by Henrik Tuxen
Ok, just maaaybbbee stretching this biblical metaphor a little. But it’s quite interesting that three days after Kurt Cobain's passing, The Offspring released Smash, and alongside Green Day and their debut Dookie, marked the most commercially successful period of punk rock ever.
I’ve interviewed guitarist Noodles twice and in 2000 had an extensive solo-interview in Stockholm, Sweden, with frontman and song-writer Bryan ‘Dexter’ Holland. The band had at that time once again cracked the mainstream sales and commercial barrier with ‘Americana’ and ‘Pretty fly for a white guy’.
Photo © Getty via Loudwire.com.
The Offspring and Green Day's popularity paved the way for a wide range of other bands and labels, and also successfully merged the genre with hip hop and skater culture. Especially in the shape of The festival Vans Warped Tour, which turned out to be both long-lasting and highly successful. This 3rd or even 4th generation of punk has ever since been a subject of strong controversy. One side claiming these bands to be corporate sellouts, jumping on the bandwagon, while others claiming to finally manage to bring good music to the masses and merging dynamic subcultures, and in joint forces reaching a higher level.
Holland himself was quite reluctant and skeptical as referring to The Offspring as a punk band when I met him. As he said, with the commercial status the band had achieved at that point, he would feel like a hypocrite as to claim underground ideals and being a core of a noncommercial subculture. On the other hand, as the singer said (who’s also a licensed pilot, has a PhD degree in molecular biology, and at the time was running a label.):
“We pretty much played the same style of music for 10 years for hardly any people, before we were popular.”
Also quite interesting, at the time of the interview, the battle of Napster and early stages of digital downloading was raging. While Metallica and the recording industry in general were taking their fans to court, as in massive million $ claims and fines to kids as young as 14 and prison sentences up to several years. Holland was wearing a Napster T-shirt during the interview.
The Offspring had during the same time period uploaded a single for free fan download, and insanely being sued by their own record company Sony for doing so. Holland’s ideology was pretty clear back then:
“You can’t fight or deny the inevitable technological evolution with lawyers, fines and constraints. You gotta go with the flow, play along with the technology to the advantage and benefits of your fans and for the love of music in general, that will also come to your own advantage and well-being in the long run.”
The Offspring was truly brave and ahead of their time at this point, providing their fans with all kinds of possibilities and extra features at this early time of digital downloading. Pretty down to earth and punk rock in my book.
I think it’s fair to say that time has proven that Holland and The Offspring were right and Lars Ulrich and Metallica were wrong, which I think the latter would also agree upon today.