Change: First off… 

jay: Name of the fanzine. 

Change: Oh Change. I got a copy if you want it. 

jay: No, that’s alright, I’m just curious. 

Change: This is going to be the basketball issue. Do you ever play basketball or watch it? 

jay: I did when I was a kid. I play with Greg Graffin and pretty much only him because he’s such a serious competitor. I just like to play anything against him. 

Change: Can you take him? 

jay: Uh…we’re pretty much even. He’s got me on weight but oviously [sic] I got him on height. He can drive through me and I can just go over him. It’s pretty even. 

Change: We were talking to Dave Smalley and he thinks he’s all good or something. 

jay: Smalley’s probably pretty good, but you never know until you’re out on the court with him, so…I mean, Flea’s pretty good and he’s tiny. He’s not bad. 

Change: You see any differences in the crowds you play to now than like 7 years ago and stuff? 

jay: Shit, 7 years ago. Yeah, there’s more! The one thing that I notice that is the best thing that has happened is that in punk rock, which is part of my life, suddenly someone drew a picture of what a punk rocker was supposed to look like and if he didn’t look like that eventually you got the shit kicked out of you by people who did look like that. I never really agreed with that, I thought that was pretty stupid. But that’s over with. 

Change: But then there’s the sub-genres of punk with every little fashion code. 

jay: Whatever, you know what I mean? I’m talking tree trunk, not roots. “Are you speed metal, grind core or death thrash?” Fuck off. Punk. Have been, always will be. 

Change: Actually that was a question I had. Do you consider yourself a punk band or do you find the label too confining? 

jay: As a band, whatever. I know what I am. My dad called me a punk when I was 8 years old: “you fucking punk.” I was like “what does that mean?” It took me a while to figure it out, but that was cool. I am what I eat! [laugh to himself] 

Change: Do you think MTV is a good thing, a bad thing or just a tool to be used? 

jay: It’s just a thing, like a radio station or anything else. Unfortunately it’s the biggest one ever. It’s so big, it is omnipotent. It is the Big Brother of music. It forces you to consume what they decide you consume. I personally like MTV when I want to watch it but I’ll always turn it off. I’m never force-fed anything I don’t like. I hated the Poison, White Snake, Warrant era. I find myself watching MTV more and more because all the bands on it are my friends! 

Change: But that’s part of the problem; the way it’s involved with punk like it was with cheesy metal. It’s just a phase for them. 

jay: MTV is in business to stay in business. They are not a college radio station and they don’t play what they feel like playing. It’s a cyclical thing. They play what’s selling in retail stores. And because they play it, radio plays it. And as more radio plays it, retail sells more, and MTV plays it more. See how that works? It’s the chicken before the egg theory, it just goes around and around. So when you have Green Day and the Offspring selling multi-platinum records you see them a lot more on MTV. It’s just an unfortunate by-product of retail sales. Metallica was the first band to get a platinum record with zero exposure, which I always thought was great. I thought that was really cool that they could do that. 

Change: But then they go overboard and turn themselves into… 

jay: Did they turn themselves into that or did MTV turn them into that? 

Change: It could be the absence of Cliff Burton, who was a driving force. 

jay: Right. You never know. These are questions that I can’t answer and you’ll have to ask them. The only thing that I can really say about MTV is that if you don’t dig it, then turn it off. If you don’t like what they’re saying or what they’re playing, then turn it off. One thing I can’t stand is when someone comes up to me and says “you fucking sell-outs! I saw you on MTV!” What the fuck were you watching if for? If you consider every band on MTV a sell-out then you’re a sell-out for watching it. It’s like anything else: it’s a book, a record, a television show. I’m not gonna force anybody to sit down and watch Rush Limbaugh. I don’t force anybody to sit down and watch MTV. It’s just an entertainment program, nothing more. There’s nothing to read into it. It doesn’t really matter to us. It doesn’t affect us one way or the other. The way I see it, this “punk rock explosion” is only 2 bands. Bad Religion is in the same place it was last year. So there’s no “punk rock explosion.” 

