Bad Religion from L.A., California (in the States) were interviewed on 5/12/1982 after their gig at the T-Bird with T.S.O.L, The Hated, Sin 34, and Deadly Sin By Razor.
Q: So how's the new album coming along?
Jay: Really good. the guy that is producing us now is a real wizard. The mix is excellent.
Brett: Yeah! He gives good head too!
Q: How was the tour?
Brett: It went much better than I thought it would.
Q: Where did you all play?
(prepare yourselves) Greg: California, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, Ohio, Washington D.C., Michigan, Illinois, and Washington. Then we played Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary and British Columbia in Canada. Then we played a few gigs in Alaska. Then we went down to Mexico and played in Tijuana and Mazatlan or some place like that.
Q: Really? How was Mexico?
Greg: Great! There's a lot of punks there now. Black Flag are like God down there.
Q: What were the cops like?
Greg: Mellow. Real mellow. You see that's where all the crime comes from. The cops just don't give a fuck. Actually it's Tijuana that has all the punks because it is so poor. In a richer area like Mazatlan punk is just catching on. Plus that Tijuana is so close to L.A. were as Mazatlan is a good 13 hour drive.
Q: Do the Mexican punks dance?
Brett: Not really. They just get all fucked up and just kind of fall all over each other. But there were about 7 guys up front slamming.
Q: Mazatlan too?
Jay: Well, the crowd was about 45% punks, and the rest were pretty much observers. This band that opened for us, Los Chaos Makers, were complete trash - Not at all what we expected to find. Then in Tijuana a 76/77 type punk band opened for us called Dog Vibrators who were a real crack up. Their lead singer was a Mexican Johnny Rotten to the max. We played both of our shows with Channel 3 and we found out that they were real big down there too. The crowd went completely crazy when they came on. It was bizzare as hell to hear "I've got a gun" on a Mexican radio station.
Q: How was Canada?
Greg: The shows were pretty good, but the people there don't really like Americans. The shows were interesting because we played almost all our shows with T.S.O.L., Chron Gen and Vice Squad. But what was interesting was that Chron Gen never headlined once and they're supposed to be one of the bug English bands. Nothing against them, ??? is cool, but T.S.O.L. are really big up there.
Q: What are your favourite bands?
Jay: I like The Vandals a lot. T.S.O.L. too.
Greg: The Germs and The Dead Kennedy's.
Peter: Motorhead, China White, Sin 34 and The Germs.
Brett: The Ramones, Motorhead and Girlschool.
Q: So you guys really like metal?
Brett: Underground stuff like Motorhead and no commercial stuff luke fucking Judas Priest, Ozzy or Iron Maiden.
Q: Are you going to tour Europe?
Greg: Yeah, we were supposed to play England, Germany, Scandinavia en Italy, but it fell through due to lack of money. We were gonna go halves on it with Channel 3 but they didn't have the cash either so we're just going to save until we can afford it. We were also asked by Jello Biafra to tour with them (The D.K's), ??? and Channel 3 but neither us nor Channel 3 had the money so we had to cancel. We will eventually tour Europe though.
Brett: We may go with The Circle Jerks and Social Distortion next summer. Keith is going to let us know because D.O.A. may pitch in and go with us so ??????? are waiting for them. Actually we don't have to money either yet so...
Q: How was the south?
Greg: A lot of tension. It was great. The KKK (Ku Klux Klan) formed a picket line at one of our shows. You know they use their pseudo christianity as an excuse to run around in laundry sheets. I was surprised though that the cops made them leace and didn't say a thing to us.
Q: What do you think of the English punk scene?
Jay: I like mostly old English punk like The Pistols and the Buzzcocks, but I'm not all that impressed with the newer bands that I've heard. I like The Adicts and The Subhumans but I think The Exploited are a bunch of assholes. They do some song called "Fuck The USA" - and then they're going to come here and tour? Oh well, I suppose they're just into it for the money. Jello says they rip off a lot of of people, and that fuckin' dick ass singer with the mohawk called Darren Peligro is nigger. In case he didn't know it, Darren is muscular as hell and he's lucky he got away with it.
Q: What do you think of Crass?
Jay: They're pretty good. I don't believe anarchy could go with peach though. Not in America anyway. Shit, when you put together all the bikers, rednecks, klansmen, neo nazis and all the other fuckheads there would just be no fucking way. I am anti war though, so I can agree with what they're saying there. But the one English band I really like is The Subhumans. I think that if the lead singer sang like Greg they would be just like us. Shit! "Mickey Mous is dead" - Why didn't I think of that?