big restart button for the band. It's like this.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You for the band, but also for the scene.

[Colin]

For the scene. And the label.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, yeah, I mean, the label, right. 100. Yeah. So that year, that was the year that Op Ivy, what was the record Energy and Suffer came out. And then maybe they came out pretty close. Theirs came out, I think, the following year, but like six months later. But yeah, everyone Suffer was Beloved Flipside, which was sort of like the bible of the LA scene, called it Best Album of the Year. And Maximum Rock and Roll, which is the bible of the East Bay scene, called it Album of the year also.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And it's sort of. It was the album that year and it was, you know, if you went into a parking lot of a punk rock show that you heard it coming out of every window and people are hanging out in the car before going in. And yeah, we. Everything started blowing up from there.

[Colin]

Do what you want as a. As the punk ethos statement in 1988 is all anybody was looking for, you know.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I. You know, I wrote that song and it took me 10 minutes. I wrote it while I was recording some other band in the other room. And then we would take a break and I wrote it, I wrote it.

[Colin]

Now when that happens, are you just like. There's the melody and there it is in my mind. I gotta get this.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I write the riff, I write the music and then I start going. And then I come up with the words and I sing the words on top and it was like, you know, know. So.

[Colin]

Jesus Christ.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And but the other thing that that thing did was that everyone wanted to get that sound cuz they heard that was done at west beach, you know. And so all these bands started going like, oh, that. You know, this B stuffer is so good. Have you heard it? Let's go record at west beach, right? So the bands would come in and to. Because they wanted to sound like that. You could, you could get me for $15 an hour, right? Or maybe by then it was $20 an hour.

[Colin]

Rate's gotta go up.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, but I mean it was super cheap and like any. You know, so. So I didn't. Wasn't like doing A and R for Epitaph. Bands were coming to me because they wanted to.

[Podcast Co-host]

I see.

[Colin]

So are they recording with you? And then you hear L7 or the vandals make something cool and you're like, this is good. I'll put it out.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, Kind of like no effects. I didn't. Had never heard of them. But they booked time in my studio and went in and recorded Liberal Animation, right? And I was like, hey, let's put this on Epitaph.

[Colin]

They're like, no.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Like, okay. But then.

[Colin]

Which is crazy because he's like, suffer is the reason I like music.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right? But then S and M. Then, then after that, like not shortly thereafter, he's like, hey, just kidding. Let's do. Let's be on Epitaph. So then, then we did S and M. Airline. And then, you know, so the rest is. And you know. And then Tim. Tim Armstrong called me up because they dropped off Ivy. But he. But he had suffered. He was like, I wanted to sound like that, you know? So he called me up when Up Ivy broke up and said, hey, Brett, Tim, can I. You know, I've got a new band with Matt. We want to be on Epitaph. I'm like, yep, let's do it. Whenever you're ready. Okay. Like, I'm in the Salvation army right now, but getting sober. But, like, as soon as I get out of here, like, you know, do you need to hear music or anything? Nope. Like, you're my favorite punk songwriter. Whatever you and Matt do, it's on Epitaph, you know, so. So, you know, it's like sort of that record was the catalyst, and it sort of accelerated everything that was happening. Because the punk scene was sort of dormant at that time. A little dead in the late 80s.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And it sort of exploded again with that moment.

[Colin]

And then a year later, you do it again.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. It was so fun and so easy that. So fast. I only had to write seven songs, you know. You know, and. And I'd spent a long time not writing anything. And really creative. Greg's creative and prolific. We can write punk songs, you know.

[Colin]

Sure. Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So no control.

[Colin]

One year later.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. And the sort of the mission statement for that one is, let's do Suffer Again, but make it even faster.

[Colin]

And it really is.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Because, you know. Right. But here's the thing. We had learned our lesson. Right. We made. How could hell be any worse.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And everyone liked it. And then we up by changing it and changing up. So we're like, let's fucking not do that again.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Everyone loves Suffer. Let's make Suffer, but even faster.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So, you know, we learned our lesson and we went back in. We tried to make something that was. That was catchy again, but even harder

[Colin]

and faster with bigger melodies, more harmonies.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. More energy.

[Colin]

Is there a conversation about what should open between Big bang and change of ideas? Is that why they're one and two?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No. When we see. I think back then, I was sequencing the records, and then later it became more of a collaboration. But I look at sequencing especially for punk records, where the songs are so short is almost a form of songwriting.

[Colin]

100%.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So. So sort of like it was just. I just would throw them together in different ways and say, what's. I listen to the end of a song and the beginning of a song. What sounds good going into that, what sounds good coming out of that and just shuffle it around until I thought it sounded good and then play it for the Guys and say, do you like this?

[Podcast Co-host]

It's chapters of a book if it's out of order.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But I can give you. I. I can tell you what Change of what starting with Change of Ideas was all about. Tell me. Okay, so the intro to Change of Ideas did that. Have you noticed that any other punk songs starting in that exact way? No, no. The exact way.

[Colin]

Oh, so not.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Tell Me what We do is Secret by the Germs.

[Colin]

Oh, wow. Okay, okay.

[Podcast Co-host]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

That was our tribute, man. We love the Germs, the most influential hardcore record, the proto hardcore record that started it all. So that, you know, that's us. That's our nod to the Germs.

[Colin]

Beautiful.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah, we were just talking about.

[Colin]

Makes a lot of sense.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

Are you seeing all this. All this stuff happening at the time, the busyness in the studio, the reception of both of these records, being contacted by bands, putting more stuff out on. On the label. Are you seeing this as a. Oh, like. Like we're doing something. Something's happening here. Or is it all happening so fast that you're just kind of doing the next thing every day?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Look at. I was like. When no Control came out, I was probably, you know, 18 months or 20 months clean and sober, right? So, like, for me in my life right then, it was. It was all about, like, chop wood and carry water. Like, I was like, okay, I've been a up for my whole life. I'm just trying to, you know, I'm trying to get my together here. So, you know, I was. I was. I was working hard. I was being diligent. I was, you know, I was meditating every day. I've always been into meditation. I was like, you know, I was just, like, keeping my nose clean, keeping my head down and doing the work and doing everything with integrity, you know, And I didn't really see it for what it was, you know, I couldn't

[Colin]

zoom out and know what was it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I couldn't know what was happening, you know, but. But I knew that my life was. Was better. Things were going well, you know.

[Colin]

No Control is still at the top of Bad Religion's popular releases on Spotify, still top three in the essential albums on Apple Music. How does this impact resonate with you almost 40 years later? And did you feel at the time you'd made something special, especially with it being so soon after Suffer?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I knew no Control was a good record, but. But that. That feeling of, like, holy, what did we just do? Yeah, I. We had that on Suffer.

[Colin]

Really?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. When me and Jay, I Remember, me and Jay were driving home from Tijuana. We had played a gig at a legendary club down there called Iguanas and where, like, some insane punk shows happened. And we were driving home, a pretty long drive, and we were listening to stuff on the. On cassette. And, you know, we listened to it all the way through, you know, went side one, flipped side two, and we both looked at each other because we had just finished it. It wasn't even out yet. And it was just like, is that. Is that us? Is that. Yeah. Like, is that really. Like, did we really do that? Like, it just seemed otherworldly and it seemed really good. And it didn't seem real. It seemed kind of unreal.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so. And then I think, you know, no Control. It felt like a big achievement, but because sort of, I think Suffer had set the. The. The standard. It felt good that, like, it was a proof. The Suffer was a proof of concept and no Control was proof that it was sustainable.

[Podcast Co-host]

Sustainable.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Like, fuck, we can do this. Like they.

[Colin]

We.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Like, we can do this to.

[Colin]

The wheels come off and you and the wheels. The wheels have yet to come off.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

That's maybe the most insane thing. I think Bad Religion is maybe the band in history that has done the most with the least, if that makes sense.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. It's crazy.

[Colin]

You really never. You've evolved.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Colin]

You haven't changed. And that's the secret.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I just. I can't believe that, you know, the great Ramones are, you know. You know, almost all of them passed away. Yeah. You know, this just doesn't seem fair. So many great bands are no longer with us and. Yeah, Bad Religion is still just raging.

[Colin]

Raging and still writing great music.

[Brett Gurewitz]

All I can say, you know, I don't know to attribute. It's just luck and I'm just. And all I can have for that is gratitude, you know, love it.

[Colin]

Is there a song you can recall from any album that Greg brought in that gave you the feeling that. Like your own personal feeling of songwriting. Goosebumps. Satisfaction, as if you had written it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. No Control, you know, like title track. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just. I think the. The friendly competition between Greg and I, or the brotherly competition is what has helped us get better as writers. Because he will write a song and I'll just think, God, I wish I could write a song that gave me goosebumps like that. You know, in the old days, there was a song that did it which. The one off. How could it be any worse that he wrote that. I always felt as I couldn't believe how good it was. Was this pity, you know, it's like so profound. Just the way it feels, you know?

[Colin]

And especially for the time.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, for the time. Yeah, yeah. But he kept updating up in the ante, but same thing happens to him because sometimes he'll send me a song, you know, he'll be like, that's a good Greg song, you know, And I'll be. And then I'll be working on my song, and he'll wait till he hears this, you know, and then I'll send him my songs and he'll be like, oh, okay, I'm raising the bar. And then he sends me his next

[Colin]

song and like, oh, can you recall one that you sent him that really just knocked his socks off?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I think when we were doing Process of. The Process of Belief and we started writing and I sent him Supersonic, I think he was like, oh, okay, it's on.

