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Interview With Bad Religion – Jay Bentley Part 1


they’ve been called hardcore punk for
the thinking men hi I’m Rebecca Brayton
and welcome to watchmojo.com and in our
latest music interview host stephanie
gets to chat with jay of prolific punk
band Bad Religion
Bad Religion has been given credit for
restarting the punk revival in the late
1980s do you agree with that and how
would you say you guys have done that if
so I don’t agree with that I think that
some people thought that because we put
out a couple of records that are looked
back on now as quote-unquote historical
but at the time they sold 2,000 units so
when you really talk about kick-starting
something I’m not sure how big of a part
it played in it I think there was a lot
of factors that happened to really kind
of open this up not the least of which
was Nirvana so you know I think it may
be in hindsight people can say that but
at the time it certainly wasn’t and you
guys have been together for a really
long time almost the 30 years I guess we
learned a lot in that time you know
perhaps what is your most important
lesson or I guess there’s more than one
that you guys have learned maybe the
most important lesson in music is don’t
stop don’t quit don’t break up because
you’re unhappy with your popularity or
whatever I mean it’s an art and if you
like it if you really do it for passion
you would never want to stop
you guys have had lineup changes you
know you went on breaks and even a lot
of you have solo projects or side
projects so what is it that has kept you
guys together all this time when we
started the band I think we had a we had
a philosophy that it was important to
maintain each other’s individuality
which meant that when we were sitting in
in our singers garage writing songs and
playing that was the collective of the
band and when that was over and
everybody went home that was the
individual and so there was no phone
call saying oh you have to wear a red
shirt tomorrow too but nothing like that
ever no collective flag no hey we are
and that was really important so I think
that helped us a lot to kind of stay out
of each other’s lives and not have that
irreconcilable differences which is
always personality issues as we were
writing songs and growing and getting
into the studio and started putting out
records the first record we put out
which was called how it could help me
any worse was moderately successful for
a bunch of 16 17 year-olds we didn’t
realize it at the time but I think
because of that there was a lot of ego
involved there were issues of
self-importance which were completely
diminished by the next record called
into the unknown that was a lesson in
saying look this isn’t the most
important thing in the world this is a
hobby and there’s something that we all
really enjoy but we can never take it
that seriously and never think that this
is the most important thing that’s not a
cure for cancer it’s not a Nobel Prize
winning peace treaty it’s just art
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