Bad Religion are planning to release “a string” of singles during the coronavirus pandemic to keep their fans happy.
Singer Greg Graffin spoke to Jonathan Clarke of New York’s Q104.3 radio station about how he’s coping with the COVID-19 crisis and what the touring scene might look like after the pandemic.
“Bad Religion still has a pretty gruelling touring schedule,” Graffin said. “We’d sold a lot of tickets this year. And by March, obviously, it was clear that we were gonna be sidelined. Yet still, we reassured our fans that we were going to honour those tickets, and as soon as we’re through this crisis, we will.”
“A band is a lot more than just playing live, so we’ve tried to maintain our sanity and offer something to the fans,” he continued. “We just put out a single called ‘Faith Alone 2020’; you can find it on streaming services. And we’ve got a string of other singles that are gonna be coming out during this time.
“Because when we’re not on tour, we spend a lot of time in the studio. And now we all have music rooms and we all have Pro Tools studios at our houses. And we’re trying to fill in the time by doing creative, collaborative works like that.”
Graffin explained that the veteran punks have all been keeping as busy as possible during their downtime. “If you’re a creative band, you’re active right now,” he said. “Because regardless of what a lot of bands will tell you, it’s not that easy to write music when you’re on tour. You have to partition your energy. And the idea of a band getting together after a concert, getting in a bus and just writing music, in our experience, that just doesn’t happen.”
“Good writing is really a time of reflection, and it happens at times like these. So I think creative bands can be in a really good mode right now of producing material. As far as getting out there and playing, there’s only a certain number of venues, and everyone’s gonna be wanting to get out into those venues.
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So it remains to be seen how we’re going to partition the tours in the next year. But bands like Bad Religion, certainly, we have committed ourselves — we’ve already sold tickets, and I think those will be honoured in the normal way.”
On August 18th, Bad Religion released its autobiography, Do What You Want: The Story Of Bad Religion, written with the group’s full cooperation and support. It reveals the travails of their 40-year career. It goes from their humble beginnings as teenagers experimenting in a San Fernando Valley garage dubbed “The Hell Hole” to headlining major music festivals around the world.
The book predominantly features the four principal voices of Bad Religion in a hybrid oral history/narrative format: Graffin, Brett Gurewitz, Jay Bentley, and Brian Baker. It also includes rare photos and never-before-seen material from their archives.
Check out ‘Faith Alone 2020’ by Bad Religion:
