Bad Religion: Finding True North

26 February 2013

by Poppy Reid

In an age where more than three decades together habitually equates to a band’s brand-making, Bad Religion have maintained immediacy and a new collection of followers with each album cycle, sans trite propagation.

Much of this, is thanks to wide-eyed linchpin Greg Graffin, the band’s own punk professor. Graffin is on the phone from his farmland home in Lansing New York, and he’s got just over a week before rehearsals begin in support of album #16 True North. He’s avoiding the writing of his second book The Population Wars, the overdue deadlines of which are ‘hounding him,’ but he’s surfeited with the fact his most recent frustrations he sees both in himself and in society have been partly purged.

“We tend to want to blame people and hope they’re responsible. We try to find scapegoats and people we can pin the problems of the world on and we want to believe that people have free will and they’re not exercising it if they do something wrong,” he says, speaking slowly and ruminative. “But at the same time that’s human nature,” he laughs. “The more I think about it the more I realise we can’t be calculating and we can’t all predict the outcomes of our behaviours.”

As a lecturer at New York’s Cornell University where he’s currently teaching evolution, and as a doctor of zoology, Graffin could be discussing a number of issues really. But he’s referring to the first track on True North called In Their Hearts Is Right, the track which kicks off 35-minutes of intellectual anarchy overlayed by Bad Religion’s trademark pummelling punk rock, three-part harmonies and themes of the Obama administration, generational unity and philosophy inspired by Sagan and Chomsky.

But while Graffin has been commentating on culture since he was 15 with Bad Religion, and later studied anthropology and geology, his frustration in humanity, unlike most who educate themselves, has softened with age.

“I think I’ve grown more tolerant,” he says. “A lot of people get older and they grow less tolerant. I struggle with that too because part of me wants to be very calculating and precise, that’s kind of the science background I have. Part of me wants to be unforgiving. But there’s something in my bones - I don’t know what it is, it’s just the way I’m made - that I tend to be very accommodating and forgiving of people and I think I struggle with that.”

Thankfully, his bandmates share the same ideological values, it’s surprising though, considering their different upbringings. 50-year-old guitarist/vocalist and Epitaph/ANTI Records owner Brett Gurewitz was raised Jewish; bassist Jay Bentley was brought up in Kansas and was part of the skate-punk surge; guitarist Greg Hetson was a member of innovative hardcore bands Circle Jerks and Redd Kross before Bad Religion; guitarist Brian Baker is a founding member of minor threat, his first album with Bad Religion was 96's The Gray Race, and drummer Brooks Wackerman - who recently filled in for Travis Barker on the current Soundwave tour - started his career in '91 with heavy metal band Bad4Good. His musical background before he joined Bad Religion in 2001 ranges from pop punk and funk metal to comedy rock and industrial rock.

“We all had varying backgrounds when we were young kids but pretty much we were all from very liberal households that were pro-education. Even though I’m the only guy in the band that went to college, the other guys are intellectuals in their own right in terms of they all read books and see movies. It’s kind of like those cultural things that some families don’t expose their kids to.”

Having basically grown into their own together, it wasn’t always political punk and mosh pits. Bad Religion, like any band who has reached global stature, have experienced their own tumultuous times. The negative press surrounding Graffin and Gurewitz’ fallout, Gurewitz’ drug abuse in the early ‘80s and the myriad lineup changes may have stunted their ascension, but 34 years on, the band are still questioning establishment and provoking chaos at their shows. Graffin has a tradition where at each show he’ll ask who is experiencing them for the first time – “and remarkably it’s like 60% of the audience.”

“That’s not just true in the United States,” he enthuses, “that’s true in Australia and Germany, all over Europe and all over South America. It’s almost like every year there’s a new generation of people that decide they’re gonna turn punk rock and they come out to our show ‘cause they’ve heard so much about us but they’ve never actually seen us live. I realise it’s a privilege, because it means our audience is continually getting refreshed.”

