If you're expecting the new Bad Religion album to drop before the end of the year, the band have a confession to make.

"We haven't started yet," admits bassist and founding member Jay Bentley, sounding a bit embarrassed. "We've been slacking. If you ever see the word 'slackers' in the dictionary, our picture is right next to it."

Though online posts by the band have stated that the as-yet-untitled new LP may arrive in stores in late fall, Bentley dismisses these with a laugh.

"We've been lying a lot. It's like, 'Did you do your homework?' Yeah... 'Did you finish that record?' No."

To make up for the lack of new material, BR are touring across Canada with friends the Dropkick Murphys, as well as Clit 45 and Canadian metalcore band Comeback Kid.

"It's an off year for us because we're supposed to be writing the new record," says Bentley. "It's been kind of a crazy, sporadic year where we've been playing a lot of one-off shows.

"Haven't really toured at all. Our friends in the Dropkick Murphys, we've been talking with them for a while about touring together, and we went over to England to play a bunch of festival shows with them, and while we were there we got to talking about it again.

"When we got home, I called our booking agent to see if maybe we could get something happening because it would be a lot of fun to do. The concept was, we could run across Canada, which everyone liked the idea of before winter sets in, and just go east to west with the Dropkick Murphys and take another couple of bands."

Though Bad Religion won't enter the studio until February, Bentley says that they already have a clear idea of the lyrical direction the new material will take.

"The Empire Strikes First was a record sort of dedicated to American politics. But now that's done, and to put out another record like that would just be flogging a dead horse. The most likely lyrical content will be back to talking about socio-political ideas and what it's like to be a human being, probably with a lot of, 'Now what do we do?' thrown in.

"I feel that in 2004, when we put our last record out, we wanted change, and that change didn't come. Now, that change is inevitable, but not in a positive light. It's the aftermath of a horrible atrocity, with the people who are responsible for it just walking away. No one ever feels good after that. It's basically feeling like you've just been assaulted."

The bassist feels that even after the current American administration is out of power, the country's people will be left with even more problems to deal with.

"I think we all kind of have that feeling like, 'What do we do now? Where do we go from here?' There's still no plan to deal with the Middle East structure. There's nothing. That seems to be the biggest deal. There are lots of smaller issues that this administration have basically just put upon the world, and people won't have any idea about until 10 years from now, and I think that's something that we've all talked about. It's paramount in all of our minds, that fear about what's going to happen now."

The band aim to make issues like the ongoing situation in the Middle East and the $300-billion U.S. deficit more understandable through songs that educate, not through self-righteous preaching.

"We've always had this concept of, 'How do you put this lifetime worth of emotion into a two-minute punk rock song?'" Bentley ponders. "You figure out a way. I can assure you that a square peg will fit into a round hole given a big enough hammer."

Here are Bad Religion's Canadian tour dates with Dropkick Murphys, Comeback Kid and Clit 45:

Sept. 20 Ottawa, ON @ Civic Centre
Sept. 21 London, ON @ John Labatt Centre
Sept. 22 Toronto, ON @ The Docks
Sept. 25 Winnipeg, MB @ MTS Centre
Sept. 26 Saskatoon, SK @ Prairieland Park Trade Centre
Sept. 27 Edmonton, AB @ Shaw Conference Centre
Sept. 28 Calgary, AB @ Calgary Corral
Sept. 30 Vancouver, BC @ PNE Forum