[Colin]

Yeah. And it really was. It really was. Let's see. Let's go here. As soon as. I think this is interesting on that topic. As soon as I'm listening to Bad Religion and I think I can guess which one you wrote it is when I'm finally wrong. Like, is there certain things you do where you're like, greg's gonna like that. That's some shit he would do and vice versa?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I. Well, I mean, I do think about him when I'm writing and I think about him that he's going to be singing it.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so I am careful to not put words in his mouth that he'd be uncomfortable with. And so sometimes altruistically, but. But I'm. When I'm writing, I'm writing about my own truths. And that's really important to me. So it doesn't have to be something that I don't have to try and decipher what his truth is. I'm fine with him conveying a truth that is mine, as long as I don't think it's to be too uncomfortable with him. So, like, for example, there are times where I'll write something where I'll be like, I hope he doesn't mind this, like in Digital Boy. You know, synagogue. My daddy's a lazy middle class intellectual. My mommy's on Valium. So ineffectual. Now, that's not specifically true about my parents, but I was getting to deeper underlying truths about, you know, teenage alienation in the household and so forth. But his parents aren't anything like that at all. You know, his parents Aren't.

[Colin]

I think you're talking about the digital boy. You're not talking. It's not. It's, you know.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, but I'm always trying to get to a truth, you know, so. So with that one, I wanted to. I hope he's not going to mind saying that because, you know, I love his mom, Marcela. I always loved his dad, and I don't want them to get mad at me for making Greg say that.

[Colin]

I've never even thought about that.

[Podcast Co-host]

I'm sure they understand hyperbole.

[Colin]

So no Control title track is the one that knocks you.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I just thought it just.

[Colin]

So does he come in with no Control?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, yeah. It's all in. It's all there.

[Colin]

Good job, Greg. You guys are good. The band's pretty good. You would eventually be in the Tony hawk's Pro Skater 2 soundtrack.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Did that move the needle at all?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I can song you. Yeah, yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

I can tell you that was absolutely, without a doubt the first time I heard Bad Religion as a young guy.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Interesting. Yeah, yeah, that. That was a great. That was a great sync placement for us because it introduced a lot of people to us.

[Colin]

100 to punk overall, which is.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

True.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that was a breakup song. I just. It didn't. It was one of these. Was like, you know, it was. It's just.

[Colin]

Must have been a tough one.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was. But. Yeah, but it was just sort of like, you know, I didn't think I was writing a great song. I just thought I was like getting. Just venting.

[Podcast Co-host]

So why was that song chosen?

[Colin]

Was there a particular Mr. Hawk was into?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I don't know why. I don't remember that. But th. By the way, me and. Me and Tony Hawk have the same birthday.

[Colin]

That's why I was chosen.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Wow. It's just a weird trivia. But he was born on May 12th also, and we're still in touch after all these years because he's continued to support punk music. Yeah. By continuing to put, you know, punk songs in the every later iteration.

[Colin]

25 to life in there, man. He's the real one.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Every once in a while, you know, every time he's got a new one coming out, he's like, hey, Brett, what's like the cool new punk.

[Colin]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Podcast Co-host]

Put in a good word for us. We'd love to help him out with that.

[Colin]

There's a break in. I want something more. I want something. And it sounds like you cut the tape and then like splice it back together. How how did you get that to sound that way? And what. What is that?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, Well, I might. I used to do a lot of tape editing, so I might have just done that. But also. Yeah, no, I think the way. I don't think I would have used an edit for that. Although I could have done that by putting in a piece of leader. But I had a Soundcraft 2400 console, which, if anyone can find one of those, they're killer for rock music and they're not expensive or anything. Full Moon Fever by Tom Petty was made on the same shitty console. They sound. They just sound great for drums and guitars. But. But it has this. This. This mute matrix where every channel had an A mute and a B mute. And then on the master console, on the master control panel, you had a master A or B. So you could set up. Put everything on a mute, like mute A and. And then go pink.

[Colin]

So is that you doing that?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I'm sure. I'm sure that's what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. We had no automation or no computer, so we just used to. That's awesome. You know, we used to have, like.

[Colin]

It sounds like the hardest stop and then. Come on.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

For anybody.

[Brett Gurewitz]

We.

[Podcast Co-host]

We actually might have younger people watching. You don't realize, like, when we're talking about cutting tape, it's literal tape. It's literal tape cutting with a razor blade.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Pasting.

[Podcast Co-host]

Or was it a tape?

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was a tape. A piece of. It wasn't audio tape, but you tape it with editing tape on the back to connect the spices.

[Podcast Co-host]

And you can. A lot of older recordings, you can hear it.

[Colin]

It's in there.

[Podcast Co-host]

It's in there.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You can't hear all the ones I did, man. You should. There's a no effect song that has, like, probably 30 edits in it.

[Colin]

30 tape edits.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Because Smelly, who's got the best, like, right foot in punk rock, like, is a great drummer, but back then he was only good at fast. And then this one song that was mid tempo and he. He had. It had a lot of drum fills in it. Oh, and. But he'd always speed up. He'd always rush to fill.

[Colin]

Let's go fast.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So I literally had them record it like 12 times. And then I got their best take. And then I just took drum fills that were in the right tempo and cut them from other takes into that take for every single drum film. And now that's what everybody does. I was really good at tape editing.

[Podcast Co-host]

There's a pretty blatant one on wherever I May Roam on the Black Album.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Interesting.

[Podcast Co-host]

That's always pointed out that Bob Rock, whoever. I forget the name of the engineer on that one, but they kind of fucked it up. It's pretty, pretty loud. Yeah.

[Colin]

One Year later Once again, against the Grain. Okay, you do it again. You do it fast as hell.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

How.

[Brett Gurewitz]

What do you mean?

[Colin]

How did you do that so fast?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, oh, oh. You don't mean the tempos, you mean.

[Colin]

No, no, no.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I mean literally, Greg and I are prolific. We can write, you know, I mean, it's not hard for us to write. Neither one of us have ever had writer's block. Thank you for asking me that. But yeah, I mean, we like to write. And, you know, I feel that the fact that I can do it helps me in my role as a label president big time. Because, you know, when I get. I sign bands and they're. They're demoing songs and I'll say, like, hey, how's the writing going? Oh, well, I have, you know, 20 songs with music. But no, I haven't come up with lyrics yet. That's. Dude, you know, it's not a song if it doesn't have lyrics. Write a song, demo it. Let's, you know, Come on.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know, like that. That. That's just fear. Yeah. That's just resistance. Right. You write some music and not put. Put words on it. You're not songwriting. Right. Your song is, is. Is the whole thing.

[Colin]

It's, I mean, melodies and lyrics.

[Brett Gurewitz]

80. And what. And what you want to say.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right. You've got to sound.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

Do you believe that to be a ubiquitous truth For. For every band. That's how.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, that's. That's my. I mean, that's my rule of thumb. I'll say to the band. Yeah. Don't. You know, because when you write your piece of music, you've got to put your, you know, write your melody. Some people write the melody in the words first. I can't do that. It's hard. But either way, whatever you're starting with.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You immediately have to do the other piece, right? Because when you have your music and then you put your. Your. Your melody and. And ideas on top, right? Then. Then. Then you have something that you can think about, right? And then you'll say, okay, it's not great yet. Why? Okay, let me tweak the music.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Okay. Okay. Oh, now that took in this direction. Now I can tweak the words. You go back and forth between the two, and that's how your song comes into focus.

[Colin]

Do a lot of bands try to fight you on? Because obviously, as the label guy, as a great songwriter, you're, you're gonna have an inclination on what a good single will be.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

And are there a lot of time they just like, no. And then you go, hey, American Jesus. It's pretty good. Trust me.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I do, I do not pull that card. I never pull any card. But I, but I, I, I don't get in fights over the singles. But a lot of bands, a lot of times it's obvious what the single is. Yeah. And then if you have, if, if, if, if there are too many choices that are the single, that means you don't have a single. And usually if there's two or three that you, you can't figure out between those three, then I'll let them pick. I'm not, you know, like, there's no, there's no right answer. But I have a really good, you know, method of picking a single. And that is just like. I get goosebumps.

[Colin]

The CBGB's.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I like. It just makes my skin, makes my, you know, makes the hairs on my arm raised when I hear the same.

[Colin]

It is fascinating sometimes to look back at Bad Religion records and see what was first and second single where, like, sometimes the breakout hit is the third single.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Sometimes it's Process of Belief where it's just sorrow and you don't anything else. Yeah, that's fascinating. Against the Grain, no radio play, no TV play, 100,000 records sold.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So my memory of against the Grain is, you know, that year the biggest punk bands in the world were Bad Religion and Fugazi. And we were both selling around a hundred thousand records. And we're both could sell out the Palladium and, you know, had different styles, but we're, we're, you know, and of course, there was no radio because punk had not been played on the radio yet ever.

[Colin]

So other than Ricky in the Morning or whatever it was called.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Rodney, Rodney on the Rock at Midnight. Yeah, right, right. Specialty radio, that's what they call that, specialty shows. But that's not, you know, radio play. And for the audience, it's a different world. There's no streaming, you know, there's no Internet, there's no smartphones. There's no way to discover music other than hearing it on the radio or hearing them play it at the record store or hear it at your friend's house.

