Due to the amount of area Flipside to cover in the seven year lapse since our last Bad Religion interview, Shitworker Todd and Mail Girl Extraordinaire Holly wrote down approximately eight pages of questions. The result was far too many pages to print in one issue, so in a crafty marketing ploy, we bring you bass player Jay Bentley this issue and Greg Graffin next.

 

 

Holly: Name, instrument and degree?

Jay: Jay Bentley, bass guitar, GED.

Todd: It's hard because they split you and Greg up so we have to filter through our questions now.

Jay: No, you can ask me, Greg, Brian and Bobby any questions. We know enough about each other now. Hetson kind of goes, "I dunno. I dunno."

Holly: "I gotta go to the bathroom."

Jay: Yeah, "I gotta go to the bathroom. I dunno."

Todd: Describe Bad Religion in terms of your favorite hockey player?

Jay: Oh boy, I'm gonna go with Felix Potvin, goal tender of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He's one of the greatest goal tenders in history but has such a horrible, horrible defense that he just can't win. I mean, you just can't stop sixty shots a game. "Well I stopped fifty-five of 'em." "We lost five to one." Help me here, OK. Actually, the funny part is that we're actually friends. We hang together. We're just out there trudging through doing this 'cause this is what we really like to do and I know him. He doesn't ever quit. He can be down ten to nothing but he's just working. He's a monster. And the same with us. People say you can't do this, you can't do that. I'll work ten times as hard. I'll prove you wrong.

Todd: I have a hockey question. How does that guy's name - how is it "Wa" when it's spelled Van?

Jay: It's just to fuck us up in America.

Holly: It's like Jagr. [pronounced Yagger] It's spelled with a J.

Jay: Yeah, where do you... J...A...G...R? Are you mad? Vowel. Can I buy you an E? Let me talk to Vannah. "Vannah, can I buy this man an E please?"

Holly: It's like your name being Bob but pronouncing it Mike.

Jay: I'm finding that that's one of the best parts about hockey. If your name is even slightly close to being somewhat French or Canadian, you can just change your name. I would be Jai [spoken in French overtones] whatever. That's the great thing about hockey. People named Mike immediately become Michelle in the NHL. Michelle Francois. It's like, "No, that's Mike Frank."

Holly: What's the most un-punk rock thing you do everyday?

Jay: I take my kids to school. But, I take them to school as The Fucker. All the other people that are taking their kids to school go, "Oh my God. Who is that guy?" I laugh about it when I do it. I think about it and I'm going, "This is great." Oh, and then I shovel dog shit. We have four dogs and they eat fifty pounds of dog food a week which equates to fifty pounds of shit. I had a friend over and he said, "I would have never thought I'd see you shoveling shit." Yep, that's me. I don't do anything that would be weird, I guess.

Holly: What's the most punk rock thing you do everyday?

Jay: I get up. My thought process is just that. If someone says to me, "Oh, well, this is the state of the standard normalization" I go, "Let's fuck with that. Let's change that." What Bad Religion is to me when I'm home is a series of phone calls of people having problems. I cannot tell you, even today... We've been together for eighteen years so you'd think that people would understand Bad Religion. Get with the program. We don't do things the conventional way. If there's a purpose and function for me in Bad Religion it's to absolutely find the better way to do it than the standard rock and roll business way of doing everything. "Well, this is how Foghat did it." Well fuck them. We're Bad Religion. "You can't get that. No band gets that." Then fuck you. Then we don't want to work with you any more. So, my daily attitude is just... I am the person who is absolutely going to ruin your business day.  If you had any intention when you left for work this morning. "I'm going to fuck me up." "No you can't have 12%. What planet are you on?" "Well, that's the standard contract." "Well fuck you." It just doesn't work that way.

Todd: Were you in the Pink Twinkies?

Jay: Uh, well, no one was ever really in the Pink Twinkies. It was the name that we decided to use on many occasions.

Todd: Name one occasion.

Jay: We tried to get in and play our high school. We gave them a tape of Devo and said we were the Pink Twinkies.

Todd: Did it work?

Jay: No.

Todd: Close?

Jay: No, they saw right through it. I don't think we've actually played a show as the Pink Twinkies. We played a show as Boiled Grain once. An anagram for Bad Religion. And Noigiler Dab which is Bad Religion backwards. But the Pink Twinkies, naa.

Todd: What was the number two option for the name of the band?

