The Offspring (Part 2)

Can A Mainstream Punk Rock Band Stay Relevant After 20 Years?

The Offspring in 2012, releasing their 9th studio album

In 1996, the Offspring had reached enormous levels of success which could have never been predicted by an record label executive. The band had sold millions of copies of their third full-length record, "Smash" without the backing of a major label. They were all over the radio, plastered on the front of rock magazines, selling out headlining shows, and receiving constant play on MTV. They even had a performance in 1994 at the Billboard music awards. Their first attempt to match "Smash" was met with a decline in sales and airplay, while their second shot on a major would nearly match those sales. It was hard to say where the band would go, or if they would even stay together up to 2012.

 

This 1994 performance of fan favorite "Bad Habit" exposed the Offspring to a whole new audience, and with gusto.

From 2003 until now, the band has gone on to record three full length records, with their longest span in between releases seen from 2003 to 2008. "Splinter" was the first of these releases. The record received the most mixed reviews the band had ever seen, as many complained about the length of the record, with a couple of songs considered straight filler which threw a wrench into the flow of an album struggling to find an identity - and that was easily how the Offspring could have been described; as a band without identity.

With a mixed bag such as "Splinter", one could only suggest that the band was losing touch with it's roots but at the same time experimenting with trying to stay fresh to constant turnover of fans. After all, who's buying your records from the chain stores? Kids, mostly. How could the band appeal to kids? It seemed as if they didn't know, so they tried nearly everything they could.

The lead single from "Splinter" seemed like something the band had never recorded. "Hit That" was poppy punk hid behind a synthesizer beat which amped itself up with driving guitar in the chorus. But behind the mask of production was really just another attempt to recreate the magic of "Come Out & Play", as Dexter Holland went back (again) to attempt his signature vaguely sociopolitical lyrics with a wink to his audience. Thankfully, it wasn't as painful as "Original Prankster", but it begun to feel as if every lead single was just becoming another degree of a poor mans "Come Out & Play". Did the band have any other tricks up their sleeves to get their records off the shelves?

 

"Cant Get My Head Around You" borrowed it's opening riff from "Americana's" "Staring At The Sun". A boring video accompanied the boring track.

"Rise & Fall, Rage & Grace" would be the bands next release. An album three years in the making, it was recorded in various locations over the time period, including Hawaii. The result was another incredibly mixed bag from the band, perhaps even more so than "Splinter". As Holland tried to dig deeper, and throw away the cluttered humorous tracks from previous albums in order to fill those gaps with songs for a new generation of youths to relate to, he fell more than short.

He takes a shot at the sentimental with the apologetic ballad, "Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?" which he wrote for a girl who grew up in the same town as him and was sexually abused. Apparently most of the town was aware, but failed to intervene. This track could have resulted in a richer direction for the band, but instead Holland's simply unimaginative lyrics gave way to an instrumental reminiscent of Simple Plan's corniest tracks.

  

"Kristy Are You Doing Okay?" bumps up the sentimentality with lackluster results.

Another single effort, "You're Gonna Go Far Kid" stood out like a sore thumb on an album which ranged anywhere from trying to replicate the recent major label success of Rise Against (who both Holland and Noodles claim to be fans of) to "American Idiot" era Green Day and all the way back to 90's Post-Grunge. For a band always attempting to replicate their past success, it seemed as if their new choice of direction was to replicate the recent success of others.

 
"You're Gonna Go Far Kid" is perhaps one of only a few tracks which sound anything close to the Offspring of the past on "Rise & Fall..".

Regardless, "Rise & Fall..." went on to sell less than a million copies, receive mixed to negative reviews, though it did crack the top ten on the Billboard chart. Despite the reaction to the album, the band didn't seem phased, perhaps due to settling into a constant groove and a comfortable life, they chugged along touring and preparing for their next record.

 

In comparison to their 1994 performance posted above, just last year the band plays a set clocking in at just over an hour at a festival in the Netherlands. During the first track, Holland loses his breath, failing to regain his energy for the remainder of the show. The rest of the band plays on, looking disinterested. This is 11 years after the band claimed to MuchMusic's George Stroumboulopouls, "We just love doing what we love to do." In regards to why the band has lasted so long. Perhaps things have changed.