[Colin]

But this is just 100,000 people going to the store and picking it up.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Good job.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Thank you.

[Colin]

21st century digital boy, it was one of the greatest punk hits of all time. How did that feel to just finish and present to Greg?

[Brett Gurewitz]

It felt. It was. I felt insecure about it because it wasn't fast. And we'd sort of set that as one of the rules. Like we only play fast songs and I wanted to do one that wasn't fast and I, I brought it to rehearsal. Our sound guy at the time, Carrot, or his other nickname was Rudy, goes, you can't do that. You can't play that song. That's not punk.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

He literally told me that in front of the guys.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so I mean, I think him saying that to me made me defend it. I said that?

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know, I say it's punk. Says punk.

[Colin]

That means that makes it extra punk.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

No rules.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, fuck that. We're doing it, you know, so. But I was insecure about it.

[Colin]

Interesting. That's fascinating because you step out of the context, you would never think.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, but. Well, because bands are always. And I was no different. Bands are always insecure about the one that sounds different and. But the thing is, why is a single called a single? It sounds different, sounds different. It doesn't sound like the other one. And that, that it's a single that

[Colin]

would singular Tone of Bad Religion has like one or two maybe three mid tempo songs per record. You're playing them every show because they're very popular.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

And it's. Cause you don't overdo it maybe that it works so well to this day. What is touring for Bad religion like by 1990?

[Brett Gurewitz]

So it was massive in LA, massive in New York, massive in Chicago. You know, kind of like, you know, medium sized shows in between those places. You know, I'd say, you know, pretty big in all the west coast, but huge in Germany. Bad Religion had blown up in Germany even sooner. Like we blew up in Germany on the self for record and we were like, we could play like palladium sized places. Wow. Everywhere in Germany, like we're this huge phenomenon there.

[Podcast Co-host]

Well, yeah. What would you attribute that to?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I don't know. Yeah. I mean they just loved it, you know.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

Had had other punk bands in your world been going to Europe at that time. I know. Black Flag. Yeah, famously.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. No, a lot of bands were and American punk was getting popular there. Okay.

[Colin]

But I mean it became the like second home to all of New York hardcore for 15 years.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. American hardcore got popular in Germany, but Bad Religion were the biggest band to the point where, you know, we were playing like, like Rock star level places all over Germany. Yeah, Tour. Tour buses, like big rigs with our equipment in the kitchen, you know, like bringing around a ping pong table and setting up in the arena.

[Colin]

True punk luxury.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Yeah. Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Okay.

[Colin]

And then the States. It still was taking a minute to.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, I mean, it was huge in the big cities.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know, but.

[Colin]

But yeah, but Springfield, Missouri.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, Springfield, Missouri. Played for probably 500 or something.

[Podcast Co-host]

I'd kill for that.

[Colin]

That's crazy. Right around the corner is Generator.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

This is a bizarre experience.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Are we gonna do every record? We'll be here till tomorrow.

[Colin]

Yeah, we'll speed through some of them, but. Yeah, I want to talk about them.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Okay.

[Colin]

The title track, Are you back on drugs here?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no.

[Colin]

Crazy song and so.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, the song. Generator.

[Colin]

Generator.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Colin]

You're not back on drugs.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Colin]

Good for you, man.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

This was this record.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I never made any record on drugs.

[Colin]

Is this one.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, I mean, except how could LB work?

[Colin]

Okay, is Generator when you finally stop recording things live or is this still somewhat recorded?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, recorded live, but I just moved west beach into a new studio, so that's why it sounds different. The first record I made at the Hollywood Boulevard location for west beach and I was learning the room and we had a new board. I had a Trident series board, ADB instead of my soundcraft.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So it does sound a little weird. And I don't love the sound of that recording. Although I made. Later I made records on that in that room that I love. Like I made the let's Go record there. Although I tracked it at Fantasy, but I mixed it at Speech.

[Colin]

What comes to mind when I just say the word Generator? Positive experience. Negative experience.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, positive. Yeah, yeah.

[Colin]

Two songs from this session were on a split 7 inch with Noam Chomsky.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

How. What happened there?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, it was the Gulf War. It was the first Gulf War and we were anti war and we were also, you know, friendly with the guys over at Maximum Rock and Roll. Timmy Ohannon, the Gilman Street Crew, the whole East Bay crew were very anti war punks in general back then. Were, you know, none of them had been excited by the MAGA idea yet.

[Colin]

But are they? Yeah, now they can't believe it, but

[Brett Gurewitz]

are they now they're thrilled with it.

[Colin]

Are they big, like philosophy and linguist heads, you know?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, but Noam Chomsky is a. Is probably the most notable American political dissenter of, you know, and so I think the idea came from Maximum Rock and Roll, who they have their own label and they put out records. They wanted to. So they hit me up and they're like, hey, we want to do a. We're doing. Out of spoken word, seven inch with Noam Chomsky. You want to be on it? And I was like. And I. You know, I mentioned before that Greg and I are both into science and philosophy, and so I was aware of his writings, and I thought that would be an honor to do that. So I wrote the song Heaven Is Falling as a war protest, specifically to be on that split seven.

[Colin]

That's awesome. Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Any more words about Generator before we

[Brett Gurewitz]

move on generating the record? Well, it's the first record with Bobby share on drums.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so it give. It. Gave it a different quality in that sense. He's a great drummer. Many people say that he's their favorite Bad Religion drummer. Yeah, I love Bobby. Bobby's a great drummer. So, you know, that record's a great showcase of his stuff, and it let us do different things because of his vibe as a drummer, and he's like a great swing when he drums and. Yeah, I just. I think we were just stretching a little bit. Oh, that record we had, Eddie Vedder.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

From Pearl J.

[Colin]

He's on Recipe as well, right? Oh, on Watch It Die.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh. Oh, wait, he's not on. He's not on Generator at all. So I'm mixing.

[Colin]

We'll get there. We'll get there in a minute.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, Same studio. I'm like. I'm back there in west beach, but. Okay. Yeah.

[Colin]

1993, recipe for hate.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Unbelievable. The success of American Jesus. Did that individually as a single change things for the band much?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I mean, that song was. Became a popular song in the punk scene and one of our popular songs live, but it wasn't a huge song in any sense. Like, it wasn't ever played on the radio. It wasn't a radio hit. There was no streaming. Streaming didn't exist. So you couldn't tell how many people were playing that song compared to other ones. So all we knew is, you know, that was a song.

[Colin]

The live show.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. It went off live.

[Colin]

Okay. Yeah. That's all it matters.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's definitely definite awareness that, like, that it was a popular song. And Greg and I, you know, I think we knew we came up with a good one on there, and that was a joint. And that's my favorite video, too, for that song.

[Colin]

Great.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I think that's my favorite Bad Religion video. And my buddy Gore Verbinski, who's a great movie director and producer. Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, he shot that video.

[Colin]

Unbelievable. My favorite record changes a lot, but Recipe and Generator are kind of always in the top five, so. Cool.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I love those two too.

[Colin]

You guys are doing great. 1993 not only marks a big change and a big year for Bad Religion, but Epitaph is on the verge of massive game changing success.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Walk me through 1993 and what the label is experiencing at this time and what you're experiencing.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, so the label's really growing. I think we have three or four bands. They're selling like in the range of 100,000 records with every record. And that was, you know, no Effects. Bad Religion, the Offspring on their first record, Ignition, were selling around 50, 60,000 records. We also had Rancid, we also had Pennywise. So it was almost like, you know, the stuff we were signing was, was all. It was working. It was. Yeah, everyone was liking everything and all the bands were doing well and, and the label gotten to the point where I couldn't just run it out of the back of my studio. I used to have run Epitaph out of my West Beach Recorders office. And then I kept our records in a storage space under the freeway, under the 101 there, where Gower goes under the 101. Wow. So I used to drive there in my Volvo station wagon and get records out.

[Podcast Co-host]

Oh, wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So and put them on the truck. It would have to pull into the studio parking lot, you know, so, so we'd have outgrown that by 93.

[Colin]

Is this when you get the Silver Lake office?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no, it's before that. I, I, we, I got this little like garage warehouse space on Santa Monica Boulevard. And that was the office and the warehouse. And I was going between there and the studio and we had a few employees. It was very small, but, you know, it was, it was a good time. Like, but it's still. The cell phone had not been invented, so, so like when I went on tour, it was literally like, you know, Jeff Abarta, my first employee, would be like, all right, you're in charge. Good luck, see you later. Sorry I'm gone. You know, I'd be playing guitar.

[Colin]

If you're not on tour, you're still just super hands on at this time.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, I'm still super high hands on now. That's good. Yeah.

[Colin]

Where does struck a nerve Sit amongst your, your Greg song favoritism lexicon.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I love that song.

[Colin]

It's a banger.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah. Was that the first Johnette sings on that one with him.

[Colin]

Oh, my God.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's.

[Colin]

That's. Okay, so that's who that is.

[Brett Gurewitz]

That's Jeanette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde. Yeah. I didn't finish this story earlier, but. So Johnette, who introduced us to Jim Mankey, produced our first record. She went on to be Johnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde. So. So our connection to her goes all the way back before. Goes back to the first seven inch.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow, that's awesome.

