Content
- Songwriting
- Recording
- Reception & Sales
- Artwork
- Demos & unreleased songs
- Album title
- Promotion
- Liner notes
- Trivia
Songwriting
In an interview Greg Graffin mentioned that it was hard to be labeled a band lacking creativity and musical diversity and called Recipe For Hate "an experimental approach to sound differently and to shut up the critics". Yet Brett said "I think it is more accessible, but I wouldn't say it was premeditated (...). Greg and I really don't discuss what we're going to write before we write. We don't even map it out in a general way. We don't say for next year's songs let's try to write in this general direction. We write the songs, then we listen to them and say, 'Hmmm, I wonder if we should play this in Bad Religion? It doesn't sound like anything we've ever written before.' Having written it, it's what the fuck? Yeah, I am going to use it for BR, because I have no desire to do a solo project right now, and I'm certainly not going to write 10 more songs striving to make them sound like something I've written before. Then again, I don't think anything is totally out of context, and if you like any previous BR albums, chances are this will appeal to you also".
Greg: "It's possibly more easy to digest, but that's a sign of the times more than a sound on the record. I think it's more likely to be played on the radio; even two years ago, it wouldn't have had much of a chance to get played. I think our whole catalog is now more likely to get played. The fact that the albums might have hits is time dependent".
Brett Gurewitz: "This was our first record that incorporated alternative rock elements and wasn’t a pure ’80s hardcore album. It had some good creative departures for us, though it all happened very organically."[1]
Recording
Recipe For Hate was the last album that was recorded at Westbeach Recorders in Hollywood, California until 2002's The Process of Belief.
It was recorded in three weeks for $50,000.[2]
Greg: "Recipe For Hate took probably four weeks, maybe five weeks, but it was back and forth. See, I came out, reecorded it, and mixed part of it in three weeks. Then I went home and about a month later we started to dally with---we had a lot of time before the release date---so we started to remix some of the songs. By the time we were done with that we remixed the whole record. So, that's why it took so much more time. That really was slated to be done in three-and-a-half or four weeks."[3]
To record his bass tracks, Jay used a Hiwatt SA212 combo into an Electro-Voice EVM12L speaker mounted in in a KK Audio closed back cabinet. The same method was used on all albums from Suffer through No Substance, except Against The Grain. In 2010 he again used the same gear on The Dissent Of Man.
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Paul du Gre and Brett @ Brooklyn Recording Studios during overdubs/mixing. Photo by David Goggin (Mr. Bonzai). |
Reception & Sales
Recipe For Hate was the last Bad Religion album distributed by Epitaph before returning to the label in 2001. The album spent ten weeks on Billboard's Heatseekers chart[4], where it peaked at number 14, marking the band's highest-ranking album so far. However, even though there were no official singles put out for this album, it featured two radio hits: American Jesus and Struck a Nerve. Both songs also got airplay on MTV.
By September 1993, it had already sold over 180,000 units.[5]
Part of the deal with Atlantic Records was to turn Recipe For Hate over to Atlantic. According to Brett, they didn't pay that much.[6] As of 2019, the CD, cassette, and digital rights remain with Atlantic. Epitaph owns the vinyl rights. [7]
Artwork
The artwork was designed by Frederico Carlo mel Hidalgo (also known for the drawn cover for The Offspring's album Smash).
There were rumors about the guys on the cover being band members. This, however, has been denied by Jay.[8]
Demos & unreleased songs
For Greg's songs several demos exist, of which two didn't make it onto the album:
- Hole In The Ship (unreleased)
- Wasting Oxygen (unreleased)
- My Poor Friend Me
Album title
According to Bobby Schayer, "Hole In The Ship" was considered to be the theme song for the album.
Promotion
Liner notes
greg graffin: vocals and harmonies
mr. brett: lead, rythm guitar
greg hetson: lead, rythm guitar
jay bentley: bass guitar
bobby schayer: drums
oozin aahs: greg, jay, brett, jonette, eddie
lead guitars on kerosene: jon wahl and chris bagarozzi
slide guitar on man with a mission: greg leisz
lead guitar on all good soldiers: joe pecerillo
all songs written by greg graffin (polypterus music, bmi, 1993) and brett gurewitz (westbeach music, bmi, 1993)
except stealth by brett gurewitz, jay bentley (la.z.boy music, bmi, 1993) and bobby schayer (fitzgerald music, bmi, 1993)
eddie vedder courtesy of epic records
recorded at westbeach recorders hollywood ca.
mixed at brooklyn studios hollywood ca. and westbeach recorders
engineered by paul du gre and donnell cameron
assistant engineers: joe peccerillo and scott stillman
mastered by doug sax at mastering lab
band photo: alison dyer
artdirectionanddesign frederico carlo mel hidalgo
ali-babbas to cecil juanarena, insight comm. glendale for being so damn generous
thank you's: all our fans, andy somers, howard menzies, eddie vedder, jonette napolitano, jon claw, chris hammer, jeff abarta, jack rabid, sharry, lucky, debbie rosenblatt, wrye martin, annette carpenter, ernie p. grimm, tim mcduffy, sean brady, andy tomkins, uncle donnie, doo doodoo doo, david joy, t2, and friz quatrata. those we forgot, x_______________ (sign here)
extra special thanks to:
greta and graham graffin
maggie and max
michaela, miles and ? bentley
and all our families
Trivia
There is a Recipe For Hate tour poster (subway size) in the background of a porno movie. The same poster (the one showing the album cover) is seen in the movie PCU posted to a wall in the "pit" (basement of the college dorm in the movie) and in an episode of the TV show Weird Science (when Gary is going to talk to a girl she has the poster on her locker).
Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam does vocals for the song Watch It Die and backing vocals for American Jesus.
Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde sings backing vocals on Struck A Nerve.
Greg Hetson is not listed in the liner notes on the Brazillian CD pressing by Paradoxx.