Jay: Smegma or Hedge Cheese.

Todd: Smegma's been taken.

Jay: Not back then it hadn't.

Todd: That's true.

Holly: Was there any band that had said they were going to bury you and then ended up opening for you five years later?

Jay: No, not ever. That's a wild concept, isn't it? I know individual musicians who are insecure in their positions and won't concede when someone is really good, won't give them that pleasure of saying, "You are really talented. You are one of those weird alien-God type people that just picked up a guitar when you were twenty and played it like you were playing it since you were two." I'm sympathetic to them because I understand that they're dealing with that ego thing, but we've never had that and if anybody's ever said anything against us, they wouldn't say it to our faces. We hear, "You suck." I have fans that come up to me and are all, "You guys suck." I'm all, "That's great."

Holly: Not "Fuck you?"

Jay: No, not ever, because that's not appropriate. One of the things we say is to think for yourself. Do what you want. Be you. And if part of your individuality is coming up to a band and saying, "Fuck you, man. I hate  you," then, "Wow, great, I'm glad you have an opinion and the balls to come up and say that. That's genius. I really respect you." And I do and I mean that and they're like, "Well, anyway, fuck you." Cool, 'cause I'm not offended by that. I'm not doing this to be liked. I know a lot of people who are like, "Look at me, I'm in a band because I need to be loved and hugged." This is fun, man. Just like hockey. It is. It's just like five guys. Wait, we've got five guys, a hockey team has five guys. We go out there and have our plays...

Todd: Why no hockey songs? Why no Hanson Brothers?

Jay: They're doing such a good job at it so why compete with them? It's just like, "Why no techno? Why no Puff Daddy?" Well, he's got that covered. When we find a gap we kind of fill in there. We go, "Nobody's doin' that country wheel thing. Let's do that for a while."

Holly: Do you still play with a Sears guitar?

Jay: It was stolen from me. I don't have it anymore.

Todd: It had painted strings, right?

Jay: Yeah, it did.

Holly: Are there any more stores like that putting out instruments nowadays? Wal-Mart? JC Pennys?

Jay: No, I've never seen a guitar at Wal-Mart... Well, I think Wal-Mart might have some kids acoustic guitars. I've seen guitars at JC Pennys outlet stores. That one out in Pasadena. There's guitars there and the Sears outlet has instruments. Sears were selling the Silvertones - the sixties - before Mika guitars and now everyone's screaming about it. "I gotta have a Silvertone."

Holly: Do they have any instruments beside guitars?

Jay: Guitars, basses, they've had drums, amps.

Todd: The Sears All State scooter which highly sought.

Jay: In retrospect now, what you spend at Sears for a guitar, you could get a much better guitar at a pawn shop but when you're fourteen or fifteen and with your parents, they're not going to take you to a pawn shop. "Well, we'll go to Sears." "OK."

Todd: "And we'll get some Tuffskins while we're at it."

Jay: You've got your Tuffskins, you've got your Sears bass, there you go.

Todd: How many shows did you play without changing the strings on you bass?

Jay: Oh, God, fifty.

Todd: Really? And it didn't break?

Jay: No, and the funny thing was that it was this little short scale jazz bass thing so it wasn't really any bigger than a guitar and I thought, "This is it. This is bass," and they were flat wounds, not even round wounds, and I painted the whole thing black and it just sounded like, "Dut dut dut dut." and then I just moved on. I had to get another bass and when I got a real bass it was like, "This thing's huge. I'm never going to be able to play this."

Holly: Have you ever been to jail?

Jay: The question would be, "Havve you ever been convicted?" The answer is no. Have you been detained? Yes I have. Convicted, no.

Todd: How was living in Bowen Island [located off the coast of Vancouver, BC]?

Jay: It's quiet.

Todd: Has being a part-time Canadian mellowed you out?

Jay: No because I'm always on the road and when I come back... When we first went there, the island's consensus, because there's only 2,000 people on the island and most of them are artists and writers - kind of sketchy people that freaked out and went to this little island - they were like, "That guy's from Los Angeles. Stay away from him." lt's true. It's like, "You don't know what he's capable of. He's one of those weirdos." And l'm happy about that, l'm involved with the things that l'm involved with and now obviously, over time, we've been there a couple of years and now... lsland life's just quiet and you do your thing and you talk to people when you want to talk to them and you don't when you don't. lt's a lot easier to have a healthy community spirit because lhetre's enough people to have healthy debates but not enough people to have a full scale riot, So we're OK.