[Colin]

And then she finally lays down this harmony on Struck a nerve.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. By then she was a rock star because they had that hit Joey with Concrete Blonde by then.

[Colin]

And was this your first. You played this song on Conan. Was this the first TV appearance for Bat Religion?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I don't know. I can't remember.

[Colin]

I gotcha.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I bet you it is.

[Colin]

If you're saying so Eddie Vedder on Watch it Die. How does this happen?

[Brett Gurewitz]

So Eddie Vedder is a super cool dude, was a Bad Religion fan and he used to go see us, you know, we played at Iguanas, you know, in Tijuana, because that's where the San Diego kids would go. He, you know, drive up to LA and see shows at Fenders Ballroom or whatever. So he was a punk kid before he went grunge. And so. And then, you know, we reconnected when Bad Religion got popular and Pearl Jam were popular and we asked him, you know, and he's such a. He's such a down to earth dude. Like, he drove up to West Beach Recorders and his beat down rusty Mazda pickup truck and pulled into the parking lot and came in and sang I watch you die.

[Colin]

Doing his thing. Doing his whole thing. Yeah, the full and is is like 10 out by. By 93.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, he's out.

[Colin]

So they're just.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, he was a big rock star and he just pulled up in his Mazda pickup and sang a song for us.

[Colin]

So how does the Bad Religion on Atlantic conversation start? And is there, is there part of it in your mind? Are you like, why is somebody else going to do this? Is it like to you. Is that like paying another engineer to record your record? At this point, are you against the idea of Atlantic signing Bad Religion?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yes and no. Okay, definitely. Definitely mixed emotions. Yeah. The way it happened was this fanzine writer kid from the scene, Mike Gitter. He'd been around forever. He's still around doing a friend of the show, huh?

[Colin]

Friend of the show?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, you know Mike. Everyone knows Mike. So. So we had known him from being a writer and a fanzine guy, but he was. Had transitioned to being an A R guy at Atlantic. And he hit me up. He's like, hey, hey, Brett, you want to. You know, what do you guys think about being on Atlantic? And so I'm like, I don't know. Let me talk to the guys about it. And, you know, I mean, by this time, I'm, like, wearing so many hats. I've got west beach recorders, I've got Epitaph Records. I'm. I'm. I'm in Bad Religion. But I'm also the guitar player and the songwriter and the recording engineer and mixing engineer.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And producer doesn't take credit for production, and I'm just doing too much shit anyway. But I think in my heart of hearts, what I was hoping is if I asked the band what they wanted to do, they'd say, like, no way. We're never leaving Epitaph. Right. But at the same time, I also was kind of feeling like, you know, well, but if we do do that, it's fine.

[Colin]

Less work for you.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, it's less work for me. And also, you know, maybe. Maybe we can be as big as Nirvana if we're on Atlantic. You know, I don't know if there's a. You know, I don't know if there's a ceiling to what an indie can do.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know, that might be fun to see.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

If something like Digital Boy can.

[Colin]

You've never done it? Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I mean, I want to be a big band, you know, I'm not. You know, people say that's selling out. I don't think it is. You know, like, I think that. I think pump punk music is for everyone, you know, and I'd like them to hear it, you know, I'm not an elitist. But anyway, so I. I was sort of mixed feelings, but then I told the band about it, and, you know, they said, yeah, yeah, let's go for it. So I said, yeah, yeah, let's go for it. It was totally. I didn't ever let the band know that I had any reservations because I. I felt it was a conflict of interest, and that would not have been the honorable thing to do. You know what I mean? Like, I. Because I didn't know if being on Epitaph was holding him back. You know what I mean? Like, I really couldn't know. So. So if they had said to me, no way, major suck staying on Epitaph forever, I would have been like, okay, cool, cool.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But. But if they were kind of like, same as me, like, yeah, maybe let's. You know, it could be cool trying that. Then I wanted to do it, and so you did. So they.

[Colin]

They would. Did they fully buy Recipe from Epitaph?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No. So the deal was because I had already put Recipe for eight out.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Or I was just about to. I had maybe already taken the orders

[Colin]

of on me, and it's listed as a re release. An Atlantic re release. Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, but I released it. Right. So there was a first pressing. Had already come out worldwide.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And then we did a deal where I, Epitaph, would keep it for. I should remember this because it's still. It's still in place, but. Or, no, no, no. I have it for the world again. Okay, cool. But I think Epitaph kept it for one territory and Atlantic released it the other two. So it was either Epitaph had North America and they had Europe, or Epitaph in Europe and we had North America. I can't remember. But so it was a split. Atlantic put it out somewhere and I. I kept it for half the world, and then the next record after that would be on Atlantic.

[Colin]

So Stranger Than Fiction is the first proper fully Atlantic release.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. You know what? I think Atlantic had it for Europe. I had it for North America. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then Stranger Than Fiction was recorded on Atlantic's dime and came out on Atlantic everywhere.

[Colin]

And I had heard that Andy Wallace got the job by doing an unsolicited test mix of American Jesus.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, it was not. I'll tell the story. It wasn't. It was solicited. So Atlantic hits us up. They're like, all right. Hey, you know, are you thinking about producers for your next record? And I had produced every Bad Religion record, to be perfectly honest. I was, like, stoked to be able to pick a rad producer, because as a producer myself, working in my own studio, one thing I always knew is that I was never exposed to other producers, so I could never learn any of their tricks or learn anything from them. Once in a while, when another producer outside producer would come to west beach, and I was like, I would just be the engineer or just be there to assist or whatever. I learned so much. You know, I'd learn all kinds of, like, side chain compression and all kinds, like, killer stuff. Right? So I would just level up so much by working with other producers. As I started sort of really excited about the idea. Andy Wallace had just mixed Nirvana on Nevermind, and he had also just mixed Rage against the Machines album, Sepultura, Arise,

[Colin]

Rain and Blood, Jeff Buckley, Grace. Yeah, yeah, one of the greats.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. But more of a mixer than a producer. But mixing was something I was a big fan of, and I don't think recording's that hard, and I don't think we need a producer to tell us like how to make the chords or

[Colin]

to make the mic.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So I suggested Andy Wallace. But the idea was, hey, let's get him the multi tracks from American Jesus and see how he would mix it to see if we like it. If we like it, let's hire him to produce us. So. Yeah, so.

[Colin]

And that would finally be released on the Christmas songs.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, we had it laying around. That was an idea. Yeah, yeah.

[Colin]

And it sounds great, I guess. Great.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's not. It's not that much different.

[Colin]

No.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Stranger Than Fiction would be the first Bad Religion record to chart on the Billboard 200.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I don't remember. I don't pay attention. I don't even remember that. But that's cool.

[Colin]

My all time favorite battle song changes often, but the one that I. That I go to the most is Better Off Dead.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Really? Oh, yeah.

[Colin]

Well, can you tell me about writing

[Brett Gurewitz]

Better Off Dead, another breakup song?

[Colin]

Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Yeah, you can tell.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Evergreen. You know, that was a. That was a really dark time for me because I was no longer clean and sober. I'd fallen off the wagon. So, you know, I got clean. As I said, April 14, 1987. I stayed clean about seven and a half years. And after the giant success of the Offspring and the label as a whole, just exploding, you know. Oh, wait a minute.

[Colin]

That's coming up.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Hold on. Was I. Was I clean this over for. Yeah, but I said I.

[Colin]

Cause you leave the band, Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

The Offspring are blowing up.

[Colin]

Yeah. It's about to happen.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I.

[Colin]

One year. Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I was off the wagon by then.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But I think.

[Colin]

But anyway, so being off the wagon and this. This gnarly breakup and everything going on in your life.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah. I'm having like the problems like my first marriage and. And grappling with success and the band were not getting along. We're all like super sick of each other by now. We've been a band a long time. Yeah. You know, so. Yeah, it was a rough time and it was a dark time. I was writing dark songs and.

[Colin]

Are you unhappy with the record because of that?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I like the record. It's awesome. Yeah. I mean, I write better songs when. When something's. When I'm really, really upset about something. Yeah.

[Colin]

Who wants to hear punk about a really Happy, fun guy.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no. When something really bad happens, I write a good song.

[Podcast Co-host]

Good shit. Yeah, sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, sure.

[Colin]

1994, huge year for Bad Religion. But you leave the band.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Tell me about this decision. There's a little record called Smash by the Offspring right around the corner.

[Brett Gurewitz]

By the time I leave the band, Smash has come out. Yeah. So what had happened was Epitaph Records was completely blowing up, like I think we were. You know, we just sold 5 million records, most of them. Offspring, Smash.

[Colin]

But first, gold and platinum record for the living.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Gold and platinum record. But all my groups are massive. Bad Religion is huge. My own record is about to blow up and be my first personal gold record. No Effects are huge. Pennywise is huge. I've been working my ass off for about eight years straight. And now. And suddenly. And just working class, nose of the grindstone. Blood, sweat and tears. And now just overnight. Well, not. It feels like overnight, but suddenly I wake up and I'm fucking rich. Right. But I'm really the same person. But it was a very disorienting time.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So that. That's where I was at personally. And the band weren't getting along and. But also Epitaph was requiring just everything I had to figure it out. No one ever told me how to make a company, you know.

[Colin]

And you just wanted to make 2007 inches, right?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

Kept going and going.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I mean, in that year, epitaph probably did $60 million worth of. In business. Jesus.

