You probably can't change the world with a song, but members of the L.A. hard-core punk-rock act Bad Religion are hoping they can at least change a few minds as they increase their devoted fan base.
The band, long known for being outspoken politically and socially, is also as well-known for its intelligent lyrics. In fact, sometimes listeners have needed a dictionary just to keep up with Bad Religion songs, which include polysyllabic references like "lascivious" and "quintessential.""I don't know that we're going to be major policymakers. I'm not that optimistic," vocalist and lyricist Greg Graffin said in a recent telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. "When you think of how many people there are in the world, a band that's not even selling millions of records isn't going to make a large dent."
Bad Religion will open the Saturday, June 17, Pearl Jam concert at Wolf Mountain. Tickets for the show, which starts at 7:30 p.m., were sold through a special telephone offer and actually sold out within minutes.
Graffin, who has been working on a doctorate in biology from Cornell University, has also taken the brunt of criticism from some long-time fans, who claim the band has "sold out" or become too commercial with its move to a major record label. Last year's "Stranger Than Fiction" and 1993's "Recipe for Hate" were both released on Atlantic, although some pressings of "Recipe for Hate" were released by the band's old label, Epitaph Records.
"Anyone who's listened to those records knows it's not true. We're certainly not getting slower and softer," he said. "But it's hard to please everyone at all times. And we're not going to go crazy trying to."
Signing to a major even created a small rift in the group, as founding member Brett Gurewitz quit shortly after the "Recipe for Hate" tour to concentrate on his family and on Epitaph Records, the label he founded, and which now features up-and-coming punk stars like the Offspring, Rancid and No-FX.
Band members, who found out Gurewitz was leaving through his agent, bear him no grudge, though. To replace him, Bad Religion drafted former Minor Threat, Dag Nasty and Meatmen member Brian Baker as a second guitarist.
"It's worked out really well," Graffin said. "With his experience, Brian understands what it's like to be in a punk band, and he's really brought a lot in the way of musicianship."
Graffin said he is excited by the prospect of playing to even larger crowds on the current tour with Pearl Jam.
"We've gotten other offers, but we chose this one because we thinkthere might be a chance to get even more people to listen to punk-rock," he said. "It seems like Pearl Jam's fans may be able to digest punk without it turning them off."
Also, he said he is excited by the sudden interest in punk by commercial radio stations.
"Punk was embraced by radio briefly, when the Clash and the Sex Pistols were still around. To get back to that stage, the music hasn't degraded and I'm proud of that," Graffin said. "The excitement and intensity is still there. Punk is an attitude, and that's what we've always strived for."
And plus, a flurry of punk popularity has led notoriously punk-hating music critics and magazines, as well as consumers and radio stations, to take the music seriously, he said.
"For so long, there was a stigma attached to punk-rock. If you listened to it, or even worse, played it, you had to be either an anarchist or a criminal or both," Graffin said. "That's changed, but if a lot of these people had bothered to check it out in the first place, they would have seen that wasn't true."