Bad Religion’s Greg Graffin: ‘The biggest threat in the world is ignorance’

Before Bad Religion became one of those legendary punk and rock bands, Greg Graffin was already there. He formed the group in 1980 while still at high school with his friends Jay Bentley, Jay Ziskrout and Brett Gurewitz. Since the group’s inception, several artists have passed through during Bad Religion’s four-decade career but the founding members — lead vocalist Graffin, guitarist Gurewitz and bassist Bentley — are still front and center.

Renowned for their California punk edge and protest-laden lyrics, how has the band achieved such longevity? “We all have another life beyond music,” said Graffin, an evolutionary biologist and university lecturer, an hour before Bad Religion’s performance on June 9 at the Primavera Sound festival in Madrid. The video interview, which was conducted jointly by ICON and Rockdelux magazine, addresses the legacy of the band in the rock and punk scene and how little the “eternal” problems of society that are reflected in their songs have changed over the years. That’s why Bad Religion’s lyrics continue to sound timeless, from generation to generation. But what worries him most? “The biggest threat in the world is ignorance,” Graffin says. And that hasn’t changed over the course of the last few hundred years, he adds. In the meantime, he keeps touring and writing music.

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