By Chris Riemenschneider
American-Statesman Staff

Most punk bands are lucky to last five years. Tumultuous shows take a toll, band members' attitudes rub the wrong way, and the edge that's so dear to the music eventually wears thin. But the fact that Bad Religion has been together for 15 years with no hiatuses and nearly all the original members still in tow is far from a miracle, said drummer Bobby Schayer.
"We always believed to what we were doing, and we still do," Schayer said over the phone Friday. All the other bandmembers were on their way out to Los Angeles to kick off the band's tour in support of its new album. "The Gray Race." which brings Bad Religion to the Austin Music Hall Thursday night.
"But believing in it can only go so far," Shayer added. "We've also always enjoyed what we do. we've had fun with it whenever we could. We never meant to achieve rock-star status or anything like that ore just got such a big kick out of playing music that we wanted to keep doing it. And so here we are. Schayer admitted, though, that several developments over the past few years have kept the bandmembers of Bad Religion enthusiastic about staying together. One is the addition of former Minor Threat and Dag Nasty guitarist Brian Baker, who replaced Brett Gurewitz. Another is that none of them live in the same city anymore, with singer Greg Galin living as far away as upstate New York and Schayer moving near Seattle. "It makes it more exciting when we get together." Schayer said of the relocation of all the band members. But the single greatest factor in Bad Religion's enthusiasm of recent years is the so-called '90s punk revolution — the rise in pop-ularity of the music the group started playing 15 years ago. While one might expect the veteran punkers to scoff a bit at the chart-topping powers of younger groups like Green Day and Offspring. Schayer said the band eats it up. And he said it has nothing to do with the fact that the group can make more money now and play bigger venues when it tours. (The current tour takes them to the largest venues they've played, such as the 3.000-capacity Music Hall.) "It's exciting playing to more people, and yes, selling more records, and I don't think there's anything wrong with admitting that," Schayer said. "Punk has caught on with another generation of kids, and it's just as exciting playing to them as people that have been coming to see us all along." Besides inspiring younger punk bands with its music, Bad Religion can also lay claim to helping many of them out — namely Offspring and Rancid, who are both on the untie label Epitaph, which Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz started and the group fostered (financially and ideologically) during its first decade. Gurewitz left the band soon after it signed a major-label deal with Atlantic Records. Some say he was the true punk of the group, others say he was making a killing operating Epitaph and wanted to concentrate on that. But Schayer said the remaining Bad Religion members are still on friendly terms with Gurewitz. Schayer added that there's definitely no hard feelings about the fact that many of the younger bands are now out-selling Bad Religion. "If we were in this for the money" Schayer said, "we wouldn't have lasted one year. much less 15"