While Bad Religion aren’t active members of the Hollywood club scene anymore – they’re each entering or nudging their 50s – Graffin says the fact the community even exists makes him very hopeful.

“We are not living the life of punk rockers anymore,” he chuckles. “It’s not exciting to me go to a club and come home at 2:30 in the morning… But even if the community isn’t as small and intimate as it used to be you can see it branching into other areas of culture too, where people actually do put a premium into ideas and art. That’s very rewarding to see that.”

It would be easy to surmise that Bad Religion are more influenced by Graffin’s studies now more than ever, but as he tells it, his higher education has very little input.

“The intellectual portions of it helps to stimulate ideas but I think the emotion in the song, the melody, even some of the phrasing, that comes from feelings. Those feelings were stirred I think more from my own personal relationships, my family, my friends.”

The title track on True North was greatly influenced by his immediate surroundings. With a son in his early twenties and a daughter away at university, the generation they belong to are just now discovering themselves, their ideals and thankfully, Bad Religion.

“When kids decide to go punk, it’s when they first start experiencing the world on their own and they head out into that world with some direction, usually what their parents tell them, but also their teachers and their religious leaders,” he says thoughtfully. “But they head out into this world and they realise nothing that they’d been told makes any sense at all, and it’s completely out of touch with what they really have to experience. So the idea from that obviously came from my own kids who are now teenagers going through what we went though, exactly a generation later.”

The truth is that while his children are one of his greatest inspirations - they’re a direct portal into the mindset of the band’s newest group of followers – that’s as far as their involvement with Graffin’s music goes. To him, it’s his most personal project and his two offspring sensed that at a young age.

“Even though the kids are aware of what I do for a living and we’ve got a pretty normal family life, we don’t really talk about, that’s kind of like ‘dad’s work’ we don’t sit around talking about music at the table. I don’t share any strategies with them. I don’t talk about songwriting.

“I have to say though, it would hurt me very badly, if it was embarrassing. I’m very proud to say that they’re not embarrassed by what I do for a living because I can’t say that about Dick Cheney,” he laughs. “His kids must have it a lot harder.”

Bad Religion’s back catalogue is a weighty, all encompassing one. Over sixteen records and five U.S. administrations, the band have an ongoing relevance that, because of the state of society, won’t taper off anytime soon. Even during early records like Into The Unknown and seminal album Suffer - when the six men were just boys – they were touching on issues denoting universal themes and modern life.

“21^st Century (Digital Boy) was written what, 25 years ago?” Graffin remembers. “The metaphors we were using in that song are still very viable today and we’re happy to play that song live almost every concert.

“The first album we asked the question, ‘how could hell be any worse when life alone is such a curse?’ If society would have cured all of its evils that we were talking about in 1982, that song would quickly become irrelevant but that’s not the case, things have just gotten worse it seems.”

Forever the intellect, Graffin has been awfully aware of the influence Bad Religion has on youth since he was one himself. Unlike a lot of frontmen in the heavy music realm, he feels a responsibility to enlighten fans and use the music as a medium to fuel self-reflection and awareness.

“I always thought, if you’re gonna be in a rock band or a punk band, there’s been so many of them throughout history that I always wanted to add a little added value. There’s got to be something more than just going up there and parading around as a rock star,” he states. “I believe Bad Religion’s tradition has always been to stimulate thought in the areas of philosophy and cultural significance and current events rather than fashion and hairstyle and what the latest trends in New York City are.”

True North is out now through Epitaph Australia

Ronan Keating says it best

                                                                                                  Photography: Ken Leanfore

13 December 2012

by Poppy Reid

"I didn’t want to tell stories of other people, I’m very adamant about that. I’ve hurt enough people. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.”

Spring feels more like summer at a bar in Darling Harbour today, and in black jeans, shirt, waistcoat and jacket, Ronan Keating is dressed much warmer than Sydney requested. It’s only been a few days since the release of Fires, his first album in six years, but he’s wholly relaxed. Coming back from a hiatus whilst on the judging panel for X Factor Australia has provided an immediate soapbox, but perhaps it’s the safety net he found in recording a completely fictional pop album that sees him so at ease.

