Brian Baker, Page 3

At tonight's show, the two main Southern California "alternative" radio stations have sent out their party vans to set up camp in the parking lot. Legions of baggy trousered, T-shirt and sneaker wearing fans, many of whom were just born around the time Bad Religion formed, hang out and party before the show. Not exactly the kind of mentality that was seen in the first punk movement. During the show Graffin asked the crowd how many were just hearing Bad Religion for the first time and received a round of cheers. Considering it used to be punk's code of ethics to be faithful to the underground rather than a follower of "sellout corporate radio," it's hard to figure where Bad Religion falls at this point. Baker dismisses what used to be a very elitist attitude in punk. "I don't think it's my job to determine how people are supposed to react to Bad Religion music, I'm not the punk police. What I do is play music and whoever shows up is cool. I have no intention of telling people how to have fun or saying 'you people aren't cool enough to go here and since you only heard the single on the radio that means you're not a fan.' I think that's bullshit. Come one come all, slam dance your brains out. The more the merrier, it's still better than Winger!"
With punk becoming so mainstream now, Baker says there's no turning back but what is important is to get back to the spirit of what made it important, "It was already blown out of proportion by 1985. That sense of community and danger had dissipated as soon as runway models started wearing leather jackets with studs in them and movies like Sid and Nancy came out. The only reason everyone's saying it's all being destroyed now is because they're 14. Punk rock is now mainstream and you can't fix that. It's time to stop worrying about the community that doesn't exist and be more concerned about liking bands for the right reasons because maybe they have something important to say, not what label they are on. Take the time to investigate music a little bit more thoroughly which is one of the few things you still can do that we used to do when we were punk." One good outlet, Baker says, is the internet: "The internet is really good for punk rock. It kind of culls out the Beavis and Butt-heads because they don't really know how to operate a computer well enough to get in there and if they accidentally do, people get rid of them. On the Bad Religion Web sites, you can find incredibly cool stuff I never even knew was there. I learned about my own band from the Internet!"
He said he recently bought a computer but hasn't had much time to go on-line since the tour began , but says Graffin is on-line all the time from the hotel rooms. For right now, Baker is more interested in sleep and devouring the fish tacos his bandmates were kind enough to bring him. As he wandered back into the venue to get ready for the show, Bad Religion fans were still whooping it up in the parking lot and the heat still hadn't let up.