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we've got songs that are really fun like Pretty Fly for white gu and stuff and we got songs that are really serious like gone away and and I used to really struggle with that thinking that this is a problem for the band because we don't
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have a band identity people don't know what what to do with us right and and and maybe it's actually hurting us in a way and then I kind of realize well I'm not sad all the time I'm not happy all the time why why should why does my music have to be one or the other right
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let's let it be what it is and uh I've kind of just been okay with it ever since [Music] hi it's good to see you guys again how are you great thanks yeah it's good to be here nice to see you um just give us the heads up on supercharged because it
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feels like they the output's starting to pick up speed now there was a moment where we weren't getting records and all of a sudden it's getting there there's a different I know there was a point where we didn't put out a record for nine
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years and and I'll tell you what happened I'll tell you exactly what happened here's the problem is I decided to go back to school and I was finishing my degree and it just everything up right a lot of good that did get my degree you know but we're really proud of him he's
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got his PhD in molecular biology now did it feel like there was an incomplete part of your life for sure yeah yeah for sure I was probably I would say three4 of the way there when the band took off it took off in 94 i' say at least yeah
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you thought you were about a year away I thought I was yeah and uh we could kind of balance both at the time but at this point with the band it's like and I asked our manager said can I just put this off for a year cuz our first single
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was exploding he goes don't dude it it'll be gone if you wait so I had to put the whole just basically quit school but I took a leap of absence and um luckily I was able to go back you know many years later U but yeah but it just always kind of bothered me that I hadn't
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finished it right right and so and so then when it got finished all of a sudden you would have had all this time to live life and experience things and decide you want to tell other stories and write songs is that what happened
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you just had to get it get the Rhythm back that's exactly that and then Co hit so oh I was so close yeah but uh we're touring the whole time but it's just it's amazing I I always say like you you think you're working on a record and all of a sudden two years has
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passed you've only done two songs cuz you're you're traveling you're doing stuff right and so it just kind of inadvertently took a long time to get the last record out and we kind of made a conscious decision like let's make sure we let's get on top of it more this
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time so this time it's only been like three years which I say in music years that's like you know nothing it's like just a few months but even with the last record the majority of it came together in the last three years um you know or
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even even two years a lot of it really came to be came together at the end so having done it for long enough and and having had a couple of Moments One planned and one unplanned Co being away from the Rhythm what has The Offspring meant to you both
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now at this stage at this part of your life during the pandemic we kind of had it taken away from us so I think it means more than ever um you we didn't know you know when you can't go out and tour and play shows that's what we live
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to do you know so to have that stripped from us we were meeting in the studio and going over all our parts and relearning how to play songs together United you know staying on staying on with the drums that was new for me why start now but like Jonah you know
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and Todd Todd uh moved from Guitar onto bass and so we were working on you know making sure we're locked in with him me and Jonah Jonah plays guitar on most songs he's our our fifth guy yeah and we we just were bored and we wanted to play
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music so bad we studied we went in and into the studio deconstructed the band and the songs and started from scratch like doing drills like it was yeah we were that bored but um it ended up really paying off right and all also we had something to do we got together and
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we got to play music together which is great as well did it change the way you felt about the band intellectually or emotionally getting to reconnect in that way older as we get older we become more aware of how we feel right we can't bury
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it the way we used to so what was it like I bury it thr I can up there with the best of um having it taken away was the main thing and then you realize oh God we've been so blessed I I've always felt blessed to be able to be in this band
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and and do what we do but when having it taken away it just you know made that tenfold those feelings how did it change the way you approach the records you know it was kind of like it was weird start starting from nothing again and
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all of a sudden wow I was kind of like more proud of us like this actually sounds good I I felt like we were a band that could always uh we could we could figure out how to record records but being good live was was tougher for us I