[Colin]

In 1994.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. And I was off a billion dollars now. I. I was offered. Major labels were circling me.

[Colin]

Oh, yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Trying to buy the company. I was offered $50 million for half the company.

[Podcast Co-host]

Holy.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And I turned it down.

[Colin]

Who offered you that? Mark Cuban?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I'm not saying.

[Colin]

Kevin o'.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Leary. I'll tell you off the off camera.

[Colin]

Barbara Corcoran.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But. But. And I said no to that.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I kept. I kept the company, stayed independent. I was also going through a divorce. I just. I don't know, I didn't think I could keep all the. You know, I had all these plates spinning and I didn't think I could keep them all going and be in a band at the same time.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know, how are you gonna go

[Podcast Co-host]

tour when you have now this huge company?

[Brett Gurewitz]

And I've also got kids at this time and I've got some employees and I'm. I'm 32 years old. I think I've written maybe my best record that I've ever written. I think it's going to be my biggest Record. My band is bigger than it's ever been. My company is bigger than it's ever been. I'm 32, so I'm not a kid anymore. Sort of the. The moral calculus for me is, let's go out when I'm on top. Let's. Let's stop trying to be a punk rock star now and grow up and be a man. This is. This is a good moment to. I'll start doing that.

[Colin]

It's. It's four other people depending on you versus.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Every band on the roster. Every employee, their family.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, but with a. With. With a. Also with a. With a. A healthy dash of resentment, which I'm not proud of, which is. Oh, so you didn't want to be on Epitaph. Well, look at Epitaph now.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know what I mean? It was. I'm not proud of that. That was. It was. I wasn't being my best self, but on some level it was sort of like, okay, the band signed to Atlantic. I did my very best, and I wrote the best record I could write for you, for us. And that's my good. You know, that's sort of my. My, you know, the Epitaph. Yeah, that's my. Well, that's my goodbye note to Bad Religion. And it's a good one. Like, it's positive. It's the best work I could do.

[Colin]

100%.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I didn't. I didn't phone in a shitty album.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. So I gave Atlantic the best album I could make.

[Colin]

And you re recorded Digital Boy on there, Which.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Which they asked me to do.

[Colin]

They asked you to do.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Because they thought it could be a radio hit, you know Atlantic. Yeah, yeah, that's what they said. We think this could be. We think the singles are, you know, infected, obviously, but we think you should. Yeah. And title track. But we think you should re. Record Digital Boy because we think that could have been a. That could have been a hit if it was on Atlantic.

[Colin]

They were right.

[Podcast Co-host]

Were they right?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I mean, it was a minor hit. It was a small hit.

[Colin]

It had a good video.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

You know, the TV I didn't, like, had a bad video.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, oh, oh, that one.

[Colin]

This one.

[Brett Gurewitz]

The Digital Boy video. Yeah.

[Colin]

That's a great video.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I like that video.

[Colin]

It's fun.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But it wasn't supposed to be blue.

[Colin]

It is blue.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So that was supposed to all look like the static.

[Colin]

So it was supposed to be a blue screen thing and they just left.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It didn't work. The stack thing didn't work. So it just ended up with Blue

[Colin]

Blue Men Group were pissed, I'm sure. Yeah. One year later, after this rancid out come the wolves.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Do you get. Are you part of the development of this record or you do you just hear this finished master and think, yeah, let's go?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I was a big part of that.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. The way that happened is Jerry Finn, good friend of mine, legend, and we rp. Yeah. And died way too young. He was a producer and he. He. He took on. He bit off more than he could chew. He took on too much. And so he was tracking them at Fantasy in. In the East Bay. But he had to. He had to. He had a stop date where he had to move on to another record. I forgot which other record he was doing next. And so he didn't get. He got everything finished except the vocals. And then the band were going to New York to Electric Ladyland to do the vocals. Okay. So the band called me up and I finished the record with them. So we actually did everything. So you engineered Alvo engineered and produced and arranged all the backgrounds. Sang on most of them. You know, really. On a lot of those backgrounds. You can hear me.

[Colin]

You can hear. That's. There's the. The Bad Religion coming out.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, but, yeah, me and Lars sang a lot of the high harmonies together. He's the king.

[Colin]

He introduced us.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So.

[Colin]

Thank you, Lars, for ultimately making this happen. Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But, you know, so I. I went in there and recorded with them, all the B3, all the percussion, all the backgrounds, all the lead vocals, vocal comps, everything.

[Colin]

And you hear. Do you hear the singles in the Moment as Time Bomb, Ruby Soho roots?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Definitely. But there's not. I mean, that's crazy. One of the best records ever made. There's no Skips.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know, that's an example of like, you know, that's like the Fleetwood Mac rumors of Punk 100. Yeah. There's not a better punk record.

[Colin]

You re released Poison Idea, Feel The Darkness in 1996.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Hell, yeah.

[Colin]

Is this something you sought out individually or did you acquire the American leather label or something?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no, I. I saw that. I mean, I wanted to sign Poison Idea, really. I couldn't, you know.

[Colin]

Do you still own Feel the Darkness?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I don't remember. But I mean, that song will always be on. On the Punkorama.

[Colin]

You know, Plastic was Plastic Bomb on the Punk Roma.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, it's a song. It's like just Badge Living life Just

[Colin]

to commit away oh, just to get

[Brett Gurewitz]

away yeah Just to get away, yeah.

[Colin]

Slayer Hippie.

[Brett Gurewitz]

What is it? Slayer Hippie fuck. Yeah. I never. I'll never forget. Like, I. He was in town. I put him up in a. In a hotel nearby because I was having him produce one of my other bands. And he was so drunk, he slept through the big Northridge earthquake.

[Colin]

No way.

[Podcast Co-host]

Holy shit.

[Brett Gurewitz]

He fell out of bed. But he didn't think it was because of the earthquake. Holy shit.

[Colin]

Damn, that's awesome.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Now he was a lush, man.

[Colin]

Meanwhile.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

In Battle Religion World, they have replaced you with Brian Baker.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yes.

[Colin]

Are you part of that decision?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Are you aware of it? I think so. I mean, I was. I was happy with it. He's a legend.

[Colin]

That's best case scenario.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're gonna be replaced by someone. You know the guy from Minor Threat.

[Podcast Co-host]

He's the guy.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was great. I was. I was really happy with that.

[Colin]

And in the moment is he. Do you know if he was contributing to Gray Race New America?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I think he was. Yeah. I think in the beginning, he and Greg and the guys work closely. Okay. Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

Why wouldn't you?

[Colin]

And how in contact with them are

[Brett Gurewitz]

you throughout the night? I wasn't. Yeah. I mean, it took a. Like, we, you know, I said some nasty things about them. They said some nasty things about me when I quit. So we were sort of like being brats about it for a few years and.

[Colin]

Brat Garowitz.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, exactly. That's what my wife calls me. Brett the Brat. But around their third record for Atlantic, Greg, you know, Greg and I had been like, talking on the phone and he's like, hey, you know, want to contribute a song? And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I can anymore, but I'll try and written anything in a long time. And so I gave him a song, which I don't think is a great song, but that they. They did and put it on one of their records and then. So. But yeah, no, we weren't in touch when they were making those records. I hadn't even. I hadn't even listened to them.

[Colin]

Have you now?

[Brett Gurewitz]

The songs I know from those records are the ones I played with them.

[Colin]

Yeah, of course.

[Brett Gurewitz]

A walk.

[Colin]

Punk rock song.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Come join us.

[Colin]

Yes. Banger. Banger. So how hands on are you? I know that you said you're still hands on with Epitaph, but you have to delegate at some point. But by like 99, 2000, how much has it changed since 94 when you left that religion?

[Brett Gurewitz]

2000 was a tough time at Epitaph, so we really blew up and we had a lot of employees and we had a lot of infrastructure and you know, like any company, we had radio department, accounting department, royalty department. It was like the real deal. And we had a. We're selling a lot of records and we. By then I had. I had more than one label because I bought Burning Heart records.

[Colin]

Right. Got Hellcat doing stuff.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Hellcat is happening. It was sort of launched as a ska punk label for me and Tim's partnership and then. And we had Anti, which I started a label called Anti, basically, you know, to build that around Tom Waits for things that we do that are. That are interesting but not punk per se.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So there's a lot happening there and it's complicated and doing pretty well. But then, you know, that's around the time the music industry started having trouble because, yeah, Napster came along and then Pirates Bay and the Torrance and the music industry starts to crater and record stores start to close and then Steve Jobs invents the iPhone. Right. What year did the iPhone.

[Colin]

That was seven.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Okay, so not yet. So there's no iPhone yet. Is there an app store yet?

[Podcast Co-host]

There's.

[Colin]

Napster's out.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So ipod. So stuff's. Yeah. So stuff's starting to go sideways in the music business. And Epitaph isn't. You know, I'm making it work, but it's not.

[Colin]

You're not prepared for digital.

[Brett Gurewitz]

We're not growing like a motherfucker anymore.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Like, we're like, I'm grinding it. You know, it's a grind. And it's everything I can do to fucking get everybody, you know, get everyone paid, get them their Christmas bonus. Be a good boss.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You know that. That's where it's at, right? You know, it's sort of, you know, we're looking for that next big record to keep it going.

