In May of this year, Bad Religion returned to our ears with Age Of Unreason, their first full-length album of original material since 2013’s True North.
A powerful album that is in essence a response to the controversial aspects of both Donald Trump’s Presidency and the facets of American culture today, it is both a document of a troubled time in the US and a call to arms for the American people.
Receiving widespread acclaim for their new record and touring around the world, Australian fans were overjoyed to learn earlier this year that Bad Religion would finally be returning to our shores for the first time since 2012 for a run of shows as part of the Good Things festival.
To celebrate their return to our shores, we caught up with guitarist Brian Baker of the band to learn more about the group’s new album, their return to Australia, and the state of punk music today.
Check out ‘Chaos From Within’ by Bad Religion:
Tone Deaf: This is your first Australian show in almost 8 years, what’s it like getting ready to play to an Australian crowd again?
Brian Baker: To be honest, I’m astonished that we haven’t been here in this long, because we love coming here, we always have wonderful shows.
I don’t think we’ve done any Australia-specific preparation, but what we have been doing is playing all year, and this is the end of our 2019 touring cycle. So we’re much better at playing now than the poor people who saw us in February. So you’re getting the best.
Love Classic Rock?
Get the latest Classic Rock news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
TD: You guys released your first album in six years this year, and it’s pretty heavily focused on a lot of the facets of Donald Trump’s America. Does it feel like a double edged sword having someone like him in charge who is such a constant source of material at the same time?
BB: Well first of all, whether he’s in charge or not is certainly something… there’s a question about that. But no, it’s almost too easy, this catastrophic criminal embarrassment.
The problem is how easy it is to attack this administration, and Bad Religion, we’ve always tried to not take the easy way out, and so you’re trying to navigate the understanding that we know the United States is just one country and there’s an entire world out there, and these problems – especially this nationalism – are coming up everywhere, we’re stewing in it right now.
So it’s really trying to address it more on a global scale rather than just, “nah nah, Trump is bad”, and I think we were successful on this record, where you can understand the sentiment, but we’re not just throwing rocks at the US government.
TD: You guys have always been an iconic political band, but a Trump presidency seems to have inspired a surge in political music. Do you guys ever feel a responsibility to stay ahead of the crowd? Or is it refreshing to see so many like-minded artists?
BB: I don’t know, because the songwriting is entirely organic and comes when there’s enough songs, so it’s a nice coincidence that during our longer hiatus for songwriting we wound up with this incredible topic, but that wasn’t why the record was made. It wasn’t addressing it, it was just that that’s how long it took in Bad Religion town for Brett and Greg to have enough stuff that they want to share.
So we’re not being reactionary, ever, and it really is ‘what you see is what you get’. Sometimes it works successfully, and sometimes there are albums that are focused on things that no longer seem to matter, like interpersonal relationships from 1989 don’t quite matter as much now.
Fortunately, we’ve managed to balance it so that we can pluck relevance from throughout the decades.
Check out Bad Religion’s ‘My Sanity’:
TD: You’ve obviously played a pretty important role in punk music over the years, from Minor Threat to Bad Religion, how do you feel about the current state of the genre?
BB: I’m a little bit uninformed in terms of the genre on a grand scale; I don’t really know what’s “punk” anymore. But what I do know is that I have been re-engaged in an underground punk scene much like the one that I came from in Washington, D.C.
A few years ago I moved to a small town in New Jersey, and I had been going and seeing these shows that remind me of, y’know, it’s 50 people and it’s in a hired room or a house party, and it is so electrifying to see that this is exactly as powerful to me as it was when I was a kid.
And y’know, I’m a old dude now, so to be able to go to some neighbourhood and see three or four bands of people who are, y’know they’re obviously younger than I am, but it’s not just kids, it’s just this organic passion for this type of music played on that scale, and it’s still as vibrant as it always was.
It’s not really that strange when you think about it, I mean, historically what you listen to is your tribe, your social identification, and even how you look has a big part of it. It’s nothing new, but I’m glad that it still exists.
TD: Are there any specific bands you’ve seen at the festival so far or hope to see?
BB: I like Parkway Drive very much, because we toured together a long time ago and did some Warped Tours, so it’s really great to see what they’ve become, and their technical proficiency is ludicrous. I mean, I can play guitar, but I can’t really play guitar. I mean, what I’m doing isn’t exactly rocket science.
TD: Are there any Australian bands you have been enjoying lately?
BB: I’m a product of my era, so I’m a Saints guy, and I am a… [Baker rolls up his sleeve to show an AC/DC-inspired tattoo, with the letters M and Y separated by a lightning bolt.] Have I shown you my Malcolm Young tattoo?
It seems very Neanderthal, but AC/DC are my favourite band, and if you want to talk about a defining Australian band, it’s them and a little bit of Rose Tattoo, so my influences are that; ’70s and ’80s. I wish I knew more about what’s new. But yes, I have a Malcolm Young tattoo, not Angus; the best rhythm guitar player ever.
Check out ‘Do The Paranoid Style’ by Bad Religion:
