I've known a lot of people who were punkers who went on to get academic degrees. Very few of them, however, continued their active role in the punk community. Most of them hung up their leather jacket when they did so.
I think English punk died in '79 or '80. Maybe '82 at the latest. As far as American punk goes, it wasn't the same as English punk. It wasn't a working-class movement that was protesting the conditions under which this class had to work. I don't think American punk ever died.
I guess rock stars are role models for the kids who listen to that music. My role models have all been geologists - you know, the guys who are doing fieldwork until they're 70.
Ideologically, the pursuit of science is not that different from the ideology that goes into punk rock. The idea of challenging authority is consistent with what I have been taught as a scientist.
Science is very vibrant. There are always new observations to be found. And it's all in the interest in challenging the authority that came before you. That's consistent with the punk rock ethos that suggests that you should not take what people say at face value.
I definitely was attracted to similar things in punk and science. They both depend on a healthy dose of skepticism.
My science teachers always encouraged their classes to 'go out and discover something' because all scientific endeavors depend on observation and experimentation. Through such pursuits, anyone can find something new to science, and if it's truly novel, the entire edifice of science might have to be restructured.
The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian.
Bad Religion has never been about criticizing people who are Christian. But we've always been about pointing out the irony and contradictions in Christian theology and the more extreme versions of Christians that seek to challenge modern secularism.
Let's face it: There are people who are extremists in every corner of society, and whatever flag they're waving is something Bad Religion has stood against.
Bad Religion's tradition has always been to try and provoke people but hopefully lead them to a better sense of who they are and what they stand for. That's supposed to make them feel better.
When I was a teenager, science meshed with my developing ideals - such as the challenge to authority that was central to punk rock. In science, anyone from any walk of life could make a discovery that would overturn prevailing hypotheses. And that was a cause for celebration among scientists.
I got interested in palaeontology and vertebrate history - sparked by books on human evolution - then vertebrate evolution. Studying with palaeontologists kindled my interest in fieldwork.
People who are creative, who do it as a lifestyle, it's kind of silly to make that claim you're done, because you just never know when that spark is going to hit you again. You can't necessarily predict how you're going to feel. In ten years I'll be 58, and I might still feel like making a punk record.
I grew up playing football since the day I could walk; some of my greatest memories of childhood are playing touch football in all kinds of weather with my best friends. That's a part of the American experience that no corporation can destroy.
It's not a random chance that we have Alanis Morissette. She didn't evolve out of a null and void. She came from a former template. She borrowed styles and sounds from a very limited set of other artists.
Bad Religion took a long time to develop into gold-record-status artists. Along the way we learned and applied our knowledge, and Atlantic helped us every step of the way, since 1993.
You can look at Bad Religion, and, really, almost everything I've ever done was an exercise in creativity. I've always had a desire to challenge and question authority, and that's where the fire inside comes from. I challenged authority out of a desire to make things better, not to be nihilistic about it.
You can't take up all the music bins at a CD retail outlet with Spice Girls CDs and leave nothing for the Joan Jett catalogue.
Every place has its own punk flavor, but they all borrowed ideas from SoCal. It's still a vibrant scene creeping into every crevasse of youth culture. When you hear grunge, you think of the '90s, but when you hear L.A. punk, it's timeless.