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think and we just never I don't know never thought of it this way so it's almost like we we started having this momentum of like we actually sound pretty good now and then we're getting better reviews from the shows and then that kind of really made the whole thing
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Snowball right so um it was really great I think it was really almost like a new start for us when you first started I don't think I don't know if it was what your thoughts were internally but nobody expected the band to be what they were
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us included yeah you're a punk rock band so energy is what we're going to see right exactly all of a sudden you're the high selling independent record of all time and now the band's of business back then we did focus more on energy than perfect playing I mean the songs are great
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Dexter's voice is is great as far as players go we've always been kind of punks you know and uh I think the pandemic kind of helped us uh up our game a little bit I mean we've always steadily upped our game through throughout our career but but really the
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pandemic really kind of brought it together I'm I'm a better guitar player now than I ever have been so seeing that some Simple Plan tour you you guys did last summer was the shows just felt really different and really special and
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I think maybe there's this idea that The Offspring also I think people might forget just how many hits the band has thank you right and and so I wonder when you when you start to write new records knowing that the crowds are still there
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what what what your heads space is like when you start to write songs and find out what stories to tell yeah that was another thing about about being gone for nine years between records we really didn't know what what it was going to be like coming back we had kind of done
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show you know shows off and on over the years but um it was a weird feeling to to not know whether we had an audience anymore right so seeing it come back so strongly and then after let the bad times rooll came out and the tour we did
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last summer was the biggest by far we've ever done and headlining and all that kind of stuff so it was um just really exciting it you know it's all of a sudden wow there's a lot of lot of Joy brought back into the band right let's let's let's take it and run with it
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really see what we can do with it the hives were in here not that long ago and they had taken a long time in between records and I had asked P like did you think it like do you still have it did you ever wonder if you had it anymore
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and he just said yeah and it's usually he's pretty Brash and kind of hilarious about it but he's like yeah tot he's like I didn't I didn't know he said I didn't know if if we could go back and do the thing again did you have ever any self-doubts or any of those kind of
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feelings every time I think probably I think so yeah always you know and that's what kind of drives you to to do better you know up your game you know you were talking about the our tour last year with s plan and some 41 two great bands
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whenever you're following two great bands like that you got to up your game you know so playing with friends and and colleagues and you know really good tight well performing bands with great music you got to be on top of your game hives are another one man following
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those guys a couple years ago in the UK they're so good so much fun so great such a great live band and and like you said man no uh uh you know they're not humble on stage they're very Brash and and not arrogant you know it's really funny it comes
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across really well but they're so they're so sure they were they they were playing with us and uh and Pelle was singing the song and he's getting heckled by this guy in the front row it's going P yeah p goes no no thank you like wow that's great I gotta
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remember that yeah there's a Swagger for sure and I think there's you know they have songs and you of course have so many songs that when you get on stage you can see the audience relating in different ways to it and now you see them showing up with their kids uh you
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see that you're a legacy band in a lot of ways for people and I just wondered you know for guys who did not expect this to happen if you take much time to reflect on the earth the Journey of The Offspring it's kind of weird waxing
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nostalgic right you know we just we're celebrating 30 years of Smash and even that you know those songs still seem fresh and new to me today I remember I still remember when we were were first going out on tour and playing that fact I remember those days more than I
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remember like two years ago you know and throughout our career we've always had the front year was always the front row of any show is always stayed the same age you know it's always young people up front and that's still true that holds
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holds true to there's all these 14y olds in the front and they weren't there five years ago cuz they were nine or whatever you know they're new and it's almost like there's a gradient of age as you go further F back to all the way to the bar
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where the where the parents are and stuff but uh you're were talking about people bringing their kids I I I call it like almost like generational right and I thought that was the coolest thing about the bands that I love like the Rolling Stones and acdc's you see people