[Podcast Co-host]

So let me ask you. You kind of have your feet in two different camps as a record label owner, someone who needs records to be bought and sold and distributed and everything. And then as a punk rock. Someone from the punk rock scene.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

Originally. Who probably at the time, I mean, Bad Religion was discovered, as you said, from the taping of a radio show that was kind of, you know, get word of Mouse early piracy in. In a way, I'm just curious. I mean we, we are both in agreement. Agreement that streaming, especially the model that it is today, sucks.

[Colin]

Raw evil, Purit.

[Brett Gurewitz]

The purest evil. Oh my God. Strong. Disagree.

[Colin]

You love it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Love.

[Podcast Co-host]

Fascinating.

[Colin]

You think the value of music is $10 a month of the entire. That's my argument. Is that the fucking. Yeah, okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Historically, the recorded music business has been a disaster for recording artists, for musicians. I don't care how far you go back, right? You could go back to the roots of rock and roll with Little Richard, right? These people didn't make any money, right? You had record companies paying an artist, if they're lucky, 10% of the retail list price. Half the time they wouldn't even get that. They give Chuck Berry a Cadillac and say, you know, good job, kid. Good job, kid. Right? Okay. Wasn't much better in the 60s. Wasn't much better in the 70s. You had these artists. You had record companies ripping off artists and independent businesses who wanted to do better by artists. They didn't have a chance because the major labels were gatekeepers. They would keep you out of stores, right? Stores only bought from a couple distributors who only bought from the major record companies, Right? If you're an indie label, I mean, look at what I had to do in the 80s. I had to drive my car around and put records into stores and come back a week later. They weren't even buying it from me. I was giving it to them on consignment. They would pay me if it sold, right? I mean, just a disaster, literally, for everybody, okay? Except the major labels, right? Who. Who were a monopoly. It's how it always was, right? It didn't get any better with itunes. I mean, suddenly you have a tech company that has a proprietary piece of hardware and then again have gatekeepers, right, where they want to put DRM on the MP3 so you can't share it, right? Okay, Next thing you know, the torrents come. Pirates Bay, mp3 dot com. Suddenly, if you're a college student and you have a hard drive in your dorm room, you can download the entirety of the history of recorded music onto your dorm room's hard drive and have everything for free. Okay? Everybody gets paid zero for that.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So then the value of music is zero. Right?

[Colin]

But it's not much higher than zero now.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, it's much more. I mean, this is so. This is an example of what I call good people having bad ideas. Right? We're in a divided society today. We've got our MAGA friends on the right. Many of them, I think, are good people with bad ideas. I think there are. Some of them are bad people with bad ideas. Don't get me wrong, okay? But good people can have bad ideas. There are. And there are. For an ex, anyway. I think the bad ideas are a result of poor information. And I think the most important thing is that people are open minded to change their view in the presence of new information. I'm here to give you that new information.

[Podcast Co-host]

Please.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Spotify and all the other streaming services for the most part give 70% of their revenue to rights holders. Okay. The rights holder could be a kid in a band who put the song up via distrokid, or it could be a label. Very often if it's the label, sometimes if it's a nefarious indie label or major label, they're not going to pass through enough to the artist. So it's a bad deal for the artist. Right. But what Spotify is doing and what the others, you know, Deezer, all the other ones, they're passing through 70% of their revenue. Now you might say, hey, a million streams only pays $4,000. That's approximately correct. Right. It's not a per stream rate, but that's about what comes in. So a million streams is $4,000, 1000 streams is $4. You could say that's too low. Why is music valued so low? Well, here's the difference. In the old days, a kid would buy, how could hell be any worse, right? He'd buy it on his record. He'd buy it once, he never buy it again, and he'll play it thousands of times over his lifetime. It's just how it works. But the band only ever gets the three buck, three dollar wholesale price that that thing sold for. That is true, right? That's even if they were the band. Right? Right. Okay. Today, thanks to streaming, there are more musicians making a middle class income than ever in the history of music. What I'm talking about is $50,000 a year, $100,000 a year. There are kids making that kind of money. It's not that much. Right. If you're getting, let's say you're doing a million streams a week, right? Okay. There are plenty of kids doing that from their recorded music that made their music on a laptop in their bedroom.

[Colin]

Most.

[Brett Gurewitz]

There's tens of thousands of them doing that today. Right? Okay. A million streams a week is 50 million streams a year. That kid is making $200,000 a year living at home, going to high school.

[Colin]

That's great.

[Brett Gurewitz]

That never existed and it is perpetual value and it will kill. Keep going. Okay, bad religion have 17 albums. Okay? Bad Religion are streaming. You kids, people, your people in the audience, you're going to be able to do the, do the math. Now, Bad religion stream over 4 million streams a week. All right. We're not the biggest band in the world.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

They're a workingclass band. They have a lot of fans. They sell out a stadium in Brazil and in some places, Louisiana. They can do palladiums. But they're a working class band. They work their asses off. And they put out 17, 18 albums over the years. Sure. Right. But Today they're streaming 4 million streams a week. Right. Okay. In the. Under the old model with records. Okay. What record store carries 17 albums from any band? None the record stores would be carrying.

[Colin]

If they do, they return them.

[Brett Gurewitz]

They'd be carrying Suffer and no Control. Maybe Process of Belief. They'd have three records by Bad Religion. That's it. And those other records would never get bought again because the record company couldn't press it if the stores won't stock it.

[Colin]

That is a fast. That's the most fascinating argument we've had.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Pro streaming. It's structurally the best thing that's ever happened. So I view the Spotify boycott. Is Spotify having a terrible PR problem? Yeah. And. And that I feel it's part of my job to just. Just help. Just provide the information, new information.

[Colin]

I think it doesn't help that they're doing anything with like, AI missile defense systems and all that.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Okay, I'll speak to that too.

[Podcast Co-host]

Nice promos.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Okay, so Spotify isn't doing that. Founder Daniel Ek. I don't know him. But their founder, Daniel Eck, got rich of making Spotify.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And he invested in an AI defense company. Okay. So I'm a pacifist. I'm anti war. I don't agree with that. However. Okay. The company is a German company. Germany is a constitutional democracy with marriage equality, trans rights, more liberal immigration policies than the US Has. Right. And they're over there next to Putin, who's invading Ukraine. Yeah. Is it the end of the world that they might be able to defend themselves against authoritarianism? I don't think there's a reason to boycott Spotify. I really like. If he was supporting Putin. Yeah. You know, I'd say, okay, whoa, that's, you know, or if he was, you know, I'm not saying there's not an ideological line and won't, but it's.

[Colin]

But it's an investment for him. And I think is.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right.

[Colin]

Isn't that. Isn't that what's.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Maybe it's an investment, but it's not Spotify. He's. He's the founder of Spotify. It's a personal. It's a private investment.

[Colin]

Is he still part of Spotify.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. He's on the.

[Colin]

Yeah, but that's the, that's where some people have the issue.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Okay. But those same people have a double standard because they're, they're not. They don't care about YouTube.

[Colin]

Sure.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Where more music is streamed than Spotify. They don't care about meta. They're on Instagram all day long. They don't call it. Care about big tech. Right. Spotify is a music company. You know, so. Yeah. So I mean, you show me the board of any company and tell me there's not a guy on there who's invested in decisions you wouldn't boycott.

[Colin]

That is the thing is there. You cannot ethically consume anything.

[Podcast Co-host]

Anything.

[Colin]

Everybody's got their toes in something.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I don't buy that. I mean, but anyway, so you know, I, I'm staunchly on the left of the political spectrum, but I disagree with my friends on the left that, that Spotify is bad. I feel exact opposite.

[Colin]

As a label owner, you would know more than.

[Podcast Co-host]

We don't really have a ground to stand on.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But I'm open minded too. Yeah.

[Colin]

I just don't have all the information. But it's. You said there are more middle class musicians than ever making a living just from their music. But there's probably more. There's a. There's more musicians than ever because it's never been easier. There's probably more musicians than ever.

[Brett Gurewitz]

There's more musicians that you can discover than ever. But here for sure. Here's the problem. Like I hear these guys go, you know, like so often the complaint against Spotify is musicians deserve the right to earn a living. It's like, no, they don't.

[Colin]

You earn the right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Good musicians do. Musicians who make good music do. That is true. Musicians who can play. But there's so much crap out there. You can't say like just because you can make sound you deserve.

[Colin]

No, because you wouldn't have had any distribution before this.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No more of the people with talent have a chance of doing that because of Spotify. Do you know the chance of getting signed to a major label as in the old days? Yeah. Yeah.

[Colin]

All right, well, it's time. When do you get the call to return to Bad Religion? Who makes this idea? Greg. Greg. Okay, walk me through it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, I don't know if he said come back to Bad Religion. I think what happened was he asked me to contribute a song to one of their Atlantic records and that rekindled our friendship and our communication. And then after they Fulfilled their contract with Atlantic. I think they gave them three records. That's what they owed them. They were done with it. And Greg was like, you know, he was talking to me one day. He's like, you know, we're not gonna. You know, it's not family over there. That doesn't feel good, you know. You know, I don't think they know what they're doing. Blah, blah, blah. So then I said to him, well, you guys should do your next record on Epitaph. And, you know, it'll be. It'll be like the old days. I'll write half the songs, you write half the songs. We'll do, you know, we'll do it together. I'll produce. And not only will we make a great record, but there'll be a story, because it'll be like a homecoming, and everyone will be interested in it. So it'll be a moment where everybody's interested in us again, you know, because it's the human interest side of it. It's not just another Bad Religion record.

