Vocal/Guitar --- Dexter
(Bryan Holland)
Drums --- Ron
(Ron Welty)
Guitar --- Noodles
(Kevin Wasserman)
Bass --- Greg K
(Greg Kriesel)


By 1984, when what would have become the Offspring formed,
the original Orange County punk scene had fractured.
We used to go this dance club called Circle City,
and there'd be 10 different cliques, says Kriesel.
In our high school there was a rockabilly scene,
as well as a mod scene and a New Wave scene, as well
as a punk scene, Holland adds. But at Pacifica High,
a large public school in Garden Grove, Calif. Holland
wasn't a member of any of those groups. The third of
four children born to a hospital administator father
and a schoolteacher mother, he kept busy being a good
kid and hoped to be a doctor. Sports were a really
big thing, Holland says, I was on the cross-country
team. He also happened to be class valedictorian

(thus his nickname, Dexter). His senior year, Holland's
older brother gave him a Rodney on the ROQ compilation album.
Before then, Holland was a casual listener. But soon after,
he was devouring Flipside and Maximumrocknroll, fanzines
out of Pasadena, Calif., and Berkeley, Calif., respecively,
that are virtual how-to guides to punkdome. His favorite
bands were T.S.O.L.
(particulary 1981's Dance With Me),
the Adolescents and Agent Orange County bands that weren't
as hung up on politic as their Bay Area counterparts.
Holland's cross-country teammate Greg Kriesel discovered punk
even later. His investment-banker father saw law school in
his son's future. And for most of high school, Kriesel was a
sports fan and self-proclaimed jock
(he also played baseball).
The first punk records he ever heard were the ones the ones
Holland played for him. Music wasn't something that meant
a lot to me, he says. But I started listening to it because
it was around, and I got used to it. Holland and Krisel formed
their first band, Manic Subsidal, with two other cross-country
teammates one night in 1984 after failing to get in a Social
Distortion show. At the time, the two didn't even own instruments,
much less know how to play them. Bryan and I both learned
together, says Kriesel, and he wasn't even playing chords at
the time, so he'd play on one string, and I tried to do the same
thing. By the summer we were actually playing songs, but it
took a while. Kriesel's house was the site of the band's
first gigs. It's just always a hangout, Kriesel says,
on any given weekend night up to 20 people could drop by.
I had a big upstairs that was pretty much mine, and my mom
was downstairs. But she's always been really cool about it.
That fall, Holland began premed studies at USC
(he's currently
a Ph.D. candidate in molecular biology). Kriesel was attending
Golden West Junior College and later recieved a B.A. in finance
from Long Beach State while working part time in a print shop

(he's planning to attend law school). Weekends were the only time
the band could rehearse. Once Holland had written a handful
of songs with self-explanitory titles like Very Sarcastic
and Sorority Bitch, the fledgling band headed for a cheap
studio. Momentarily waylaid when its guitarist jumped ship,
the band recruited Kevin Wasserman, an older Pacifica grad
who then worked as the school janitor. Pretty soon, Wasserman
was not doing a hell of a lot except practicing at Greg's
house on weekends and drinking excessively. Being the only
member of the band over 21, Wasserman was particularly useful
when it came to buying beer.
I remember being amazed by Bryan, Wasserman says, He was
valedictorian, he was such a math geek. So when I first saw
him with black hair and plaid bondage pants, I was like 'What
are you doing?' But I thought it was cool, going beyond what
I thought was society's role for him. Ron Welty moved to
Garden Grove for part of high school, and it was there that
his older stepsister introduced him to Holland. My mom's
been through a few divorces, Welty says. She'd get remarried
and we'd move, and then she'd get divorced, we'd move. Welt
was only 16 when he begged Holland to let him substitute for
Manic Subsidal's drummer who had started medical school
and wads missing lots of gigs. In 1987, the Offsping paid to
release their own 7-inch single. Unable to afford the additional
quarter per copy it cost to paste the front sleves to the backs,
the band bought a case of beer and glue sticks and held a party
for its friends. To this day the covers don't hold together
too well, says Holland. It took the band two and a half years
to get rid of the 1,000 copies it printed.
Two years and a pile of rejections later, the Offspring scored
a contract with Nemesis, a small punk label distributed by Cargo.
After tracking down producer Thom Wilson, who had crafted their
favorite albums by T.S.O.L., the Vandals and the Dead Kennedys,
the Offspring recorded another 7-inch single, called Baghdad,
and an album debut titled The Offspring. All punk bands back
in '84 wrote about was police, death, religion and war, says
Holland. So that's what we did. While recording a track for
a Flipside compilation with Brett Gurewitz - owner of Epitaph
records and then Southern California's biggest punk success story,
Bad Religion - the Offspring glimpsed a rosier future. A
little after that, I got a tape, says Gurewitz. But I have
to admit I passed on it. A year later, when the Offspring began
circulating demos for what would become their next album to every
punk label they could think of, Gurewitz reconcidered. It
definitely had what people call the Epitaph sound, he says.
High energy, rebelleous punk with great melodies and cool
economical song structures. In 1992 Epitaph released Ignition,
12 brief but energetic Offspring songs that summed up the previous
decade of Orange County Punk. Other Epitaph bands include Rancid
and NOFX.In 1994 their breakthough single Come out and Play and
top hit Self Esteem helped push thier third album, Smash to the
best selling independent record of all time
(9 million plus), and
heavy MTV rotation. After the success of Smash, new fans discovered
Ignition as it reappeared in stores. Due to the amount of overpriced,
poor quality bootlegs, they rereleased their self titled The
Offspring in 1995 with thier own label, Nitro. Nitro has released
albums for several other bands, including The Vandals and Guttermouth.
In 1996, the Offspring signed with Columbia records after disputes
with Epitaph.Their next album, Ixnay on the Hombre, was released
in February 1997. Dexter and Jello Biafra stared their own benefit
foundation, FSU this year.
They are currently on tour.