Change: Rancid’s doing pretty well. 

jay: Yeah, but Rancid’s a great band. They deserve to do well. 

Change: Yeah, but what I’m saying is that it’s more than 2 bands. 

jay: When a punk rock explosion takes place, you’ll be seeing platinum Black Flag albums, platinum Dead Kennedys albums. That’s a punk rock explosion. Rich Kids on LSD aren’t doing well. SNFU aren’t doing well. Good bands are selling records. That makes sense to me. I buy records that I like. I have a Rancid record. 

Change: But it’s kinda funny with Rancid. I’m not saying they sold out, but they toured here last year and they opened for Into Another. Only 50 people came for Rancid. This year, they came and 800 people came. 300 had to be turned away because the club could only take 500. 

jay: What does that have to do with them? 

Change: Well, it’s strange that MTV is so powerful. 

jay: But Rancid doesn’t get played that often on MTV. 

Change: I saw this show “Rage,” which is like this alternative show like MTV, and Rancid was the #1 album on it. 

jay: Yeah, it’s a great record. 

Change: But do you think this record is better than a lot of other albums that don’t get played on MTV? 

jay: Yes. I’ve heard ‘em all. 

Change: Do you think it’s better than one of the old 7 Seconds albums? 

jay: Yes. 

Change: You’re drunk. 

jay: I really do. Drink the Kool-Aid, huh? [laughs to himself] [it is at this point that he starts mentioning drinking Kool-Aid and mixing drinks which no one seems to understand at all, but we’ll leave the exact words out (as if they make any sense)] I like them personally and I like their music. I found 7 Seconds about as interesting as watching Ian tell 3,000 people not to dance. I don’t think there needs to be some martial law. 

Change: Yeah, but Kevin Seconds isn’t like that. 

jay: I know, but I saw Kevin Seconds’ other band, Acid Head or Trip or Wire or whatever the fuck it was, and it was a nightmare. We took ‘em on tour with us. “Come on, Kevin, it’s cool!” We were like “God, what are you doing?!” Once again, we’re seeing personal taste. You like them, I don’t hate them, but I don’t have any of their records. See, I’m not bagging on you for liking them, but you’re bagging on me for liking Rancid. 

Change: No, I like Rancid. Uh, here’s kind of a non-serious question. Do you think that “Scooby Doo” towards the end of its run on Saturday mornings was helped by Scrappy Doo or do you think that Scrappy Doo destroyed it? 

jay: I think that Scrappy Doo was bad. Just bad. I think they shoulda introduced a female dog that Scooby Doo had a love interest with. Scrappy came out of nowhere and I didn’t dig that. But if they had Scooby fucking this female dog and then having kids, that would’ve salvaged it. Shaggy shoulda had a chick, too. That was fucked up! I think they shoulda had a female Scooby Doo and had Shaggy fucking the dog. That woulda rocked. [laughed] 

Change: What do you think about guest appearances by Don Knots, Sandy Duncan, and the Globetrotters on “Scooby Doo?” 

jay: The Globetrotters were the only ones worth it…well, Don Knots rules. Always. He rules the planet. Sandy Duncan I can pass on because she’s like the Wheat Thins chick. 

Change: Back to a zinger. Any thoughts on the corporate buyout of punk? 

jay: Yeah, it’s fucking feeding frenzy. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s kinda sick. Everyone’s looking at us like “yeah, but you did it.” We were on Epitpah [sic] for like 15 years. We had to move. We just didn’t start 2 years ago and get a quarter of a million $ deal because we’re punk. It is the latest flavor and that’s a problem. 

Change: Don’t you think that there’s a lot of people who will buy into it? 

jay: To a certain extent. I was talking to this guy about it and I asked him “do you really think middle America is going to be conned into buying punk rock albums?” I don’t think so. I think middle America will, and this is from my years at the label, walk into a store and go “who sings that song ‘You gotta keep ‘em separated?’” That’s how they buy records. “Here you go, it’s the Offspring.” “Whatever, I don’t care what the name of the band is, I just want that song.” 

