Interview with Bad Religion
Posted on Apr 29, 2008 by marnix
Its 1996. At my local library I lend a record called The Grey Race by a band called Bad Religion. (back then there was no downloading so you had to go to the library so you could put records on tape… yeah, I’m THAT old!) Me being raised Christian made me have this weird glass ceiling thing going with the name, Bad Religion, alone. Eventually I conquered both the threshold of the name as the whole indoctrination of Christianity thingy. Thank God for that (pardon the pun!)
Anyway, I can honestly say that Bad Religion changed my entire world! After I totally raped (non-sexual) the cassette on which I recorded the Grey Race I wanted to have every record and listing to every song they ever recorded. I sold my parents books at the antique store and from that money I bought some Bad Religion records. After class I was studying the lyrics of the songs. I needed a dictionary to know what the songs were about and half of the time I still had no idea (even with the dictionary) but I just needed to know what they were about.
Eventually listening, learning and studying Bad Religion made a huge impact on both my educational as my personal life. So when I finally got the chance to ask Greg Hetson, axe-man for both Bad Religion as the mighty Circle Jerks, some questions I was fuckin’ thrilled to do so. I’ve had my fair share of “rockstar-interviews”, but it was quite a while back when I was as nervous as I was talking to Greg. Fortunately the guy was really nice and we had a great talk about politics, punkrock and parties. Most of it didn’t get recorded and half of it isn’t very interesting for anyone not into politics, but here’s a quick peek at what we discussed.
EUROPE
“I’m looking forward to the gigs and especially wondering around Europe with my girlfriend. I love the guys in the band, but wandering around France and standing hand-in-hand on the Eiffel tower with my girlfriend sounds alittle nicer than standing there holding hands with Brett. We don’t have much festivals like Groezrock in the US. You might compare it to the Warped Tour, but that’s something totally different though. Its like this weird rollercoaster of punkrock that keeps on moving and is less organised than Groezrock. I like ‘em both in their own way.”
BAD RELGION
“Brett’s comeback to Bad Religion didn’t have much impact on me being a guitarplayer that much. His power lays more in the songwriting and lyrical department. And he knows that. Of course its always a good thing to have your label boss on board, hehe.
Even I have to pick up a dictionary from time to time when we’re in the studio. It’s not all everyday English that gets used and even native English speakers might find a word or two in a song that they don’t exactly know what it means. It’s a part of Bad Relgion, I guess. You don’t wanna keep doing the exact same thing over and over, but you don’t wanna leave your original sound that much. That’s how we work. And we work pretty much the same as we always done. I never thought we’d be doing this for a living and we’re still pretty much the same people and we still have fun doing the things we do.
It’s not like we have discussions on tour on all these heavy subjects. We’re just regular guys and we discuss sports and movies and such. Just regular things, I guess. Of course in the studio we debate several things and maybe that’s why we don’t have to do so on tour?”
CIRCLE JERKS
“Doing the Circle Jerks is kinda like going to the dentist. You have the appointment and then you have to go, but you don’t really feel like it. We did the song, that you can check on our myspace, a year back, but we haven’t had any plans on doing more songs this year or so. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but in the near future no Circle Jerks stuff will come out.”
OTHER PROJECTS
“I kinda just quit this band called Black President. Nwahh, Obama had nothing to do with it! I just couldn’t find the time and the effort to fully be a part that band. I still do the punkrock karaoke thing! We’re releasing a dvd and cd this year. That’s a lot of fun! And what the future holds as for other side-projects? I dunno. I only know that I won’t do that acoustic solo thing that Greg does. That’s just not for me.”
Interview Information
Taken On:
April 14th, 2008
Interviewees:
Greg Hetson (guitarplayer for Bad Religion and Circle Jerks)
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