Photo courtesy of the Offspring
It might seem surprising, but Dexter Holland, singer/guitarist of the Offspring, considers this summer’s tour the biggest outing of his band’s career and a sign that the Offspring might be bigger than ever as a band.
“It feels like it’s getting better for us. We’ve talked about why that might be, is it a post-COVID thing, and people are excited to be back, or just the fact that now we’ve had 30 years of people being used to our songs?” Holland said in a late-July phone interview. “We’ve got people that are a little older, we’ve got kids that are just discovering us, and they’ve created this bigger audience of more than one generation, I guess, let’s say. But for whatever reason, man, it just feels really good right now.”
That’s quite a welcome reality for a band that has already had some periods of huge success. Formed in 1984 in Garden Grove, California, the Offspring broke through in a big way with their third album, 1994’s “Smash.” Featuring the hit singles “Come Out and Play,” “Self Esteem,” and “Gotta Get Away,” it became the biggest indie album to date, with sales standing
at more than 11 million worldwide.
With its energetic and fun punk rock songs, “Smash” joined Green Day’s “Dookie” as the primary album that brought punk into the mainstream. Then, after a follow-up album, “Ixnay on the Hombre,” which didn’t sell as well (it still topped out at around 3 million copies sold), the next album, “Americana,” became another blockbuster. It featured the hit singles “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy),” “The Kids Aren’t Alright,” “She’s Got Issues,” and “Why Don’t You Get A Job?” and the album sold more than 10 million copies.
Still, this summer’s tour, with Sum 41 and Simple Plan as opening acts, takes the Offspring to new heights.
“I think it’s the biggest headlining tour we’ve ever done, actually,” Holland said. “We’re playing like 25 cities, all amphitheaters, tickets are selling really well, and we’ve got a great package.”
Fans can expect to hear the songs that have kept the Offspring on the radio and in a prominent place in the rock world for more than three decades.
“You get to the point where you’ve put out nine or 10 albums, it’s a lot of material to choose from,” Holland said. “But I believe you’ve got to play the songs that people want to hear, right? Sometimes artists can get a little obscure with their stuff. You’ve kind of got to play the hits. So that dictates a good chunk of our set.”
Far from resting on their considerable laurels, the Offspring, which includes Holland, guitarist, and fellow founding member Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman, bassist Todd Morse and drummer Brandon Pertzborn are acting like a band that’s still inspired and looking to grow musically.
While the studio's five albums that followed “Americana” haven’t sold in the eight figures, they’ve generally done well commercially. There have also been almost another dozen top 10 singles, including “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,” which has become the Offspring’s most streamed song.
That single is featured on the 2008 album, “Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace,” which was recently re-released for its 15th anniversary with a pair of live tracks added to the original album. Holland considers it one of the band’s best efforts and an important album in the overall career.
In 2005, the band released a greatest hits album, and Holland said the band wanted to prove the hits album didn’t mark the end of the road for the Offspring and that they were inspired and as good as ever musically.
“It’s an important record for us,” Holland said. “And it’s something I’m really proud of, that that far into our career (we had) our most popular song.”
Having released their current studio album, the well-received “Let The Bad Times Roll” in 2021, Holland and his bandmates have been back in the studio recently.
“We did another song, and that makes six, not completely done, but they’re mostly done,” Holland said. “So we’re four-ish songs away (from an album). I think we’ll get something out early next year.”
Holland can’t yet say for sure how the next album will compare to other Offspring albums, but it’s bound to have some of the usual musical and lyrical signatures. “Sometimes you just start writing songs and you don’t realize how an album is coming together until it’s almost there,” Holland said.
“Like on ‘Americana,’ ‘Americana’ was one of the last songs I wrote because I didn’t realize until then all the other songs like ‘Why Don’t You Get A Job?’ and ‘Pretty Fly,’ they were describing American society. I didn’t really realize that’s what the album was about until I got almost done and thought well, I’ll call it ‘Americana’ because that’s like ‘Americana’ means American culture. This was my vision of what I thought American culture was doing in the late ‘90s. We’re kind of still in that phase with the songs, but we’ve always liked the energy of punk music and the rebelliousness...What I’m focusing right now on is just melody. I want the songs to be really good.”
Offspring will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Sunday.
