Greg Graffin, vocals - GG

Brett, guitar

Greg Hetson, Guitar - GREG

Pete, drums (he wasn't there)

Jay Bentley, bass

 

GG: Let's get this show on the road. Ya know we do this every night, so...

STZ: Yeah, especially Lester with his nihilism questions.

BRETT: We like Lester. I think there should be more people like Lester.

STZ: Yeah.

BRETT: Who's she?

STZ: My little sister. Jo-Ann. What's your favorite band?

JOANN: Bad Religion.

STZ: No. Really.

JOANN: New Kids on the Block.

GG: What???

STZ (Ray): They're my favorite band also.

GG: I hate them.

BRETT: They have a lot of talent, OK Greg, you just don't understand.

JOANN: I don't like most hardcore. I've only been to two shows.

BRETT: Are you seeing us tommorrow?

JOANN: No, I don't think so.

BRETT: Did you hear all your favorites?

JOANN: Yes.

STZ: Your're married?

BRETT: (Nods)

GG: Yes, that's what this gold thing is.

STZ: To each other? How long have you been married? (Chuckle)

GG: Over a year and a half now.

STZ: So what do you think about marriage?

GG: In general? It sucks, cuz most people are idiots and they don't go about it the right way. That's a comment on the institution. I'm having a very happy marriage, I mean, we're trying to do everything right. It's a lot of fun.

STZ: Is she a punk rocker?

GG: No, she's a first grade school teacher. She loves punk rock. She loves Bad Religion, it's her favorite band and she despises, well, she doesn't despise New Kids on the Block. She's not into them at all.

BRETT: There's nothing wrong with liking NKOTB. You're trying to intimidate her.

GG: No I...

BRETT: If you like them, you like them, and that's it.

GG: I respect you for putting them in the same category with us...

BRETT: She's 16 years old Greg!

GG: I think it's good that you weren't embarressed to tell me that you liked New Kids I would never ever impose my beliefs on you. You should love 'em.

BRETT: If you've seen them live you'd love em.

STZ: Yeah, they're a live band.

BRETT: I heard somebody tell me that.

GG: How could they be good?

STZ: What are we talking about!!! [...] anything about New Kids on the Block??

GG: No.

STZ: See! See!

(Brett keeps going on how his friend liked New Kids live while Ray asked)

STZ: (to Greg) I have a question from my friend Mark. Is that the same guitar you played with the Circle Jerks?

GREG: Yeah, I've had that guitar for about 6 years. (Mark, that's a dumb question).

(Brett and Joann are still talking about New Kids)

STZ: Joann, I heard one of them fell on stage and cut his lip open. I guess his lip was hangin tough.

BRETT: Yeah, I think it was Joey?

JOANN: No, Donny.

GREG: What are we talking about. Oh, do you have the Christmas album?

JOANN: Yes.

GREG: Yeah!!! Alright!!!

(Blah, blah, blah)

STZ: In a lot of your songs there's a lot of hostility and frustration. Would you say it's a reflection of your lives now or in the past?

BRETT and GG: Fuck you!!!! Aaaggghhh!

STZ: Not that type of hostility.

GG: Yeah, like I just got done telling you I'm very happily married but I'm a bit pent up! Nah, I'm not. Bad Religion is...

GREG: I'm gonna mosh while the interview goes on.

BRETT: Do the eggbeater!!!

GREG: We slam where we come from but I hear you guys mosh here.

STZ: I'm all moshed out man. We punch the floor in New York.

GREG: (Tries it) Ohhh, owww. Hey that hurt.

GG: Anyway, Bad Religion is an exploration in emotions. OK. You shouldn't think that someone has to be twisted to think of twisted things. On the outside I'm able to maintain my composure but I may be able to identify certain emotions better than someone else and write them down on paper and that's what I do.

BRETT: I don't do that. I write from the heart.

GG: That's what identifying certain emotions is all about.

BRETT: In other people?

GG: No, just identifying your own emotions contrary to what your good friend Lester thinks. You don't have to express your emotions to the hilt ya know. You can maintain some composure and still have certain feelings. Lester kept asking us, "How do you write these lyrics and keep from going insane?"

BRETT: Let me try to explain as far as my songs go. If I acted out every thought I had, I'd be in prison for life either that, or I'd be committed the way to deal with it. I write it down and put a song around it and then it's done. It's over with.

GG: You don't have to live your life. Everybody says, "Be true to your feelings" I think that's bunk. If I was true to my feelings I'd be not only scitzophrenic but like Brett said, end up in prison. You have to maintain composure to lead a happy life and for me, first and foremost is being happy.

STZ: Does it make you conformist?

GG: I think I'm pretty non-conformist when it comes to social circles. But in terms of things like laws and morals, I conform pretty much. Doesn't mean I like everything it just means I do it to avoid dissonance.