“There’s things I’ve been through in my life, situations in my personal life,” he trails off in that swift Dublin dialect. “So I just didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to bring up old stories; I was the cause of these problems, so I don’t want to talk about that.”

At just 35-years-old, Keating has a musical and personal past that has given him enough fodder to record another Bring You Home, but it seems the divorce to his wife of thirteen years last year, was enough to have him re-evaluate his comeback.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he admits. “I was a bit lost, musically, I didn’t know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. After being in the industry so long you kind of question what’s next.”

Having sold 25 million records worldwide as a solo artist and 30 million alongside the recently reformed Boyzone, Keating shows artistic integrity in wanting a transformation. However, after his lowest charting record in Australia since 2005’s Turn It On (#25), moulding Fires (#12) on the type of pop topping recent charts may have backfired Down Under.

“It’s pop’s turn: girl bands, boy bands, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, so it’s alive and well - we’re all riding that way. That’s why I felt it was the right time for this album.”

Keating explains his writing process as “flowing” – he wrote the track I’ve Got You in an hour and with the help of 23 songwriters including Shelly Poole (Janet Jackson, Massive Attack) and Rick Nowles (Lana Del Rey, Weezer), Fires was one of his most pleasant opuses to create. “It just felt good,” he smiles.

It wasn’t too long ago that Keating was as renowned for his philandering and infidelity as he was for his philanthropy and innocent serenades about love. Roguish media whispers created an image that, as a father of three, painted him in a cripplingly unflattering light.

“I think it was wholesome for a while. You don’t want to be one of these people who are in the press for negative reasons, I never wanted that.”

One constructive outcome of the past decade though, is Keating’s firm sense of self. Now dabbling successfully in film - his first project, Australian film Goddess, premieres in January - and with a Boyzone reunion tour in the works, Keating now boasts he is at peace with any self-appointed epithets.

“As a kid I battled with who I was, what I sounded like, the respect, the credibility as a boy band member,” he notes. “It’s just naivety, and immaturity. You grow up and realise it just doesn’t matter, that kind of rubbish.”

It’s clear that, although Fires is Keating’s first record with no autobiographical leanings, it has nothing to do with his musical morality. Protecting his loved ones is paramount and as he suggests, if you’re good enough, then it is enough.

“I think it comes down to the live performance. If you can make people believe it when you’re performing it live. I’ve always had a connection with that - it’s in the song.” It’s unlikely that any future releases will eclipse his 3x Platinum debut Ronan (2000), but you sense that for Keating, a man regaining his impeccable aplomb, making headlines for the right reasons - whether that be for his performances or whatever the mischievous tabloids choose to publish - is now right on the top of his list.

“It’s hard, you just want to live a good life, I have kids, and you’re leaving a legacy behind - you’re leaving a story. I want to leave them something good. I try my best.”

Alexisonfire: All farewells should be sudden

                                                                         Photography: Vanessa Heins

10 December 2012

by Poppy Reid

When Alexisonfire announced their split in August last year, fans of lactating, contortionist strippers and Canadian hardcore went into mourning, but while most cursed themselves for encouraging linchpin Dallas Green to pursue a solo career, the dichotomy of City and Colour’s success wasn’t wholly to blame.

“The confusion that lies in the whole process about what happened,” says Green down the phone from the US, “was when I left the band, the band didn’t break up. They spent a lot of time deciding whether or not they were going to continue as a four-piece or add another member, or whatever.”

After guitarist/vocalist Wade MacNeil got an offer to front English band Gallows in July 2011, the band accepted their collapse and Green could finally breathe easy. City and Colour interviews and fan interaction underwent a year-and-a-half of white lies and diversions, and for an artist renowned for his blunt honesty and allegiance to his band brothers, the repression was difficult.