[Colin]

And Brian will stay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Brian will stay, of course. He'll have, like, the best punk guitarist that ever existed and, you know, the best punk singer. And the chemistry of me and you writing, it'll all be there. And we'll have a moment where it'll be of interest to people and if we can make the right record, it'll be a big moment.

[Colin]

And you really did make the right record.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Thank you. I'm really proud of that record.

[Colin]

Co produced by Ewan Greg formally for the first time,

[Brett Gurewitz]

maybe. Sure.

[Colin]

Recorded at Sound City.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, yep. Yeah.

[Colin]

818.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

And West Beach.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

I think this is one of the biggest musical flexes in history.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Also the introduction of Brooks Wackerman.

[Colin]

Oh, my gosh. Listen, we can talk about Brooks right now.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, my God.

[Colin]

Brooks. Brooks fucked you. In a way. Because Bad Religion was a very kind of reasonable band. To fill in for or find a new drummer for Brooks is insane. Brooks, now, it's a. I agree. Now it's a big task to be, like, the next guy.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I agree. I mean, I feel like getting Brooks at that moment was one of the ingredients of what made that record so magic, because it is adrenalized, you know, and having him in the band allowed me to write in another way, faster than ever. Faster.

[Colin]

Track one.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Faster and more technical. And the thing is, we've been in the punk genre for so long. I'd seen the genre evolve. And I realized, of course, because I run a label, that the. The genre had Become more technical, you know, and so having that. That young energy and his just, you know, he's a prodigy. He's insane. So. So having that technicality as our engine allowed us to make a modern punk album big time. You know, I mean, it. It was competitive. Yeah. And it was more than competitive. It was competitive on the execution, but because me and Greg had been. Were mature as writers, I think on the writing, it was even superior to many of our peers. And it was competitive technically. And so that was sort of a really great chemistry.

[Colin]

Is it a great catharsis?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, yeah. It's just such a fun record to make.

[Colin]

And you mixed it other than Epiphany?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I mixed it.

[Colin]

Why did Jerry Finn mix Epiphany?

[Brett Gurewitz]

So we had two songs that we thought were singles, Sorrow and Epiphany.

[Colin]

Right.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And by then, of course, punk was a staple on the radio. However, Epitaph is an indie, and indies have a harder time getting songs on the radio. And so still.

[Colin]

But like, at that point, at that time.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, sure. Yeah.

[Colin]

Wow.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so. And I was buddies with Jerry, you know, but Jerry had mixed Green day Dookie and Blink 182. He was like. He was the hit mixer. Yeah. And so. Yeah. So I just thought, you know, we'll hire him to mix the singles. So he mixed Sorrow and Epiphany.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

But Sorrow didn't sound the way I was hearing it.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

As the writer of Sorrow, I had something in my head, and so he gave us both. I thought Epiphany sounded perfect. I thought Sorrow didn't sound that rad, so. Sounded fine, but. So I thought I'd take a shot at Sorrow. I was able to beat what he

[Colin]

did, and that was the one.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Wow.

[Colin]

And that was the. And then you mixed the whole record.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Well, he's always going to mix the

[Colin]

record, which is awesome. You know, coming back, doing a record in the Valley, symbolically putting it out back on Epitaph again, symbolically. Writing these incredible songs, producing it together, symbolically. Are you fully back in the band and for the touring cycle?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I was briefly. I sort of committed to just do that because I was, first of all having a lot of fun, but also I wanted to just really go all in and give as much as I could. Since the band had put their trust in me to come back to the label, I wanted to do as much as I could for the record, to have it be successful. And a big part of the story was our reunion, the band's reunion with Epitaph, but also Greg's reunion with me as. As a songwriting team. And everywhere we went, that's what people wanted to talk about. So if I was on the tour, then that would. I would be there to do that and we'd get. It would maximize the, you know, the press and the attention we get. So that was part of it.

[Colin]

Yeah. Sorrow. Just as a song, as a songwriter.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Is that a crowning achievement to you?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I think it's my best song. It's. Yeah.

[Colin]

Great video.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Simple, simple lyrics. I think sometimes I get too. Too grandiose in my. My words. And so I thought it was powerful but concise. You know, it.

[Colin]

Why the explosion on the left side of the ear in the chorus.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So that is so one of my favorite. Yeah. So one of my favorite songs growing up is the Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel. And on that song, they. They have this sound. It goes. They actually hit a snare drum at the bottom of an elevator shaft to get it. But it's in the song, you know. Lie la la.

[Colin]

Yeah. Which is just. That's Flat Earth Society, which is really funny.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's enough. Yeah. So. Yeah. And Simon and Garfunkel were one of our influences on our. Our vocal harmonies that we do in the band. There you go. And so see, and to me, Sorrow had the feeling of. Of that and I just thought, oh man, it'd be cool to do that. So, yeah, it's sort of, you know, it's me. It's just sort of echoing influences.

[Colin]

A little sprinkle of something. That's awesome. What a track.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Thank you.

[Colin]

Masterpiece, some would say. So you're back. You've re signed the band. You've co written their most successful record since you left the band.

[Podcast Co-host]

Looking at his note and it just says masterpiece.

[Colin]

Masterpiece. And now there's only one option. You got to do it again. Empire Strikes First.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Another smash hit.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Thank you. Yeah. I mean, well, and so, you know, the. We were writing a record anyway, but then we. The US 911 made of.

[Colin]

Oh, right, that thing that's. So the defense is about the Patriot act. Right. On Process of Belief.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

So there's a little bit of 911 on process of Belief. But then Empire is like so Process of.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So Process of Belief. Interestingly, I'll just tell this anecdote. I've told it before, but I was mixing Sorrow at a studio called Larrabee east and Greg calls me up and goes, turn on cnn. I turn it on and the Twin Towers are falling. I was mixing Sorrow Watching the Twin Towers fall. The day 911 was happening and that's. I was mixing sorrow. So it was. But when you. When you. Jesus. When you listen to. Kind of sounds like I wrote it in response to 9 11. But not. But it was just one of those.

[Colin]

Just an eerie.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's an eerie confluence. Yeah. And so then Empire Strikes first is when we. Yeah, we went. We went into Iraq.

[Colin]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Even though they had nothing to do with 9 11.

[Colin]

And then this whole record is just.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. So it's an anti war record. Let them eat war. Yeah.

[Colin]

Good Sage French's was on Epitaph at the time.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Yeah, he did a verse.

[Colin]

I moved to California in 2000 and when I tell you LA is Burning was inescapable. Let me tell you. It was everywhere. So reading. I read. When I was reading about the record, it said they had a. A minor radio hit on for In LA is Burning.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

And that blew my mind because living here.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

You couldn't go into routes without.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It was a big hit here, but it was not a big hit nationally. It was, you know, which is surprising

[Colin]

because people hate la. You think they'd be excited about it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Burning. Yeah. It's a catchy song. Yeah. Great song. I think part of it is that indie labels don't have the big regional. Big national promotional reach of majors. Which is cool.

[Colin]

We look at like time bomb.

[Brett Gurewitz]

We do now, but we didn't then.

[Colin]

This is the highest Billboard chart ever for the band so far at number 40.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yay.

[Colin]

Which in 2004. That meant something.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I'm learning all this good stuff.

[Colin]

It's good stuff. Are you still doing the battle tour since that was.

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, I'd stopped by that. I only did like one tour cycle with process and I went back to my day job.

[Colin]

Just straight up.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Well. And then for a while I started. I would like. If they would be in la, I would join them on stage. But it became more and more difficult to do that because they won't play the same set list on the tour. And so. And they've just too many songs for me to practice.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Colin]

You know how many songs are in

[Podcast Co-host]

a Bad Religion set these days?

[Brett Gurewitz]

A lot. Like a headline.

[Colin]

33 to 35.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, a lot. Wow. Yeah, but they're. But they have like 180 songs. So they like. And they just. The band members need to be able to just play any of them on any given night.

[Colin]

So crazy.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I can't do that.

[Colin]

When do you make the decision? You can write them, but to really stop Playing live altogether.

[Brett Gurewitz]

When they stop being willing to send me the set list in advance, I will. I can only do this if you'll send me the set list.

[Colin]

So that's it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Because I can go. I can go sit in my home office and practice a set list every day for 30 days and then I'll have my chops to play Battle. Yeah, I'm not going to go up there if I'm not prepared. And they're like, no, we don't know what the set's going to be. I'm like, and I've never wanted to just join them for the encore. Sure, yeah.

[Colin]

You want to be there for the set.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I get it.

[Colin]

Battle Legion every now and then does cool like album playthroughs, undersells at the Troubadour and stuff like that. Any of those coming up?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, not that I know of. But I'm not sure they would. Tell me you wouldn't play.

[Colin]

They wouldn't have you play even.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Just that they might. Okay, I know.

[Colin]

You let me know.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I think they started. Well, I don't know, but I think they're starting to play reliable set lists again.

[Colin]

Okay, he's available. He's available. Okay, so New Maps of Hell. Following up two later smash hits. Not easy, but I think this record is really cool. Really unique, kind of metallic.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, Metal.