BRETT: You get a lot more done if you...well I can't put it...

STZ: Well what do you think of someone like Charles Manson?

GG: Well, he had a rockin band.

BRETT: Charles Manson is an example of somebody who did the opposite of what I just stated. He did what he felt like doing, and look where he ended up. He's locked away for life.

GG: Do you think he's happy now?

BRETT: Yeah, he's totally insane.

GG: If you really want to change things you have to go against the grain quietly. You have to fight the quiet fight. You can get things done and make a change for the better starting with yourself. To become a sociopath like Charles Manson is not going to change society except it might delete it of a few human beings. Then you're going to end up in prison and nothing is done.

STZ: Speaking of Charles Manson in a different way, do you feel there is a need to keep Charles Manson alive? Do you see any reason not to give him the death sentence?

BRETT: No! In my opinion there's no justification for the death penalty. No human being has the right to take the life of another human being no matter how heinous their crime.

JAY: And they go in a little box for the rest of their lives...

STZ: (Ray) You don't mind supporting those people?

BRETT: Do I mind it? I don't want to have blood on my hands, I'd rather give a penny a year out of my income to keep them alive. I don't think there's any justification for murder. Furthermore I do think that it would be moral to serilize all these psycho killers because I don't want their genes in the human gene pool. If we sterilize every person who was a psycho killer eventually we might not have any more.

GG: That's a tough one, because if you sterilize someone your wiping certain genes out of the gene pool but it doesn't  count for re-combination, you might wipe out the genes with the greatest genetic potential that are masked in the recessive form.

STZ: How far away is that from a Hitler theroy?

BRETT: It's not.

JAY: Very close.

BRETT: Except I'm only doing it to people proven guilty of mass murder. Which is not like killing 6 million innocent jews! Your just practicing what you learned in your debate class!

STZ: No, I'm not comparing 6 million jews to Charles Manson I'm just saying it's the same sort of mentality. I don't take a debate class.

GG: It is. It's genetic erratication.

BRETT: No it's not because it could happen to a black, it could happen to a white, it's just for people that have a mental disease that is horribly destructive. I'm not afraid of genetic engineering and I'm not Hitler. I don't see anything wrong with taking people with an IQ over 150 and saving their sperm.

GG: You don't see any reason?

BRETT: No, I don't see any problem with changing the human geno so we can't get aids anymore.. Genetic engineering can have incredible positive results for the human race. It's been proven that people that have chemical dependancies have a different genetic structure than those who don't. I'm not going to say that all our emotions and thoughts are ruled simply by chemical reactions in our brain, I think there is a balance between chemistry and environment. I just think some of the extreme examples of mental disorder... It's not even opinion, it's being realized with the demize of freudian psychology, that's brain chemicals have a large part to play in mental disease. They're curing terrez syndrome with nuerotransmitters. They're doing all kinds of research in hat area.

GG: Well, I'll have to disagree. First of all we're a long way from isolating certain genes that create a certain type of behavior. Rather it's probably an addictive reation kind of thing where a lot of different things are coming into play and if you erradicate a members genes from the gene pool. You don't know how many beneficial genes you're getting rid of. Manson may have in the recessive state, the most important genes.

BRETT: But, of the 6 billion people on earth the number you're erradicating is like 1/1000th of a percent. Then the number that don't get life in prison and are released on good behavior are probably 1 billionth of a percent. It would effect like 1 person, Manson is never getting out, so there's no reason to do it.

GG: So what's the use of it?

BRETT: It's a substitute for the death penalty. It's for the families of the victims some recompense.

GG: The death penalty was supposed to be a deterent.

JAY: It's not, it's a joke. If someone is crazy enough to kill someone it doesn't matter. You've gone beyond the point where your life doesn't matter and neither does anyone else's. People's lives only depend on your reality of what your life is worth. If your life is worth just as much shit as yours, it's not a detterent to people who say like, "I'm not worth Jack shit and neither are you" but like Greg was saying. What if Charles Manson already has 5 or 10 kids, are you supposed to go to them and sterilize them?

BRETT: No, of course not. Their innocent.

JAY: But they're carrying on that gene pool.

BRETT: No, they're innocent. You can't touch an innocent person. This is me and it's a radical point of view, I'm not asking you to agree with it.

GG: There's nothing wrong with agreeing or whatever, we're jist trying to figure out what the fuck would someone think that? (they go on and on about it)

STZ: So, what kind of guitar is that?

GREG: It's a 71 SG Gibson and my view of the death penalty is, I'm for it but under one circumstance, and there's no way this can happen. That you can make sure that every person is guilty and you just can't do that. (GG and BRETT are still arguing) 

MARK (Casualities): Ray, did you ask the question?

STZ: Yeah.

MARK: Dude, that was my question!

