Brett: "[the common theory is that we sold out]. I'm not gonna argue with that.(?) I'm only speaking for myself. I don't think everyone else in the group would agree with me. We're catching a lot of flak for signing to a major, and we probably deserve it, and you're not gonna find me being defensive about it. But I will say that if you dig the music, to me that's the final word".
Bobby said BR are sell-outs. "But then again if we are sell-outs because we signed to a major label then I guess the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, the Clash, the Damned, the Jam, the Dictators, the MC5, the Stooges, the Stranglers, the Dickies..... I guess all of those bands were sell-outs too". Brian: "...to encapsulate my thoughts on the whole sell-out issue, I think a band has to cater both sonically and ideologically to the evil major label overlords in order to qualify for sellout status. I think that Stranger than Fiction and the Gray Race prove where we are at...". In a Houston gig Greg explained that they are not sellouts like Rush and Foo-Fighters. On another occasion, Greg said he couldn't care less about the whole issue of punk going mainstream, sellouts, etc. He said people spend way too much time on that. He gave Punk Rock Song that title "because I knew it would raise a lot of eyebrows, and a lot of people will get hung up on the Punk word. The point is, they get so wrapped up in how to classify it that they miss the whole point, which is the importance of the human tragedy" (he wrote it around the time of the Rwanda tragedy).
In 1991 they were asked "do you think music of resistance can be mass entertainment?" and all BR members answered positively. Brett said "protest music has its greatest potential in exposure to mass media".
Brett explained that he heard Op Ivy broke up 'cause they were getting too popular and it wasn't punk to be super popular. He said "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, I don't think that there's anything wrong with it. (?) I've been reading about this issue in Flipside for (?) 13 years. And what it means is this, it's very simple: people who decide that they're gonna be punks make a decision to lead an alternative lifestyle outside or on the fringe of the mainstream. So the individual has a choice, either to reject that band, not because necessarily their music changed, but in order to maintain their chosen lifestyle on the fringe, outside of the mainstream. Because to continue to accept that group would mean that they are now a part of the mainstream. It's not their fault and it's not the group's fault. It's just that pop culture is not static and what was underground or fringe yesterday quite often can become what is acceptable or mainstream today". He said anybody who chooses to reject a band (just 'cause other strangers in the mainstream have decided to like them) can't expect an artist to be in control of who likes them; all you can expect them to do is put out the best art they can.