In 1980, Southern California was alive with great bands, and two newcomers to the thriving punk and hard-core scene-Bad Religion and Social Distortion-played one of their first gigs together at a warehouse party for about 200 people.
”We`ve measured ourselves against them (Social Distortion) ever since,” says singer Greg Graffin of Bad Religion, which headlines Tuesday at Cabaret Metro.
These days, Social Distortion has name recognition and then some, thanks to major-label promotion and frequent appearances on MTV.
Bad Religion-Graffin, guitarists Brett Gurewitz and Greg Hetson, bassist Jay Bentley and drummer Bobby Schayer-also has been courted by some major labels.
”People from Atlantic Records took us out to lunch once,” Graffin says. ”They never called back.”
Now that the exploits of Fugazi, sort of Bad Religion`s East Coast counterpart, have been written about in mainstream music publications, Bad Religion just may be underground rock`s biggest secret.
The band operates its own record label, Epitaph, and its latest album,
”Generator,” shipped 100,000 copies. That`s a big hit by independent standards, matching the sales of its 1990 predecessor, ”Against the Grain.” Graffin, who has a master`s degree in geology from UCLA and is working toward a doctorate in zoology at Cornell University, says Bad Religion`s ascent hasn`t been an accident.
Its rapid-fire, twin-guitar attack, careering melodies and cerebral lyrics were ”the pop of the early `80s,” the singer says. ”It could`ve appealed to many more people, but punk rock was stigmatized by the media as negative, the kind of music that second-class citizens listened to, the kind of concerts that people got murdered at.
”Lots of bands gave up rather than keep banging their heads against the wall.”
Graffin says punk`s elements were incorporated into other styles, such as speed metal and the Seattle ”grunge” sound, which have become far more popular than punk ever was.
”The root from which those sounds came was forgotten, but that`s where Bad Religion stayed throughout the `80s,” the singer says. ”We`ve evolved at our own rate, and now our music still owes a lot to hard-core, but it`s also a lot more intricate.”
Bad Religion stopped recording in the mid-`80s. Graffin says, ”The band lost every fan it ever had” after putting out ”Into the Future.” The 1983 album was ”synth post-punk that would`ve sounded great if it had been made three years later.”
But the band kept touring and returned in 1988 with ”Suffer,” the first of four consecutive near-classic albums.
”I believe a lot of people loved that early-`80s sound but weren`t hearing it anywhere,” Graffin says. ”That album gave it to them, except it sounded better than anything we did in the early `80s. We paid a lot more attention to production. And every album since then has sounded better than the one before.”
There`s still a snarl in the band`s attack and bite in Graffin`s voice. But on ”Generator” the melodies are reinforced by harmony-laden choruses, and more dynamic arrangements help take the quintet out of the ”every-song-sounds-the-same” hard-core ghetto.
”When we started the band, I was 15 and Brett was 17,” Graffin says.
”Think about what you were doing when you were 15, and you`re probably not that proud of it. But we`ve been able to take the views held by teens, which have a lot of validity, and bring them into an adult world.”
Graffin says he and Gurewitz were outcasts in high school because of their allegiance to punk`s urgent music and skeptical attitude.
”If you weren`t a hippie beach freak who smoked pot, you were a misfit-and I was one,” Graffin says. ”I wasn`t hard to spot-I was one of three kids in a school of 3,000 who dressed like I did, and I got threats because of the way I looked. That forces you to think about the world you live in. So it sort of makes sense that when we got together to make music in my mother`s garage, the protest music that came out of it was a little heavy and cerebral.”
If there`s an underlying message in the band`s lyrics, it`s ”think for yourself,” Graffin says.
”Some people think `Bad Religion` means we`re against Christianity or Judaism,” he says. ”What we`re really against is anything that can restrict your thinking. We like to plant a seed, and hope the listener`s mind will take over from there.”
– Forget about actually listening to Royal Trux-the photograph accompanying this column of Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema tells you everything you need to know about their music. It`s a freeze frame of an aesthetic that celebrates incoherence: grainy, out of focus and haphazardly composed.
Royal Trux`s singles (”Hero Zero,” ”Red Tiger”) on the Drag City label begin with a semblance of structure that Hagerty and Herrema begin tearing at from the opening note. During ”Love Is,” what sounds like a needle scraping across a groove clogged with debris is inserted midsong, apparently just to make sure the unwary headphone listener is paying attention.
The sprawling ”Twin Infinitives” double album takes the joke to its logical extreme. Hagerty, a founding member of noise merchants Pussy Galore, and Herrema dispense with melody altogether to wallow in a blissed-out, low-tech wonderama of tape loops, atmospheric haze and sonic mud. It defies comprehension and is pretty much unlistenable.
Parts of the band`s upcoming, self-titled album on Drag City are far more inviting, blending acoustic guitars with an early, low-rent Sonic Youth vibe. At its best, Royal Trux`s sonic slop verges on bluesy catharsis, at its worst, hopeless ineptitude. It`s a difficult, intriguing legacy.
Hagerty and Herrema will be augmented by multiple guitars, horns and drums Saturday at Lounge Ax, 2438 N. Lincoln Ave. It could be great or god-awful, or, more likely-if the band`s past is any indication-a little of both.
– A showcase for 15 local unsigned rappers will be held Saturday at the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave. The rappers were chosen from among more than 50 entrants by Genesis Music, a talent agency that has sponsored a number of showcases for local rap and R&B artists. WGCI deejay Ramonski Luv will host. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster or Genesis Music, 312-645-0300.
