A conversation with Bad Religion's Brett Gurewitz
by Scott Heisel

altpress.com, July 8, 2008

Guitarist Brett Gurewitz and his band BAD RELIGION have schooled you for more than 25 years with nothing more than three chords and enlightened sociopolitical ideologies. On the recent deluxe release of their 2007 full-length, New Maps Of Hell, the band speak to you in more hushed tones--that is, through the bonus acoustic tracks, which include several original compositions by the band and stripped-down takes on familiar classics. Gurewitz recently discussed with Brian Shultz the mammoth release's veritable wealth of bonus content, as well as the band's forthcoming 15th(!) studio full-length and the Epitaph Records head's interesting take on internet piracy--at least in regards to one particular case.

There haven't been a ton of Bad Religion acoustic recordings through the years. Would you attribute that to reluctance, the idea never coming up, or something else entirely?
It's because we're a punk band, and that's not our style. That's not what we do. It's really something off the beaten path for us.

How did the idea come up, then?
Well, I think the way it came up is that... Well, I'm not sure exactly when it first came up. [Frontman] Greg [Graffin] and I have always written songs on acoustic guitar and piano. We've always had fun playing acoustic guitar together, whether we were playing Neil Young songs or Bad Religion songs. We'd play together and harmonize for fun. And then, not too long ago I produced a [solo] album for Greg called Cold As The Clay, which was not in any way Bad Religion style, but it was comprised of traditional American folk music and some original compositions that Greg came up with that fit... I wouldn't say it fit that style--[more that] it was a complementary style. [But] definitely non-Bad Religion acoustic compositions.

We did that and had a lot of fun with it, and I think that's where we came up with the idea--"Hey, maybe we should do some of our songs this way." How were the original acoustic songs conceived?
Just the same way that we would usually write a Bad Religion song. A typical progression for BR is Greg or myself sitting down writing a song on acoustic with lyrics/verses/chorus, then recording an electric demo of that tune, and then presenting it to the band and working it out from there. Nobody ever gets to hear the acoustic part of it--maybe sometimes if the song is real popular, then someday we'll come out and play it acoustic live or something like that.

The normal progression from a fan's point of view is to hear the song electric first, then someday they get to hear an acoustic version, at least as far as Bad Religion is concerned. So the idea here was, "Let's compose some original songs, record them acoustically first, let the fans hear those, and then next time we do a studio album, let's do those songs electric." So conceptually, it's interesting to me because then the fan gets inside our process as songwriters. They get to hear acoustic first and then go, "Oh wow, I like it better electric," or "I like it better the original way." But it's a twist on it.

So these original songs will appear in full-band form on the next Bad Religion studio album?
Yeah, well, don't hold me to that, but that was the idea. If they don't come out well, I don't know if we want to put them on there. [Laughs.] I think one or two of them definitely will. I think they're gonna sound great electric, to be honest.