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bring in their kids and stuff and I thought that was the coolest thing and to see it happening with us is really I mean flattering and and humbling it's great but you know I'm seeing it with bands like Pennywise you know like those
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guys are all there guys my age and they've got their their kids with the hats little groms are coming to the show and I think it's just so rad the I listened to this record of course and and I listened to all the records we were just talked about Splinter which I
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think is an underrated in the in the catalog but very few bands I think sound as self assured as The Offspring does when the record comes out oh thanks yeah I think it it'd be really difficult to say this is what this record's going to
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sound like as if there was some sort of grand design and you could just kind of hone down on exactly what the chorus of that song's going to be I think I think you go song by song and the song a lot of once you start with an idea it kind
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of takes you in a way and you you almost feel like you have to follow it to its its natural conclusion so a long time ago that it for what works for for me is to just learn from that let it be what it's going to be and put it out there
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and put it to the side and wait till you got five or six to look at yeah and then and then you can maybe you say this one does not fit with the group and then it actually does start to feel like a cohesive record but it's not that way so much by Design but by uh what's left
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over when you've had a have a few things L out there and you got to philosophically be open to not controlling everything yeah I think so you know we we've got songs that are really fun like Pretty Fly for white and stuff when we got songs that are really
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serious like gone away and and I used to really struggle with that thinking that this is a problem for the band because we don't have a band identity people don't know what what to do with us right and and and maybe it's actually hurting
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us in a way and then I kind of realized well I'm not sad all the time I'm not happy all the time why why should why does my music have to be one or the other right let's let it be what it is and uh I've kind of just been okay with it ever since yeah and when did you
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settle into that when did you when did you feel like you could do all those things by Americana right I mean we stopped fighting it Americana a couple months ago I think you know the two of you trying to figure it out trying to figure out
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what the band is we always discuss it you know um but again the songs it's like Dexter just said you follow the song you know and then you compile a record out of the songs you've created we did we did two records with Dave Jordan who's an amazing legendary
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producer right and we tracked him down because he had done some of the records that we love so much like Chain's addiction and stuff Social Distortion of course and when we were doing Americana I remember him saying he goes look I
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because I think we were talking about this and like is this weird because we have this super Scot Punky song right next to gone away and or whatever and he he goes look I see you guys you're you're partly a pop band and you're partly a punk band and he goes and I
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feel like if you were just one or the other you probably wouldn't be as big as you actually are so so he kind of I think he encouraged us to just go ahead and let it let it out let it be what it is right and think about how different 1998 was right so in
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in 1999 obviously this those last two years of records everything really changed technology changed people's access to music Rel relationship with music change so you're part of this story but most bands haven't been able to go out that many years later with new
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music and have the biggest tours of their career and what do you think it is about The Offspring that's allowing you to do that I don't know well I think it's it you know has a lot to do with the the set of songs that we have you
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know our set list we've got like you said people don't realize how many hits we have we go out I know what it is I know exactly what it is okay no get a PhD S no love songs no love songs love ballad will kill you okay they'll be big Ario Speedwagon oh
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sorry no I love Ario No Love Song in fact uh when you're in prison is maybe you know the softest song you've ever done one of the greatest love songs of all time ter Lally it's a terrible but no but it's uh no ballads no I I say that factiously of
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course but uh yeah I I don't know I I remember like a long time ago like why over time why did KISS keep on going like this when you getting bigger over time yeah when a lot of bands from the same time went down like I want to be going the way kiss is going right so
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maybe you just kind of keep on working at it and figuring out you know yeah can we make our can we play better can we put together a better live show I think you just keep on pressing on are we going to start merchandising stuff like
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is it going to be Offspring cofins make him like those mushroom pods or something to Offspring Hub CS but smash when smash came out as you know 30 years holy yeah I know um where did that time go yeah combo I have no idea I don't know when did you have to like