[Colin]

Because. Underrated. Why is it. How is it so metal? What was the thing?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Well, we brought in Joe Breezi, Evil Joe, and he's a metal producer.

[Colin]

Okay.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And did he put those harmonized leads

[Colin]

on like New Dark Ages and stuff?

[Brett Gurewitz]

No, no, that was all me.

[Colin]

The tram verse.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think a big part of it in the writing is that I knew I had Brian, that I could. As a tool. And I can't play like that. I'm like a punk guitar player. But Brian. And Brian can do anything and Brooks can do anything. So between the two of them, I'd be like, okay, here's what I. Here's how I'd like you to play this. And I'd show them I can't really do it well enough, but they can do it right. So, yeah, just try to. Yeah, just try to inject some more aggression intensity through, you know, because punk and hardcore, you know, by this time I've always got my. My A and R label guy head. And, you know, by this time I'm putting out metal core. Yeah. And I know that, you know, punk is split into three new sub genres since the last time we did a punk album. And And a lot of it's, you know, it's more metal. It's more metal. And the hardcore is pivoted metal and.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And so not going overboard with that, but introducing some of that. And I liked metal as a kid too, but those. Those guitar minis, I call them, like, as a kid, I grew up liking this metal band called ufo. Yeah. And to me, New Dark Ages, I was doing like. Like a U. It just sounds nothing like ufo, but the chord progressions and melodies were like sort of teenage everything. Yeah. It's coming from like a ufo.

[Podcast Co-host]

I see.

[Colin]

So we'll go quick through Descent, True north and Age of Unreason real quick. Anything come to mind for those three records that makes them special or stand out?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Which ones?

[Colin]

Descent, True north and Age of Unreason.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. My favorite song on Dissent is the Devil in Stitches.

[Colin]

Great song.

[Brett Gurewitz]

That's my ode to Bruce Frank Scene. I never really tried to write a song with that kind of a vibe. And I feel like it's really got that. Especially love the outro. It's got like a good. It's really uplifting. And I wrote that song for my wife, Gina, My true love. She's my angel. Devil Reveler. That's her. And then True North, I just think is one of Graphics good. Yeah, it's. It's. To me, it's one of our return to form records. I love the record title track is. Yeah. And the song True north is one of Greg's greatest songs. And it's one of the ones that. That when he writes, when he brought it to me, I was like, oh. It was like, I don't think I can beat this. You know, it's just a really great song.

[Colin]

What's funny is that reminds me of the no Control title track. So it gives you that same feeling once. The. When. When he's sing harmonizing the. The name of the album.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's a great. It's a truly great graphic song. And the centerpiece of that record, the one I love on that record, which people don't really. People don't really call it out that much, but it's Robin Hood in Reverse. That one. I love that song. I'm really proud of that one.

[Colin]

Age of Unreason is the. Is at this moment, the last Age

[Brett Gurewitz]

of Unreason is my response to Trumpism or Trumpistan, where we're now living. And it's really just about enlightenment values. It's not really a record against Trump himself, but. But. But about, you know, What. What liberalism and the open society and the scientific worldview means to me and what I think is great about the American experiment that has been lost since Trumpism, and it's. I don't think it's always successful. There's. There's a few songs on there that I really love, and I'm proud of it. I don't think that many bands on their 17th album make one that's that consistent. So. So, you know, it's solid. Yeah. I think our next one's going to be better.

[Colin]

So tell me about the next one. Can you tell me about the next one?

[Brett Gurewitz]

I'm writing it right now. Good job. We're writing it right now. Can't wait to hear it. Yeah.

[Colin]

You feel better about. About it than Age of Unreason already?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah, I've got a couple of that I really like.

[Colin]

Oh, that you're just psyched out of your mind about. Yeah, me too. We're gonna wrap.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Where did that come from? Psyched out of my mind. There's a. Yes, it's.

[Colin]

What is that? Oh, Elf.

[Podcast Co-host]

Oh, yeah, it is.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Elf. My favorite movie. Is it really? I'm psyched. All right. The. The writer who comes in the evil. Yes.

[Colin]

Three hours.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Call me Elf one more time, my friend. One more time.

[Colin]

Is that really your favorite movie?

[Brett Gurewitz]

We watch? Our family tradition is to watch that every Christmas Eve. We all get together and we. Yeah, it's such a great movie.

[Podcast Co-host]

It's the modern.

[Colin]

It is the modern girl. I would say Daddy's Home, too, is the last modern goat, but, you know, a lot of people aren't there yet.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Which one is Daddy's home? 2. Okay, so I got a new one for you. I don't know if you've even seen it. Tell me Christmas Chronicles. Yeah.

[Colin]

Isn't that Kurt Russell song? Kurt Russell. Oh, see, I love Kurt Russell. I'm not into it.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I love it.

[Podcast Co-host]

You know, that's all.

[Colin]

That's all him.

[Brett Gurewitz]

When he does. When he does the Christmas time.

[Colin]

My wife loves that movie. She cannot believe.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Believe it. I eat it up.

[Podcast Co-host]

That's all him. The hair and the beard. He grew that.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I love it.

[Podcast Co-host]

That's not a wi.

[Colin]

He looks like Hateful Eight.

[Brett Gurewitz]

We'll do it. We know. We'll do a Christmas podcast about how much we love Christmas songs together.

[Colin]

We do that.

[Podcast Co-host]

You want to do it?

[Colin]

We'll do it again.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Because you haven't asked me about Christmas songs. So we've got a whole pod we can do.

[Colin]

Yeah, 100%. Do you prefer the Home Alone version of White Christmas. Or the og. That would be. That would be V2. That's the superior version.

[Brett Gurewitz]

The Drifters.

[Colin]

Yeah. That's.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. After this pod, I'm gonna share my. The Girlitz Christmas playlist.

[Podcast Co-host]

Playlist, please.

[Brett Gurewitz]

It's public on. On Spotify. It's called Christmas with the G's.

[Colin]

It's in the. It's in the description below.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Podcast Co-host]

Shot out of a canon. You have to pick one. Your favorite Christmas song.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, what would it be? Oh, man. So hard. Maybe Blue Christmas by Elvis.

[Podcast Co-host]

That's probably number two. Mine's the Christmas song. Neck and Cole.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. Well, I also like Holly Clicky.

[Colin]

I'm a Silent Night man.

[Podcast Co-host]

Silent.

[Colin]

I like the weird religious. The. Oh, on your Knees once that hits.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Oh, yeah. I'm levitating, dude. There's a Carry on the Oldies but

[Colin]

Goodies version of that. The Celine D1 too, right?

[Podcast Co-host]

Oh, it's just. Celine does it too.

[Colin]

It's the one.

[Podcast Co-host]

Damn. I like. I like Nat King Cole.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah. I love Nicole. Yeah.

[Colin]

Brett, could you tell me your top four hardcore records of all time?

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yes. But they're not all records.

[Podcast Co-host]

It's okay. That's fine. Releases.

[Brett Gurewitz]

So germs. Gi. Because it was the. It was the one that started it. The Nervous Breakdown ep Black Flag with Keith Morris. Because that EP invented hardcore. Adolescence. Blue album because it came just before Minor Threats. First two seven inches. And it demonstrated that hardcore could be melodic.

[Podcast Co-host]

Yeah.

[Brett Gurewitz]

And that Bad Religion wouldn't exist without that. I'm gonna name more than four, then. I love it. Minor Frets. Minor Threat. Minor Threat. Yeah. Not. Not a. That's the blueprint. Not out of step, but. Minor Threat. Minor Threat. Because that set the rule book that was like. That showed how fast and how tight hardcore can be and what it should be. Wow. But I can't ignore two records that. That are. For me. What kept hardcore from dying because. Opened up the potential of where it can go. And that is Converge, Jane Doe, and the Shape of Punk to Come. Those two records were the records that showed that hardcore doesn't have to play by any particular rules and can keep going forever. Yeah.

[Colin]

Unbelievable.

[Podcast Co-host]

Couldn't have said it better ourselves.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I won't.

[Colin]

We.

[Podcast Co-host]

We do a thing where we. We make brackets of bands per era.

[Colin]

Tournaments.

[Podcast Co-host]

Tournaments, if you will. And we put converge in the 2000s bracket because they really kind of.

[Colin]

Even though they started before it was their defining era.

[Podcast Co-host]

And a lot of people were confused at how far Converge went because we're trying to tell them they're in a

[Colin]

league of their own for League of Their Own.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Yeah.

[Colin]

Brett, what a great time we've just had. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing so many things. I've been wondering. My bad. Religion group chat. The Flat Earth Society is all listening.

[Brett Gurewitz]

We're all. We're all just.

[Colin]

We can't believe what we do. So thanks for being here.

[Brett Gurewitz]

I didn't know you had that. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Okay, well, I have to drop in there.

[Colin]

Come on in. We would love to have you.

[Podcast Co-host]

Wouldn't we? Love that.

[Colin]

We'll do an AMA in the Flat Earth Society. Group chat. Brett, thank you so much for joining us today.

[Brett Gurewitz]

My pleasure.

[Colin]

Can't thank you enough. Let's do it again someday. Maybe around Christmas.

[Brett Gurewitz]

You got it.

[Colin]

Thanks, everybody.

[Brett Gurewitz]

Right on.

[Colin]

This episode is brought to you by Mad Vintage.