GREG: Alright, dude! (Talk goes to religion)

GG: I hate religion, unlike my collegue who will tell you that there are some good religions, or some less detremental. I really don't like religions in general... However, I have a very firm root in the church of Christ. I never go to church but my family history is rooted in that church. I think there are some positive aspects. The community aspects of going to church even though the religion foundation upon which it is built is rather bogus. There are some real positive qualities, especially in small town America where people depend on the church for their community.

STZ: (Ray) But, what about someone who is in desperation and finds help with religion?

GG: Then, more power to him.

BRETT: That's why it's an opiate. That's why Marx called it the opiate of the masses. It's fine for that and it's a lot less harmful than any drug or...

GREG: My opiate is psychologists.

GG: As far as the Krsna question, I think it's one of the lousiest profit making corporations that's popped up in the United States, I think they're up there with McDondalds. They're right up there with the U.S. Army in my book.

GREG: They have good incense though!

GG: Yeah, we have some in my bathroom.

STZ: (Ray) Ok here's the racism portion of the interview. Did you ever see that show the Simpsons? (Bill) Oh no!!! Stop Ray! (Ray) Bart Simpson is white on TV and now all these people are wearing black Bart Simpson t-shirts. Don't you think that that's bringing race into a issue that has nothing to do with it.

GG: I haven't seen them.

GREG: I have one. I don't think it promotes racism. I think it's a satire of the whole racism thing.

STZ: I think it's asking for racism by bringing it into something...

GREG: Is that like making Snoopy black?

GG: No, because dogs don't have a racei (laugh) It's like making Snoopy a terrier.

GREG: I don't think there is a such thing as race because there really isn't.

GG: There's a such thing as "race" but it's not genetically founded.

BRETT: We are all one species.

GREG: Did we avoid that one pretty good? (laugh)

GG: To answer your question, I don't think it promotes racism...

JAY: I think it promotes brotherhood for a white guy to be wearing a black Bart t-shirt.

GG: However, we do have to stray away from the blacks need to identify... I mean, it's hard to leave race out of the picture. It's easy for us to say well, every time a black person talks about black power, he's promoting racism because he's setting them apart from us. But it's hard for us to judge adequately because we aren't a minority. We don7t really say "Let us white people stick together". If you do that, you're billed as a racist.

STZ: (Ray) But, I just feel that race is being brought into every aspect of life.

GG: So, what should we do just forget about it and say there's equality. Equality should have been granted when Lincoln was president right. It took 80-90 years before they could even vote in most places. You see, I have mixed feelings about it. I look at it with disappointment a lot of time because I think it can mislead a lot of black and white youths into promoting racism. It's a very intricate problem that really can't be approached. (We talk about California for a while and it's not all that interesting)

STZ: Now with the Cold War supposedly coming to an end, do you feel the threat of nuclear war any different?

BRETT: I think it's worse.

GREG: Not from the superpowers but like some third world nation...

GG: No, I think it's from the superpowers. Because two years ago, although there was a Cold War, what the Cold War provided was stability, and I'm not pro-Cold War, believe me, I'm against it. I would say the threat is greater because war always breaks out in countries that are unstable. Countries with great stability don't usually go to war. Russia is extremely unstable now, different parties are extremely polarized. There are districts trying to suceed from the union and there are nationalists and whenever something like that happens there's always a danger that the nationalists will seize power. If that happens, it's really scary. That's what all the diplomats in the world are afraid of really. I don't think we will have a nuclear war, but I think the threat is certainly not less than it was before the Cold War.

STZ: Ok.

GG: Last question?

STZ: Yeah, just about.

GG: Last question, I'm putting my foot down.

STZ: What do you think about the west having such an influence on the rest of the world and where it comes to a point where in countries like Japan they're having baseball games and drinking coca cola and copying our style of dress. The American culture becoming their culture to the extent where their's is all but diappearing?

GG: I think that's really good. Personally, I believe that the only way to abolish raciism is to have a cultural identity with other cultures. To look as a black person, not as a different culture but as someone who's equal to you. Part of that entails cultural diffusion.

BRETT: I think assimilation is good as well, but I feel it's important for each culture to maintain it's traditions and identity so that culture can thrive and life is interesting and ornate. But eventually the ultimate goal is to have a global village where everybody is one big country and you can't really have a war. The way to do that is for people to have mixed marriages and have McDonalds in China and Russian tacos (laugh)

BRETT: It's bound to happen.

GG: That's what we should have if we don't blow us up first.

MARK: How do you feel about being in another state of mind for three seconds?

GG: Oh, yeah.

BRETT: That was our crowd at that show.

GG: It's a joke. It just shows ya Bad Religion never will get respect, will never get the credit it deserves and will never get the respect...

STZ: Do you care?

GG: And I don't give a shit.