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aside from the school thing when did you have to realize oh I guess this is a thing now I guess this is a thing and now I have to try to maintain this thing or grow this thing I know well I was trying to avoid the real world for a
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long time uh and you still are aren't you yeah the van wasn't making it yet so I like go to graduate school cuz you don't really have to get a job and stuff you know and not that I didn't like molecular biology I really do actually
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but uh but it was a great way to kind of keep things moving I wasn't just standing still and uh could still pursue the band so when it finally took off I was like wow I I guess this is what I really wanted right even though I wouldn't admit it you said you just said
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you took a leave of absence from school so you didn't quit you didn't quit school outright I didn't I didn't quit my job outright I was a janitor that's right and I took a leave of absence where were you a janitor and uh it was
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the Garden Groove of Unified School District I was the head custodian at Earl Warren Elementary School John hooker but went up became a janitor in Detroit Coan was a janitor he paid for a lot of the recordings custodian never mindt never mind John le
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hooker oh man I thought I was a lifer I thought it was a lifer for sure uh so does that mean you might go back if you take leave no if I go back I have to start at the bottom Rong but three years later like I had three years to go back
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and and start at the same position that I had I would have to go back and be just the regular janitor I think I remember when that three years was about to expire you we were on tour on on the iay run and on the Ombre run and I remember the date I go well it's all
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over now if I have to go back I'm starting at the beginning I guess it's for real now but I think there's something I was exploring the the some of the works of MCA the other day we were just marveling how if somebody has a thing they want to
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do and then just doing it trying different things and how much life is really about just trying the thing that may not be the safe bet and there's been a lot of that I think in your early days and and which kind of sets you up for this record in a way you're just trying
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things yeah for sure I mean like you said especially in the early days because when we were doing punk rock it's because it's what we what we loved the band but they weren't the big bands at the time I mean it was very much La glam metal that kind of thing and we
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were like the totally most out you know not popular kind of music that there was but it's just what we loved and so the idea that somehow this has come around and and gone away and come back kind of for for bands in this sort of space is
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just mindboggling yeah tell me about truth and fiction on the new record yeah which one was that again is it truth from fiction uh no truth in fiction truth truth in fiction truth in fiction it sounds like truth and fiction but it's truth in fiction I
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I think you know just the idea that we're kind of fabricating our own truths now right you know alternate what is it alternate truths or AI the the Deep fakes um you know on the internet any you can go out and make any pronouncement on the internet and there
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will be people believing it regardless of how much bull it is you know there's way more flat earthers in the world now than there was 15 20 years ago but beyond Tru truth and truth or fiction or whatever it's almost like by doing this
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you put enough of these together and people are creating their own realities right it's alternate realities everyone has well people are living online they're their whole identity is tied to their Instagram account you know whatever it is tick Tok it's scary um it
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is yeah well and all the science tells us you have to be out in the real world you have to be out in theou some grass to be healthy right and how dangerous they can all be this is the thing I love about The Offspring to even on this
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stuff is that you are not a political band but you for sure are a political band if people pay attention without you're leading horses to water yeah a lot but you're not making anybody drink yeah we we try not to tell people what to think about something you know if
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we'll say yeah you know and let's commiserate it let's point out a problem but we're not going to try to tell people how to fix it or what to think about it or you know maybe draw their attention to it right CU I don't want to
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come across like I'm on one side of the other because it's not how I feel necessarily depends on the issue and and uh and like he said we're out to we want to entertain people we're not out to to alienate people or whatever you know and
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music does not change people's political Minds it doesn't anymore for sure not at all now if you if you have a song that is takes one side of the coin you might inspire people to go out and act on beliefs that they already hold but you're not going to change their mind
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about something you know well that's the other thing science shows that people double down if they've been proven wrong so it's not an effective way to reach people is to tell them they're wrong is that weird and in in this world it's
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yeah people doubling down all the time on brain doesn't do it um uh when you're writing for these songs now and supercharged Offspring can represent a thing an aspirational thing for you it can be a character you want to play multiple characters but it could also be
