Ron Purtee : Do you think that things are better now with Brett (Gurewitz, one of the bands founders and principle songwriters) back in the band?
Jay Bentley: When he left it was for the better, even though it hurt us in the long run songwriting wise, we were fighting a lot in 94, there was a lot of problems. Him coming back now, everybody’s happy, and he is back writing again, and it puts a good balance in the band, where its not just one direction and it seems to work out a lot better now.
RP: Do you think that with albums like “No Substance” and “The New America” things were starting to lack songwriting wise?
JB: Those were shit records. With “The Grey Race” you had Brian (Baker) coming and writing a lot of music, and that record was a very passionate record lyrically for Greg (Graffin), it was a real personal time for him, and it really helped him on the record the way he was presenting his lyrics. With “No Substance” and “New America” it was like no reason, we were pretty passionless.
RP: Do you think that Brian is taking a backseat in the band now that Brett is back when it comes to songwriting?
JB: No because Brian wrote maybe 40- 50% of the music on “The Grey Race” but he and Greg had a lot of disagreements about what Brian wanted to do musically, and Brian just said, “Fuck it, I’ll never write another song” and it was over. So Brian now writes songs for Dag Nasty, which will come out this year.
RP: Rumor has it that Bad Religion is only putting out one more album, do you guys have a lot left in you?
JB: Sure why not? This band has never had any type of long-term goal, ever. So when I say, “Yeah we might make another record” people take it literally like “Oh my god they’re breaking up”. Its like who knows what the fuck we’re doing. If we make some kind of bizarre business plan, then we’re assholes. If your not making music because your passionate about it then you should just sit in the corner and be some other band with management and everyone else who is telling you what to say.
RP: Of the B-sides you have, which one would you have like to seen on an album but never made it?
JB: “News from the Front” It’s a great song; it just didn’t make it on the record because of time. We were deciding what songs we were gonna put on there, and Brett really wanted to put “Digital Boy” on there. I was like “We already have a version of that on another record, lets go with “News from the Front” it’s a great song.” then Brett said something that you can’t really argue with, “Well I wrote both of them”, and I can’t argue with that, its your song.
RP: Did all of the fighting with Brett start during the recording of “Stranger than Fiction”?
JB: Yeah, kinda, there were just so many things that were happening. You have to remember, Brett wasn’t just a guitar player in Bad Religion, or a partner or a songwriter, he also owned the record label we were on, and there were so many things going on for all of us, and I worked at Epitaph, it was me and Brett and like 5 people who worked at Epitaph, and so there was stresses all over the place, its unbelievable that were all still here. I couldn’t begin to explain to you how awkward that time was.
RP: Many think that the switch to Atlantic was the cause of Brett leaving, because in press afterwards he would use the “sell out” term quite often, do you think that’s the case?
JB: No. His name was right above mine on the contract, so if he didn’t want to go he wouldn’t have signed it. He knows that. He says “Look, I just used it as a way to get out”. It’s no different then when you break up with a girlfriend and you say, “oh she’s a bitch”, she may not be one but you guys just didn’t get along, so you attack her. All of that shit was just talk. It didn’t have anything to do with Atlantic. Going to Atlantic at the time was good, but only because of Danny Goldberg and he only lasted 6 months there and he was gone and we were just dead in the water.
RP: Did it take a lot to come back to Epitaph?
JB: It took 2 phone calls and me meeting with Andy and Dave. Once our deal with Atlantic was up, I was like “Let’s call up Fat Mike, I’ll go on Fat Wreckords, he knows more to do with us than any other label other than Epitaph. It seemed like there was a little bit of apprehension about going back to Epitaph from certain members of the band, but me even having worked there and having been involved in that, at least I was smart enough to know that they knew how to work with us better than any other label on the planet. I kept saying “Even if we hate each other there is no way we are gonna be worse off than we were on Atlantic.” By the time we left there everybody hated us. We have a habit of making people hate us. That works for me, that’s why were punks right?
RP: One last question. Rumor has it that whenever you find a copy of “Into the Unknown” you buy it and put it in storage, how many do you really have in storage?
JB: (laughs) I had about 150.
RP: How many did it press?
JB: 10,000. Brett and I burned a shitload of them one time. We just dumped gas on them and burned them. That was 3 or 4 boxes, that would have been 300-400. Last time I went looking for them they were all water damaged because my mom’s water heater exploded.
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