“I had been holding the fact that I had left the band in for so long,” he admits. “I had to deal with people finding out that it was me who started the demise of the band. I think that the general response was good because for one, we could talk about it, but it was an interesting period… I sort of twisted [the band’s] arm and forced them into a tough situation, so I can appreciate how they were looking at me-or not at me-at that moment in time.”

With the Australian leg of band’s farewell tour just days away, it’s an awkward feeling to know that their last visit in 2010 was surrounded by tension in the band. “At the time, only ten or twelve people knew that I was leaving the band so we were on the road with all of our friends touring, trying to have a good time and show everybody that we were happy-go-lucky,” says Green. “Meanwhile, every time we played, we knew that we were getting closer to the end, it was hard to celebrate.” The shows were feverish and raw, their onstage brotherhood seemed more devoted than ever; but as Green explains, between each performance came an uncomfortable quiet.

“Everyone was really depressed when we were playing that last tour, I think that a lot of that depression had to do with the fact that we weren’t talking about it,” Green considers. “It was really a bummer, but I think it’s good that we didn’t [tell people] because it hadn’t really allowed us to sort of move on with our lives.”

With just fifteen dates and a rightful US snub on their final tour together (“Those people should have come to see us play at any time in the last ten years,” MacNeil told Tone Deaf), Alexisonfire have been marking their ten-year anniversary with the same energy yielded during their embryonic years when they were “five kids who decided to try out this weird style of music and write songs.”

“I think everyone is in a wonderful place right now,” says Green sincerely. “Almost back to the beginning in a way, but we don’t have anything to lose or gain from it, it’s more of a twelve-year-old celebration of what we’ve accomplished, which will allow the legacy of our band to live on instead of the hope of that last tour.”

While City and Colour releases reach Gold and Platinum status across the globe, missing the camaraderie within Alexisonfire is only a faint throb. “Even on the worst days we’d still be able to talk to each other and go onstage and put on a great show,” he reminisces. “We’d sort of all forget about it after the show, because of the performance, because of the music, you know?” However, a life that could turn a man into a self-entitled, sycophant-seeking, rock star has only had positive effects on Green, who can thank the band for his “motherly instincts” and accolade acknowledgement.

“In the first few years with those guys, especially in the early years when they were still teenagers and I was at the old ripe age of 21 years old, I definitely had to take on a more responsible role than I thought I’d have to.

“I also think it’s allowed me to develop a sense of appreciation for everything I had accomplished in my life creatively, I had to work from the bottom up. I went through touring in a van where you’d have to sleep in the van - we could never afford a hotel - I had to sleep on people’s floors, things like that, that now whenever something good happens I can look at it and think ‘I earned it’.”

With ten years of nihilistic fervour and poetic anthems for the square-pegged, Alexisonfire won’t be easily forgotten. One could measure their success on the sold-out tours, the myriad independent awards and #1s, or their ARIA chart placings, but for Green, it’s always been about the music’s integrity.

“The fact that we went on to make four records, it’s pretty good that it sits how it is, I think that’s far more – that we accomplished – than we had set out to do in the first place.

“To quote a recent comment that I read about myself – Alexisonfire is testament that you don’t have to be attractive to be successful. I’m half joking when I say that,” he leers. “We were just a bunch of weird kids who played this weird sound and people grew attached to that. Hopefully we just inspired that honesty that there is a chance for honesty in popular music, or hardcore music - I wouldn’t call us that popular.”

Green strategically finished his latest City and Colour opus before the tour (“so he could approach it with an open mind”), but while Alexisonfire have released the obligatory anthology collection and a new EP (Death Letter), it would take an ignoramus to not pre-empt and salute their intended parting gift.

“We didn’t start the band so we could become rock stars and make millions of dollars and fly around in private jets,” Green says with his infamous frankness. “I think a lot of band’s probably don’t start off that way but often that’s why they want to get into it, that’s what they deem successful. But with us I mean, we just wanted to play. I still feel that way, I just want to play.”