The Offspring are a punk rock mainstay. Over the last 25 years, thousands of suburban kids have wreaked havoc in garages and skateparks under the enchantingly catchy spells of their hook-laden tunes that have stood the test of fickle-rock time. The 90s and 00s are forever tattoed with the lyrics to ‘Self Esteem’ and ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’ – a truly beautiful and iconic hallmark.
This December, the eternal hitmakers are slated to make their return to Aussie shores after a painful five-year wait. Playing the seminal 1994 release Smash in full, punk rockers, scene kids and former mowhawke donners were utterly stunned at the announcement of their return.
To celebrate the unofficial homecoming of the SoCal kings, we chatted with longtime guitarist Noodles on the state of punk rock, the legacy of Smash and their upcoming album.
TD: You guys are heading down for Good Things Festival this December where you’re playing Smash in full – what’s it like celebrating that album in a live setting? How does it feel looking back on an album that yielded such an impact all those years ago but have continued to resonate with audiences over time?
Noodles: Well, a lot of those songs, we’ve never stopped playing, we’ve worked most of them into our set ever since, since that record came out in ’94. But playing them all together really does kind of take us back to that time.
The songs, we were still kind of figuring out who were back then, I think with Ignition and our first record we kind of figured out who were as a band, but with Smash we were just kind of solidifying it, still kind of finding our way. So, when we go back, it does kind of take us back to that time and remind us of where we were at in the world, what the world was like at the time.
What did you learn as a band after the release of Smash? How did the album change your perception of punk rock and the music industry?
Noodles: Well, we were still signed to Epitaph at the time, and we were very strongly, we felt very strongly that we wanted to do things independently, and we were proud of that, the whole DIY thing, the punk rock, it was kind of like, we were David taking on the Goliaths of the big corporate labels of the world. You know, once you started selling more records, we started getting crap for just selling records, for just being popular.
We didn’t do anything different when we wanted to make Smash, we didn’t think we were going to, you know, immediately jump to our death, and a lot of bands did, when they first started selling records they would just jump to a major label, because major labels have more resources, more access to press, to venues, to radio, to TV, to MTV at the time which was still really great, played a lot of videos.
They had big budgets to spend money on those things, and we decided to work with Epitaph, spend a lot of our own money to hire private people, that you go out and coordinate radio interviews and press, with all the music, different rock press people, and decided to do it independently. You know, unfortunately, we weren’t able to stay that way, and things did change. I think you know, once money is made, things and people do change.
Punk rock was just infusing the danger and the edge back into rock and roll that it had at the very beginning, and it kind of lost over time.
TD: 1994, the year Smash was released is known as “the year punk broke” in the mainstream. You guys have been associated with punk music for so many years, so what are some of the most pivotal moments of change you’ve seen within the genre over the years since then?
Noodles: Yeah, punk rock’s not quite as jaded as it was back in the day. When we were first getting into it, like you got beat up if you had a funny haircut and you dressed weird, you know, if you didn’t just fall into line, you got beat up. There was really just two kinds of music that were acceptable, there was big arena rock, and then it was disco. And, the arena rock hated the disco people, the disco people didn’t care about arena rock so much, they were just too busy dancing their assess off.
Punk rock was kind of like, we knew both of those things, they’re not touching us, they’re not meaningful to us, what, we need to make it more meaningful, and really punk rock was just infusing the danger and the edge back into rock and roll that it had at the very beginning, and it kind of lost over time.
I guess that, so now things aren’t quite as dangerous, back in the day you’d go the clubs and there would be gangs hanging out, the Circle One, the LADS, The Family, the Suicidals, the skins. You know, and DNA– none of us in this band were part of any of those gangs, cos we loved the music, the savage– I think we even loved the dangerous aspect of it a little bit, we thought that at any moment we might get our asses kicked, which was kind of exciting I guess, in a sick and twisted way.
So nowadays, there’s very few of the gangs, fortunately, I mean I’m glad, but the pit still rages, it still goes off, there are still some knuckleheads, skinheads you gotta watch out for, they try to gang up and you know, try to be tougher, tougher than they really know they are, but there’s still some great music happening, I mean a lot of people, bands are still happening, and probably drawing bigger crowds than they ever have before. You know, why don’t you go out and see T.S.O.L playing, you know, they’re able to go out on tour for a couple of weeks at a time, and at least fill club sized venues, which I think is rad.
I guess that now things aren’t quite as dangerous, back in the day you’d go to the clubs and there would be gangs hanging out
TD: You have plans to release a new album this year, the follow up to Days Go By. Where do you kind of look for inspiration these days, and how do you continue to still push each other in the band musically?
Noodles: Yeah, well I mean, I guess we kind of get our inspiration from where we always have, just the phenomenon that we see happening in the world around us, and certainly there’s still plenty of things to still rail against. People are so divided, there’s so much hatred happening in the world, I think promoted on the floor simply by forces that want to divide us, political forces that want to divide us.
So, there’s plenty to rail against, and that’s a good place to start I think. Punk rock has always been about not accepting what is being given to you, you know, if something sucks, don’t accept it. Throw it away, smash it, ruin it, you know, make something, reach for something better.
Even if you have to smash some shit to make room for better stuff, then let’s do that, and I think there’s plenty of room for that in the world these days. So that’s kind of where we get our inspiration from, just looking around. And sometimes it’s just personal stuff, you know, relationships that we have with friends, with family, or you know, wives, lovers, girlfriends, or whatever. And we were hoping to get something out this year, but it looks like it’s probably going to be early next year now.
We don’t have any distribution at the moment, or any label to work with right now, and that’s, we were trying to figure out what’s the best way to do that, do we do it ourselves, do we work with somebody, just trying to figure all that out. But we’ve got a record’s worth of songs ready to go, we’re actually looking at making two records, keeping us then going.
Even if you have to smash some shit to make room for better stuff, then let’s do that
TD: You guys are from California and you have such a long history with Australia and touring Australia, and you’ve always had such an audience here, as well as so many other bands from the SoCal punk scene. Why do you think Aussie audiences have such an affinity with SoCal punk rock?
Noodles: Yeah, I’m not exactly sure. I think, I know that, I think that something that happened for us that caused us to have fans down there, even before we were able to go down there, we were in a lot of the skate videos and surf videos, and even snowboarding videos, and certainly the skating and surfing culture is big in Australia.
I think part of it is, because Australia is so distant geographically and it costs so much, it’s so expensive for bands to tour there, to travel there, that Australians kind of came up with their own music scene, and so it was really doing unique and different things, and so in a way it was kind of, you guys were just primed for punk rock, you were doing new stuff down there from the get go.
And I always thought that was really rad. That’s why I think there’s so many great bands from Australia, since you’re not getting bands coming down there as much for geographic reasons, doing it yourselves, and it was fucking amazing. You guys have always had great scenes down there, I love it.
Good Things Festival 2018
Friday, December 7th
Melbourne Showgrounds, Melbourne, VIC
Saturday, December 8th
Parramatta Park, Sydney, NSW
Sunday, December 9th
Brisbane Showgrounds, Brisbane, QLD
Tickets on sale from 9am, Thursday, August 30th, through Oztix