Todd: No big pitchfork rebellions.

Jay: Yeah, there's not a whole lot of that going on. ln a way, it's very old fashioned. lt's not like here where I can go get anything I want, twenty-four hours a day and also there's the possibility that any time during that twenty-four hours that all shit could break loose

Todd: And you're right in the middle of it.

Jay: And you're just there like, "l didn't ask for this " I tell ya, l'm serious. When the riots started we were at the Epitaph office on Santa Monica and l'm working in the warehouse and I've got the garage door open and after about ten minutes I notice that there are no cars going by any more and l'm listening and I walk out there and there's just no cars and I look far enough down to that Sears way down there and all I see are people running from the Sears and it's all on fire and I go, "Brett, I think you need to see this."

Todd: "l think I need to shut the door."

Jay: "What the hell's going on? '"O....K..." To this day I don't know what the hell was going on "Well, OK, just close the door. Fuck it, man "

Holly: Have you ever turned on MTV and liked what you saw?

Jay: Sure.

Holly: Have you ever been on MTV?

Jay: Yes

Holly: Doing what?

Jay: Doing 120 Minutes with Matt Pinfield but there's been three or four hosts of 120 Minutes since its inception. Headbanger's Ball which was a metal show.

Todd: With Ricky Ractman.

Jay: With Ricky Ractman. We've done some news things. The last snowboarding thing... The Board Aid thing that we did had MTV there. MTV is music televisian so if we're going to be a band that's touring around, chances are we're gonna run into each other. We've shot videos, they show 'em once and they throw 'em in the trash, so we don't shoot videos any more. It's like, "Why the hell are we doing this? You mean I got in that toxic water for nothing?"

Holly: "No one's going to ever see me in that spandex bodysuit?

Jay: No. That would be beyond me.

Holly: He's a spandex guy.

Jay: Yeah, no, I'm a pajamas guy.

Todd: Has anybody ever stolen the mic and sang completely wrong vocals?

Jay: Absolutely.

Todd: Does anything stand out in you mind?

Jay: The song "Only Gonna Die" from 1982 and a guy grabbed the mic and sang, "Peter Pan walked away." The line was, "Early man walked away" and I looked over to Greg and go, "Did he say what I thought he said?" and then he said it again. "Peter Pan walked away." He was saying Peter Pan. Man, I just peed my pants. Too much for me.

Holly: What's a line in one of your songs that most people get wrong?

Jay: God, there are so many. I can't even begin to think. Most people come up and go, "What the hell is he saying there?" and then I have to rewind it in my brain and go, "Um, stranded in a life in which he struggled for la la la never ending chore la la la and blah blah blah future wide open door," and they go, "No, the blah blah blah part" and I go,"I don't know. It went by me so fast I didn't catch it the first time around." So I'm up there going, "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba."

Todd: "I'm thinking of the bass part right there."

Jay: I'm working during that singing bit. I didn't catch it. There's a lot. I can't even think. The song "Twenty First Century Digital Boy"... Probably the most made mistake is most people think it's "Twentieth Century Digital Boy." Well, add a century there. We're almost out of the twentieth century. It's the millenium. The year 2000. Think about that.

Holly: In 1989 you guys said that you'd never make it on the pop charts because of your name. Did it ever happen?

Jay: In Germany 'cause in German we just mean [in a deep, Godly tone] Lake of Religion. "The Lake of Religion. We love the Lake of Religion. We are bathing now in the Lake of Religion." Yeah, great, thanks. So, yeah, we actually had a top five single last year.

Todd: Which song was it?

Jay: It was "Punk Rock Song" in German. Greg sang it in German. I was like [thumbs up]. It was so much work, it was frightful. I was just word by word. We're like, "OK, let's translate this." It doesn't work. Sarcasm in German is non-existent. We we're trying to translate the line, "Have you been to the quagmire, have you swam in the shit?" So we're working this out and a German friend sitting right out there and is like, [German accent] "But why would you want to swin in shit?" "That's not what we're saying." [German accent] "Well, what are you saying?" "Well, have you swam in the shit? Have you just like been in the...shit." [German accent] "Why would you go in the shit?"

Todd: [German accent] "Why would you go in sewer?"

Jay: "OK, this isn't gonna work." It was a nightmare but it was fun.

Holly: Can you think of any band that has "made it" with a not-so-proper name in America? Todd thought of the Butthole Surfers but that's the only one we could think of.

Jay: I think that was probably the most offensive band name that ever made it to the point where people were actually saying it. "And the Butthole Surfers tonight..." and you're like, "He he he." Like, "That new guy just said Butthole Surfers." Beavis and Butthead. "He, he, he said butthole, ha ha."

Holly: Hootie and the Blowfish is pretty offensive to me. [laugh]

Jay: It's a strange thing that people don't get. Obviously it depends on how your mind works. I mean, Hole is obviously... You could take that in so many ways.

Todd: I could think of the Gaza Strippers 'cause that would offend a certain element of our culture. Dayglo Abortions. Jesus Lizard just because Jesus' in the title.

Jay: 900 Foot Jesus.

Todd: Liquid Jesus, Jesus Jones.

Jay: Jesus and Mary Chain. Jesus and Mary Chain was awesome. You know what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to think of those metally hair bands but they didn't have any bad names, did they?

Todd: No, not really. They went straight for the Venom, Stryper, Poison, Electric Love Hog.

Jay: They really didn't have anything going.

Holly: Let's stop talking about terrible bands.

Todd: OK.

Jay: The Circle Jerks was...

Todd: Sure, but most people didn't...

Jay: The didn't know what it meant.

Todd: Yeah.

Jay: When we all saw that one show Punky Brewster or whatever and she said, "I'm going to the Circle Jerks show." We went, "Ahh."

Todd: What was her name? It was like Celeel Moonspot or something.

Holly: I think she had breast cancer or something. [Later on I found out her turkeys grew too large and she had a reduction to help out her back, that's all] [Silence from the guys after the word breast filled the room.]

Holly: Sorry, I guess I can't say breast in the interview.

Todd: Geez.

Jay: Are you sure?

Todd: Do you have any medical conditions that we should worry about because five people in the punk rock community have died in the last three weeks.

Jay: Other than the fact that I'm insane and paranoid, no, I'm fine.

Todd: Did they have oxygen masks for after they did the set?

Jay: You know, all I did was "Smoke on the Water!" Keep walkin' man, I'm outta here. It was in... I can't remember the place. It was a beautiful place too. It was the Russian Riviera as it be, whatever the hell that's worth... Lately the shows are getting strange 'cause there's not a lot of... We're getting thrown on bills that are really strange for us but for some reason they're saying, [German accent] "Well, you fit in." You go to Germany and they go, "You have top five single so it's you, Barry Mantilow and then Aerosmith and then this Germand polka band.

Holly: Well, Bad Religion in Russian probably means Moody Blues.

Jay: Like four years ago we went to a couple of places and we were playing in the eastern blocs and we could see that these people were just getting into The Beatles. They'd had no music and they were gonna have to do this rock and roll thing very quickly and they didn't understand punk rock. They were like, [German accent] "Woah, wait a minute. I wanna do Kiss for awhile." "OK, I'm gonna let you have that. I'm gonna let you have your Kiss just for a while and then you've gotta move on." It's understandably frightening for them to come out of the fifties essentially and be thrust into the nineties.

Todd: In east Germany I learned that the government would have one release a year, officially. There was a 

lot of black market stuff but they were putting on the brakes every step of the way.

Jay: And the release was just like, [German accent] "Hans Yorgan and the Accordion from Hell."

Holly: Yanni.

Jay: Yeah, great, this is what I want to hear.

Holly: Who's playing with you guys tonight by the way?

Jay: Atomic 7. [His guess was close enough but it was actually Automatic 7.]

Holly: What's one thing you have absolutely no sense of humor about whatsoever...and can we laugh?

Jay: I don't. One of the things that people criticize me about is that I laugh about everything.

Holly: The hockey playoffs?

Jay: Yeah, but I laugh when people get in car accidents.

Holly: We do to.

Jay: I'm always the guy that's trying to make things a little better instead of complaining about everything and being like, "God, this sucks." I try to figure out like, "What's so absurd about this? Why does this really suck so much?" Because there's always an absurd angle you can always go, "Yeah, but look at it this way." And throw in some line and people go, "Yeah, that's true."

Holly: Do you have any trampoline stories?