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a statement of where you are as a person your brain chemistry your feelings and all that how much of either works into this right right I know I've ha people say oh you're just a you just chameleon into characters and between songs and I
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go you know I don't think that if I write a song It Doesn't and I write in first person it doesn't have to mean that it's a autobiographical right it can be can be partly me or it can be things that I've observed or whatever I mean self-esteem is a good example of
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that where you know late at night she knocks on my door drunk again looking to score like that wasn't me uh but it was someone I knew yeah actually it was actually a girl it was the guy knocking on the door whatever so so sometimes you
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kind of draw from life experiences to to try to tap into something that you think that you think everyone will relate to that's kind of the idea but the emotions were universally relatable you know the situation may change given the person
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but the emotions are everybody knows kind of what that's like right but now when you have a platform and you have so much experience of being able to know what you do The Offspring you don't need The Offspring to be relatable you don't need this to be anything other than what
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you want it to be it's like I assume financially you guys are okay You' sold enough records you could sell tickets it could be anything now so how do you figure how do you how do you honor what The Offspring is to the two of you when
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you when you set in to make another record huh we can do anything yeah I mean you can do anything once I guess we must like this I I don't know I mean this is the you know the only our only band I I I don't ever feel the need for a side project if I want to
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try something I'll just try it with this band and we have right and we've never had any any desire to do our kid a or our Sergeant Peppers right you know just completely change musical sounds we we will do that you know on occasional song
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You Know certainly we had a horn song on our last record and that that was different you know we've experimented with that and it's fun to do all that in the studio but as a as a band and you know what we do is a big project we we're not I don't think we want to
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change what we do yeah and there is no horn song or Oddball song on this record and I think it's kind of partly because that's weird in itself we've done it all on the last record and I felt like we just like we're on this roll right now
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and I just kind of felt like this just feels like the time to just steamroll just power through and just make us record this a little more direct and hard-hitting in this I honestly think the weirdest song on this one has come to Brazil okay it's the one that I I
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think seems just more farther a field than anything we've done in that direction well it comes off of Truth and fiction right it comes off of that one so the people are listening to and if they're listening to the whole record um
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where did that song come from yeah yeah we haven't talked about this yet can we we can have we not talked about it about we can talk about it right yeah we talked about it in in interviews it's one of the biggest you know memes I guess in on the internet right come to
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Brazil and and it's because the the fans in Brazil are very passionate right and if you write something like hey we're going to play in Chicago they'll of course write chime in come to Brazil in the comments right but it it gets even
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more and more absurd than that you can say like it's noodles birthday today come to Brazil so no matter what you say completely non secer but we will announce a tour of you know we're going to sou Paulo and Rio and come to Brazil be right here we posted we're
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coming to Brazil come to Brazil to Brazil it's that's just the comment you always get it's and it just kind of occurred was like go endearing and also kind of just silly just ridiculous oh my God I got to write a song called come to
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Brazil CU I can't believe no one's done a song yet called come to Brazil and so the song's about how we love our fans from Brazil and they're crazy and stuff but uh we just wanted to get it out there before the Vandals do it totally do that they would do that
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until do that somebody's going to do it so so anyway I don't know we wrote it as a tribute to our Brazilian fans they haven't heard it yet we don't know yet if it's going to connect uh I hope so we'll see you know I'm pretty sure it
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will it's super it's super heavy it's I think it's more metal than anything we've done before kind of th that's what you know your album cover is a mix between crime of the century and Ride the Lightning so it's a little Super a little metall on the C okay I'll
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take that yeah yeah we walk around now and see kids wearing t-shirts of bands and you're like I was there you you were a part of these really Canon moments like what were some of the the the rooms you were in that really blew your mind
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when you were young our second show together was uh the MB mubu Gardens in San Francisco was a Sunday matina I never went to the Olympic oh really yeah dead Kennedy at the Olympic gbh at the Olympic um the toy dolls at fenders in Long Beach best shows ever saw whole