2012 sees the release of two new singles from the bands upcoming ninth studio release, "Days Go By". The uninspired, flat tracks don't show as much as a change in direction for the band, more of a path running into a brick wall. The title track from the upcoming LP seems to be another attempt at current faceless radio rock the group seems to think they can not only pull off, but do better than the groups 20 year younger than them. Frankly, they are dead wrong.

 

The video for "Days Go By" looks as if it has a budget of under 500 dollars, but not in a punk rock way, more in a "were about to be dropped by our label if we don't go gold in the states with this record" way.

Of course, the band fails to disappoint us this time around, finally releasing a single that will get our toes tapping and the girls at the beach singing along with these California elderly punks again - that is, of course, before we all stick the barrel of a shotgun in our mouths and pull the trigger. The companion single to "Days Go By" is just that awful. In the same vein of "Pretty Fly" and "Original Prankster", "Crusin' California" attempts to parody. This time, the band takes on the music industry, ironically enough. Seemingly, the pop hooks are a stab at artists such as Katy Perry in a "Look! Hey! We can do it, too!" kind of way. Unfortunately, the track will both be misinterpreted as a real radio hit, and as an biting satire, neither of which it is.

 

An awful video for the Offspring's worst single to date. "Crusin' California" might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for the bands critical career.

"Days Go By" will be released later this month, and I am sitting here, dreading to write the review. If anything, going in with low expectations based on these two singles, I may be pleasantly surprised. Most signs point to the Offspring going to way of the Dodo when it comes to being plastered on mainstream media, but only time will tell.

Hurry Up & Wait: Six Degrees Of Doin' It Yourself

 Music in general is ever changing because of it's involvement with technology. Many groups and artists fight to keep up with the websites and mediums that their music can be exposed through. If looking at music from a business stand-point, the people you are trying to reach with that music have about a five second attention span. Music might effect us all in similar ways, but the mass consumer can replace any artist at the drop of a hat with the new hip sound due to music being just that - a product - because that is how it is presented to them and that is how it's absorbed. A vicious cycle of crawling back up to the edge of the cliff you're clinging to by one hand in the business of music.

 Thankfully, there is a whole other side to music. There are people out there who think that the artists and the listeners are on the same level, and are just people trying to share with each other. This is a very prominent thing in Punk Rock, but even so, many bands fail to cause a mark on little more than the cities they tour to or the chance kids who bought their demos and fade into the background never to be seen again. It can leave an emptiness inside when you were so into those records that every time you listen to it, you just want to share them.

 This made me think about those bands who toured together, worked their fingers off, played hard, scraped the money together to put out records, worked day jobs, even came together from halfway across the country to play shows together every so often. These bands are motivated by how the music makes them and others feel. I figured that before I wrote my introspective on a band that was fading in a different way, through their own fame and laziness (the Offspring) and before I wrote about the past and future of punk in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I would try to offer a look at some music that has made me very happy in times of need.

 The connection here is that every one of these groups shares a member, and that is Justin Sullivan, who I was hoping to do an interview with for this article but I haven't been able to find any contact information for him (as if finding information on his bands isn't hard enough). But in no way is this article a love-letter to the long time Punk drummer/vocalist, as I have never met him, but it is more a "Six Degrees Of" Justin Sullivan, and a look at his involvement in Punk music.

 My memories from being a teenager run from hazy to black-out, but I remember the first time I heard Long Island, New York's the Insurgent amazingly clear. It was in the basement of a house where a pal of mine Alec Whitford lived. We referred to Alec as "Straight Edge Al". He was a shy, yet outspoken Punk in his twenties, who loved to cook vegetarian meals and sing earnest songs on his acoustic guitar. Some of the time, touring bands needed a place to play and Al's basement was available. It was a very small space and usually a small amount of kids would show up.

"Straight Edge" Alec Whitford performing at the Outhouse, me looking on with an admiring smile.

 One night, Al played before a band and started off his set with a long speech typical of his performances. His voice would always run out of steam in the middle, as if he needed a drink of water, yet he never learned enough to bring one up with him. He was talking about how this band had changed his life, and if not for them, he wasn't sure if he would have made it here today. I felt the same way about many bands, so I hung on his every word before he launched into a rendition of "Had Nowhere", the sing along anthem from the Insurgent.