Change: The thing that worries me the most is that the more and more bands jump to major labels, the less money gets circulated among independent labels. 

jay: Maybe, maybe not. Let’s say… 

Change: Fat Wreck Chords. 

jay: Fat Wreck Chords, fine. Let’s say Mike does two more Lag Wagon albums and Lag Wagon signs on to Columbia. On Columbia, Lag Wagon has a platinum record. Fat Mike doesn’t have to sell the past records to Columbia, and he owns the catalog records that are going to start selling better than they ever have before. That’s cash flow for Fat Wreck Chords. That allows him to sign more bands. 

Change: Yet I realize that it’s a band like the Offspring, who decided to stay on Epitaph instead of signing with a major, who is putting more money back into other Epitaph bands. What I’m saying is that the more money that gets put into a major label forum, once the trend dies, how much of this music will still be around? 

jay: That’s up to the bands. If bands want to kill themselves and do things that are totally outrageous then they will. 

Change: But in a way, it might be better if everyone goes major, that way it’ll have to go underground. 

jay: Believe me, when this is all over with, you’re not going to see hide nor hair of punk rock unless you come to the shows. We’re [sic] still be around because we’re not interesting in making a quick buck. The only way that it can destroy itself is that the people that like the music, and this happened in L.A. around ’84, dive under. They just go “fuck it, we’re not gonna buy these records, we’re not gonna support this scene.” I like that, I support that. If this thing gets blown out to hell, I’m going to do the same thing. 

Change: Honestly, how much has your life or Bad Religion changed since being on Atlantic? 

jay: Not at all. 

Change: You have more money in your pocket? 

jay: No. I made great money on Epitaph. We sold 250,000 records worldwide on a small label. We walked into Atlantic and said “we sell 250,000 records worldwide. Here’s our contract with Epitaph. Match it and we’ll go with you because we don’t want to deal with the everyday minutae [sic] of ‘gee, I don’t like that 8x10 as much as I like that other one.’” That’s work. “Can Bad Religion come play at my prom?” “No!” We needed someone else to do the everyday shitwork and let Bad Religion make music and make records. 

Change: But doesn’t that force you away from the people? You have to go through a label and PR firm to get an interview instead of just going up to a band and saying “I love the music, can I interview you?” 

jay: Did you try and walk up to me and just interview me? 

Change: No. 

jay: That’s your fault. If you walked up to me and said “can I do an interview?” what would I have said? I would have said yes. Absolutely, let’s go. People are quick to go “this is fucked, I can’t even talk to you!” You’re talking to me now. I don’t need to defend myself or the decisions I made, but if you ask me how I feel about something, I’ll gladly tell you honestly. That’s the way I am and I’m not about to change that. 

Change: This may be a bit touchy, but I wanted to know if you had anything to say about why Mr. Brett left. 

jay: Epitaph. You can’t go out on tour for 6 months and run a label, especially one of that magnitude. What’s he gonna do? 

Change: Is everything still cool and stuff? 

jay: No. It’s not cool. It’s fucked. 

Change: You’re still playing the songs that he wrote? 

jay: Hey, they’re Bad Religion songs. 

Change: I’m asking. 

jay: Yeah, absolutely, sure. Bad Religion has a history. That history involves some other drummers, another guitar player, some other bass players. I wasn’t included on a couple records ‘cause I quit. We play songs off of those records. Brett leaving is stranger than me or the drummer leaving because we didn’t write any of the material. Brett wrote the material. That’s weird. We replaced him with someone we had so much respect for that it didn’t matter. It’s not this kid from the Valley who’s supposed to be some guitar genius, it’s Brian Baker. 

Change: I heard that around the same time he got offered to play with you that he got offered to go on tour with REM. 

jay: That’s right. That’s true. 

Change: On a lighter note, I heard you guys were all married and had families. I had never heard anything about that. 

jay: Greg Graffin and I are married, and Greg Hetson is married. Greg and I have kids. Not together! [laughter] Greg and I have been secretly married for many years now! I have 2 kids and Greg has 2 kids. I got married in…fuck…’89 [let’s hope his wife doesn’t read this]. 

Change: You’re in trouble. 

jay: I met my wife in ’87 when we were writing “Suffer.” These wives have seen this band grow. I feel like now my attitude has softened to the point were, yeah, I’m still pretty convinced the planet is fucked and the people in general are fucked, but that maybe I can teach my children not to be fucked. Maybe you can make a little world where people aren’t fucked. Maybe that’s a sick way of looking at it; using your kids to make yourself feel better. 

Change: Well what happens when you go on tour? 

jay: They came out once on tour. It’s difficult for kids. They’re like “what do we do?” They run around the club and you’re like “fuck, this is not cool.” My wife doesn’t like it. She was in a band before, so she knows what touring is like. She doesn’t want any part of it, travelling [sic] around with 6 sweaty guys that watch pornos and talk shit all day long. If I wasn’t in a band, I would think that at first touring was a kick, but in the middle of the trek, you’d go “this sucks.” “What do you guys [sic] do all day?” Well, we read, listen to walkmans and we talk about biology and geology and geography; the most boring shit ever but for us it’s interesting. 

Change: Are you into sciences? Isn’t Greg a professor at Cornell? 

Change: Does his teaching disrupt shows the band might want to do? 

jay: See, he’s an undergraduate TA, which means he teaches new students as part of getting his degree. Part of getting a PhD is proving what you’ve learned. He did that and said “I’m taking a year off to tour with the band.” It’s not a big thing for him. He’s really close. He got his master’s from UCLA in Geology and he’s getting his PhD in Biology or Zoology, one of the two. He wants to be a paleantologist [sic], but there’s no course for paleantology, which is the study of fossils. You have to study geology for the rocks and biology for the bone structures. 

Change: I guess we got a last question then. [he laughs] It’s been what, 14 years?
jay: Yep. 

Change: How long do you think you can ride the wave? 

jay: What wave? [laughs] I don’t know. I can’t imagine myself at 33 or 34 yelling “Fuck armageddon, this is hell.” But when I was 15, I couldn’t imagine myself at 30, period. Now I am. It feels like I’m as old as fucking dirt. When I started this band at 15 I thought people that were 30 were fossils. I have a lot of anger and a lot of issues that I want resolved, and a lot of them are related to Bad Religion. How the band evolved was how we all felt. As long as we feel unsatisfied with the answers we keep getting, we’ll keep doing it. Until someone hits us on the head with a mallte [sic] and goes “you idiots! Don’t you see?!” For right now, it’s just 5 guys that ask a hell of a lot of questions without getting any answers. That’s how we feel. 

Change: So is there anything you hope to learn in the future? 

jay: Everything. 

Change: There’s no specific thing you strive for? 

jay: Well…why are people fucked? Answer that. Why are people just so fucked? 

Change: ‘Cause they suck, dude! [laughter] 

jay: That’s a pretty cool answer. I’ll live my life on that theory. “Because they suck.” [laughter] 

Change: So you gonna play “Walk Away” for me tonight? 

jay: No. 

Change: Damn [laughter] 

jay: I think we played “Walk Away” once and that went straight to tape. That was about it. [he laughs] 

Change: Why did you re-record “21st Century Digital Boy?” 

jay: Because we were playing it every night since 1989, ’90. It wasn’t that we weren’t happy with it. I was thrilled with it. I thought it was a great fucking song. Brett just happened to think that we were playing it better than we played it on the record. He just thought it was the one song of his that had a snowball’s chance in hell of being popular. I think one of Brett’s quests as a song writer was to write a pop hit. That’s hard to do when you’re in a punk rock band. He always thought that song could be a pop hit, and he fought for it to get on the record and to be a single. I eventually got tired of saying “that’s not what we do.” That’s what he wanted to do when he was a member of the band at the time and we all went “well, OK, if you feel that strongly about it, we’ll put it on the record.” We have a very democratic process which is that if 3 members vote one way, then it’s going to happen, unless one member feels so strongly about it, then we all just concede and say “that’s cool.”

[the interview x ended about there, with Jay saying “yes” or “no” to Johnny T’s questions about whether they’d play a specific song that night.]