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Surfers back in the 80s yeah that was really def fenders I would go there pretty much every every weekend every other weekend at least great fenders was big um you know the Roxy whiskey occasionally I saw X at the Roxy um that
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was great you know early on yeah right that was that was incredible you're talking about kids wearing t-shirts you know I was driving home I don't the other day and there's this kid walking down the street wearing a black Flag t-shirt right and he's maybe 15 and I'm
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like that t-shirt is or like B you know almost 50 50 years old 40 something years old right and I'm to put into context like okay so when I was his age like would I be wearing a a Glenn Miller t-shirt right no like how is it I'm trying to
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make a I'm actually trying to make a point how is it that somehow th that music they're still kids wearing that genre that t-shirt that many years later that is an excellent point yeah totally I've seen those I've seen those comparisons online and memes and stuff
23:53
you know yeah that would be like you listening to this band you know well I mean there's just black flag like there's something so truthful about that because that could never have been big yet somehow it was really big yeah to so
24:05
many people and they're still playing just them Misfits same kind of time Ramon of course all all that stuff so Mike the singer in Black Flag is the father-in-law of Brandon our drummer Mike that's right I play I played hockey with him here he's a really good hockey
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player actually he's a great athlete yeah yeah yeah super nice guy sweetheart yeah your drummer seeing the energy of your drummer was something else I felt like that added a layer to the band that for sure yeah yeah he's just phenomenal
24:30
great kid um wasn't even born when smash came out but he he was born the same year so his birthday coming up couple months later within months for his for his birthday he's getting supercharged this year uh which he plays on about half of too
24:48
by the wayoming record he plays on about half of it um one of the songs that made him want to play drums is Hammerhead off of Rise and Fall rage and Grace he was you know coming of age when that song was being played on the radio and he's
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what is this I want to learn how to play this and I think it was actually him doing a cover of that that hipped us to him kind of his audition I guess he just did it because it was one of the songs he liked and he put it on his Instagram and it kind of circulated around and
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pretty soon someone found it and the Asian found it and sent it to us and said you should consider this this kid right so between him and Ed sharan you're starting careers yeah you're starting careers we gave that a big boost yeah I mean how many how many guys
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in B you've met have an offspring tatto of like he's got a conspiracy mind I had heard that he was a fan and so I fired off an email to to management when I saw we were playing with him at Bottle Rock in Napa I said hey I hear it's a fan you want to see if
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he wants to sit in on a song with us you know we're on the same day and he jumped at the chance he was really excited I was kind of Blown Away at that and then he showed us his offspring tattoo and I'm like I'd heard that but no way come
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on yeah but he's he's fully tatted he's got a ton of TS so oh man it erupted in the in the dressing room ah he's got the too it's true it's true great you know who he's also really close with Danny filth so yeah yeah they've actually work hanging out with I think he saw him
26:09
hanging out with Limp Biscuit recently too really a cool guy I gotta say he was great Earth just a sweetheart Y what do you make of everybody talking about how the 90s are back late 90s early 2000s um When We Were Young Festival last year was huge
26:24
yeah and it was all banned from late 90s early 2000s and it was incredible is it more just Nostalgia or was there something happening then in the music that you think allows it to have so much power still I think it's the music I really do um no love songs
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no I there's a lot of love songs in there actually I think you I think should keep coming back to that you might be on to something there but look at look at some of the bands that are doing really well right now uh some 41 has their number their biggest hit ever
26:52
is that crazy right now you and they're quitting Blink 182 you know came out with some new stuff uh Green Day's got a song on the on the top of the charts you know a lot this this music has legs it's it's good music it's you know good bands
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playing good music I know I was thinking about that the other day love songs too in you know '94 you're looking at the charts and we we're in there right and uh if you think of the company we were in and like you know not to disparage
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any of them but I mean the the it was all very the music was all very different like right weird that like wow we're we're actually still still here doing it and many or most of those bands are kind of gone right so it's like wow how about that it's a hit parade and but
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also you just keep doing it like it works like the live shows are there the songs are there you got older better I mean we love doing it you know we we do everything we can not to screw this up you know let's just not screw this up
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just ride it out of it's really we're going to milk this forever as you should as you should you're not milking it you're feeding us that's what you're doing oh thank you it's nice to see you guys thanks a lot awesome thank you wow [Music]