 Months later, a label called Dare To Care Records teamed up with a fellow named Troy from Vancouver and the Insurgent's own outlet (Innocent When You Dream) with one more hand and released the Insurgents entire recorded material on a disc called "It Will Be That Sound". That same month we found a copy of their earlier 10" titled "Inside Every Kid..." for our collectively run record distro, which we called Community Tigers.  We were now stocked with 11 copies of this bands music, and I hadn't yet heard it properly recorded.

 Needless to say, "It Will Be That Sound" failed to leave my  Sony discman (yes, I used a discman back then) for the entire Summer. I learned every word, and when I lost my copy, I would put six dollars back into the distro for a new one. Soon, we had sold all of our copies to kids attending our shows, and I was dying for new music from the band even though they had song since broken up.

  

Download the Insurgent's "Loudest Letter" 7" thanks to HereOnThisIsland

 By chance of browsing the internet on lonely nights and randomly ordering cheap 7" records in bulk from various outlets, I came across the next best thing in a band that Justin Sullivan had joined in the wake of the Insurgent calling it quits. Sirens would release two 7" records in short press during their time as a band,  and two members (including Justin) would go on to form Ringers who would boast a more extensive catalog before breaking up after a final show at the Fest 8 in Gainsville, Florida.

 Download "Washington ST" from "Long Distance Calling" by Sirens thanks to 1234go! Records

 Around the time that Ringers' first full length record, "Curses" (Regeneration records) was released, my two Sirens records, "Where Have You Been?" (Regeneration) and "Long Distance Calling" (1234go! records) had been bought up by the same kids buying "It Will Be That Sound". Unfortunately, "Curses", did not go as well. The compact discs in our distro started not to sell, as vinyl came back harder and harder in Calgary, and we didn't have the money to ship in LP's that we weren't willing to charge over 20 dollars for. The distro folded and our members bought up the remaining inventory.

 Download both "Cue the Strings" and "For Arguments Sake" from Ringers fantastic debut LP "Curses" which was released jointly by Regeneration and 1234go! (thanks to the latter for the mp3s)

 It was around this time that Al handed me a copy of a band called Speakeasy's "Return To Sender" (Innocent When You Dream) which also featured Justin Sullivan. It provided a bridge for me until the next Ringers record "Detention Halls" (1234go!/ YoYo records) would be released and wear out another shitty discman.

Mp3s of Speakeasy's "Return to Sender" are rare these days, but thankfully the track "(Fuck You) I'm Nervous" was made available through Dare To Care Records, on account of it being included on a compilation from the Montreal based label.

Since then, I have always been clamoring for new material from everyone involved in all these bands. Justin went on to form a band called United States (featuring Ren from longtime Long Island friends of the Insurgent, Sometimes Walking Sometimes Running) the same time he was in Ringers, which released one LP of Fugazi/Rites of Spring influenced post-hardcore. You can listen to all eight tracks here, thanks to RokLok Records.  United States might also be an earlier or later incarnation of another project of Sullivan called City Limits, who are very hard to find any information on other than the single track they share on their Myspace page. Later, he was in a group with former Bent Outta Shape member Jamie Ewing (who would tragically pass at the age of 25 in 2008) and future Vivian Girls member Cassie Grzymkowski. They were called Bossy, and went on to release a "best of" compilation in 2008. A track can be heard under this paragraph, and it is a complete departure from most of Sullivan's other work.

Walk Around - Bossy

As for Sullivan now, he has released demos with a band called Babies. I haven't heard them yet, but I plan on getting my hands on them as soon as possible. Other members of some of his groups have been in new bands. Barker Gee of Sirens went on to play with solid group Witches With Dicks and also Neon Piss. Along with the aforementioned tie to Vivian Girls, among others. But what really rings true here is the value of the music he has already made with these bands who will most likely never reform and never gain popularity despite their sincere and catchy songs.

 If you have any mp3s of any of these groups mentioned, stories, pictures, or pressings of their records, you can get in touch with me through comments. In a few days, we will move on to the rise and fall of a band who might have never had the talent to rise in the first place, the Offspring. See you in the pit.

More downloads: 

Ringers: "Canned Laughter" from "Hurry Up & Wait" thanks to No Idea Records. "Amateur Hour" & "Nothing To Show" both from "Detention Halls" thanks to 1234go!