Bad Religion: “I Didn’t Know If I Was Ever Going to Be on a Stage Again”

One of the enduring voices of the west coast hardcore explosion of the 1980s, Bad Religion have spent over four decades shaping and challenging the definition of punk and alternative rock, while also exposing the dire state of the world in their lyrics.

The California punk legends are set to tear the roof off multiple venues on their Australian co-headline tour with Social Distortion next February. 17 albums into their career and with zero signs of slowing down, Bad Religion’s upcoming Aussie adventures alongside their longtime peers and friends has itself been years in the making.

Music Feeds catches up with Bad Religion guitarist Brian Baker to chat about the upcoming Australian shows, co-headlining with Social Distortion, and getting back on the road post-Covid.

Bad Religion – ‘American Jesus’

Music Feeds: You’ve said that no one is more excited about this co-headline Australian tour than you are. What does it mean to not just be back on the road and planning tours, but also to be able to join Social Distortion on the other side of the world in 2023?

Brian Baker: Oh god, I mean, what a win. What a complete win. I love Australia so much and for some reason we haven’t gone to Australia enough. I wanna fix that and put us on the right track of being a consistent visiting group. And to be able to do it in partnership with one of my absolute favourite bands from when I was a little kid too?

It was before Mommy’s Little Monster [1983] – it was ‘1945’ [1982] when I first heard Social Distortion. I just always loved that band. And I’ve become friends with some of the guys, especially Jonny 2 Bags, who is a great guitar player. Jonny and I like the same thing – we like old guitars, we like coffee and we like sitting around and talking about things like that. But I’ve never gotten to tour with him before.

MF: How has it been returning to a live setting after a few years away from it all?

Brian: It’s genuinely been incredible. After being unable to do anything for so long and not knowing if it would ever come back… I didn’t know if I was ever going to be on a stage again, let alone go to another country. I thought I’d never see any of this again. It’s still very powerful when I get on a stage.

This year we’ve managed to do a lot of shows. We’ve been in Europe and we’ve been in the US and there’s been this added little electricity because you feel like you’re getting away with something. It reminds you how incredibly awesome it is to be able to get to do this at all. Now every show that I play, I look at it like, “This could end at any time, so let’s really dig in and get the most out of it that we can.” And I’ll be bringing that mindset to Australia.

MF: Bad Religion now have 17 albums worth of material to dig into. What do you guys potentially have on the cards setlist-wise?

Brian: We don’t have a firm idea about what we’re gonna play in Australia yet, but I do know that what we wanna do is play songs that people love, and we also want to have a couple of songs that people didn’t know were ours.

Changing the setlist around and playing some obscure stuff keeps it really interesting for the band members. And I think the cool thing with that too is that, for fans who have been coming to see us for so many years, they get to see something new each time too. I love playing the big songs, but as a fan of the band, I wanna see some weird thing – I wanna see something obscure off Against The Grain [1990].

Fortunately one thing we did do in lockdown is that we went and did basically four live-stream concerts that covered Bad Religion’s decades. I think that you can just get them on YouTube, I don’t think we sold them properly. Oops? But in doing that, we had to learn all of these songs that we hadn’t played in decades or, in some cases, at all.

Bad Religion – ’21st Century (Digital Boy)’

MF: Doing those performances during lockdown, did you end up rediscovering or falling back in love with a Bad Religion song that had been off your radar?

Brian: Yes, definitely. There were a few that I’d never even played before that were really cool to play. ‘Better Off Dead’ was a really great song that I always liked off Stranger Than Fiction [1994]. And there were also a couple that we used to play in the good old days but they just kind of went by the wayside because part of staying relevant is trying to make good records.

When we go out and we’re playing songs from our last album, Age of Unreason [2019], which I think is a fantastic record, but I understand that we’re not gonna waste everyone’s time and go, “You know what, we’re just gonna play our new stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Fuck you, fuck people who like us.”

What we like to do is grab a couple of songs from that new record that are fun to play, and in doing this exploration, we managed to find stuff from even later records that never previously got played because you’ve only got a fixed amount of time here.

You know, the older we get… I mean, I’m good for an hour, an hour and 15 minutes maybe. But after that, I don’t know if I’m doing my best work. And a lot of our fans in that same group are like, “I’ve had enough.” No one needs that much punk. It’s finding that balance, which we are always striving to do.

MF: You’ve visited Australia a few times now, but is there anything still on the Aussie bucket list for you when you’ll be here in February?

Brian: What I like to do on tour, every day I’ll do anything that I can walk to. Or within reason, you know, take a bus or something somewhere. I’ve also learned something about myself – I used to not want to do the touristy stuff because I’m “cool” and I don’t do tourist stuff. Fuck that. I’m a tourist, and I’m not cool. I’ll look at a guide, and go, “Hey, there’s a museum of wooden shelving. I don’t know enough about Australian shelving”. I will go to that, I will get on a bus or drive around and see that shit. I love doing that.

I don’t have my schedule for February yet. But the days off, they’re the magic because that’s when I can go three hours away, go get lost and get in the middle of nowhere. Rent a car, fuck around and see something that’s off the beaten track. Our tour manager loves to drive, rent a car and get lost too, and that’s how you truly get to know a place. You really get to learn a country and a city by not being right in the middle of it.

MF: You’ve recently been posting your ‘One Guitar In One Minute’ series online, showcasing some of the amazing guitars in your collection. Have you added any new guitars to your collection that haven’t been shown to the world yet? And are you bringing anything particularly noteworthy to Australia in 2023?

Brian: As far as things that I haven’t shown yet… we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the crap that I have because I’m old and I haven’t sold a guitar. I stopped selling guitars for food right around the minute I joined Bad Religion. There’s much more to come there. The latest one on my Instagram was my most recent purchase. It was the Stratocaster, which I never thought I would buy. I have one coming up for that series which I’m really excited about – it’s an SG with P90 pickups, and it’s pretty rare; it’s just one they didn’t make many of.

Notably on the Australian tour, I’m gonna be bringing my favourite 1955 Les Paul Junior. I just love that one. And because I’ll be there with the Social Distortion guys, those guys all have old guitars, so I can’t really decide if I want to just bring some really weird old shit too. But who am I gonna impress?

MF: Bad Religion will be heading to Auckland just before you finally get back to Australia for four shows here. Any parting words for your Australian fans to tide us over until you guys arrive?

Brian: I’m truly more excited about this trip than any that I can remember. And the opportunity to get to play in such a beautiful place and play alongside Social Distortion – it’s not to be missed. I can say that there’s no doubt this is gonna be a different experience, hopefully, for everybody. You can’t contain this much excitement. This is a show that even I would go to, and I never leave the fucking house.