Jay: Oh, one time I was jumping on the trampoline and I was like, "Check me out, I'm like forty feet high," and my friend - [said sarcastically] my friend - came and wacked my legs as I was on my way up so you could imagine. So now I'm in the air going, "OK, so I'm now totally out of control."So I came down on my face on the bar on my nose and I get up and I'm all, "Oh God, aarrgg." That's one. Then there was a driving range on Topanga Canyon in the valley and it was really weird. It was this golf driving range and then they had this miniature golf thing and then they had this row of trampolines that were as big as this table so on tape we can say like a 4x8 trampoline and there were like ten in a row. So we'd always go there at night, like at midnight when they were closed, jump over the fence and go on these trampolines and so the idea was that because they were abuout four feet apart, you'd just jump from one to the next and it would be fun and then you'd start getting bold and go, "Watch, I'm gonna jump from one over the next one over..." So 

I'm the guy that jumped over one and landed in the springs with my legs going, "Ohhh."

Todd: The first Epilady, right?

Jay: Yep, that was the one. Those were probably the most dangerous things we've ever done.

Todd: What were the trampolines at the driving range for? I've never played golf.

Jay: That's what I'm talking about. It was like a miniature golf course and a driving range and then these trampolines.

Todd: Interesting.

Jay: The weird thing was that the driving range went out of business so the miniature golf course went to pot so they closed it all down and left the trampolines there in the ground. So we would just go there and jump on the trampolines and then they'd just start ripping because they were out in the sun. "Woah, my leg." I'm still a big fan of trampolines no matter what happens. I'm trying to get one but I'm not allowed.

Todd: Have you ever hidden anything in a body cavity for an extended period of time?

Jay: Um, not intentionally. [laughter]

Todd: What does that mean? "Have you seen the eight ball around?"

Jay: We'll just leave it at that.

Holly: What's the strangest thing you've seen involving someone elderly?

Jay: Does driving count?

Todd: Sure.

Jay: I think I saw a 900 year old, three foot woman driving a Cadillac yesterday and thinking to myseld, "Wow." And there's this intricate set of mirrors for her to figure out where she's going. OK, I'm with it, I'm with you on this one 'cause transportationis key. I don't know where you're going but I'll be sure to stay out of your way.

Holly: Have you ever been peed on?

Jay: By a human?

Holly: Anything.

Jay: A dog.

Holly: Well, of course.

Jay: I threw the dog away after that.

Todd: Really?

Jay: Yeah.

Todd: Was it a long, healthy pee?

Jay: It was an angry pee. It was an "I'm angry at you so I will pee on your leg while you're holding that baby because you can't do anything to me" pee.

Holly: Has a human ever peed on you?

Jay: No. I don't think that would ever happen in my life. I'm very well aware of the concept of that and know people who imbide in this behavior and still think to myself, "Why would you want to do that?" It doesn't mean that only people in LA do it.

Holly: What's the worst piece of advice you've ever received?

Jay: Something along the lines of, "Eat it, it's good for you," which has probably happened to me on more than one occasion. But it would have to be in that "Don't worry, it's OK. Just drink it" catagory. And I'm not talking about parents saying, "Clean your plate." I'm talking about "friends handing you some tablet saying, "Oh, it's great, just take it." And then me wandering around Santa Fe, New Mexico for four days going, "What time is it?"

Todd: "Why are the purple mantarays still dragging the chain?"

Jay: Yeah, I'm not with it.

Holly: "Why are the purple vultures crawling in my ears?"

Jay: A friend of mine was a bartender at a place out in the valley and his brother actually started working there and one night me and this guy, Joe, went into the bar when his brother was working, so his brother made it his intention to just get us fucked up. Like, "Oh, well I'm making new drinks." So we're sitting there kind of trying these new drinks and he's like, "Tell me what you think of these drinks." And by the end of it he was mixing milk and menth and rum and whisky and stirring it up and putting a dollop of...

Todd: Battery acid.

Jay: Yeah, and we're like, "Yeah, man, that's great." And we're on the floor going, "That's not good." He gave me bad advice on that occasion.

 

End of 45 minutes alloted. More next issue with Greg Graffin.

 

 

 

California + New York too

Squid throwing/ interrupting the game (minor penalty 2 minutes) - Florida Panthers= throwing rats

Mario Lemieux 21 million 3 years $11,321,429.00 per year

No Means No/Hanson Brothers
 

Ron Hextall
 

I'm not even going there The Pelvic Protector

Tony Granato
 

Chicago
 

Bobby Orr
 

Trophy for the nice guy
 

Lindross