Punk legends Bad Religion are set to release their upcoming seventeenth studio album next year, according to recent interview with KROQ. This information was revealed at the Almost Acoustic Christmas radio festival over this past weekend, which featured the Smashing Pumpkins, Florence + The Machine, Death Cab for Cutie and CHVRCHES.
“We’re not announcing the album yet, but everyone knows we’ve been working on it,” the band’s guitarist Brett explained in the interview. “So it will be coming out in 2019. And an official announcement will be made in January.”
The band’s last album was in 2013 with True North, which peaked at number 19 on the Billboard 200 chart and received positive reviews from critics. Despite appearances at numerous festivals such as Riot Fest and Travis Barker’s Musink, along with headline tour with Against Me! the band had not put out official material until this year.
Their first release since this album was “The Kids are Alt-Right,” a biting political satire of the current political climate in the US. A controversial music video for the track was released for the song, which teenagers in KKK hoods taking selfies, Donald Trump chasing a shotgun on a string and children floating on a raft made by fire arms.
“The Profane Rights of Man,” followed after this track, which criticized what the band calls a new rising aristocracy in American society. Greg Graffin, the band’s front man explained that the song discussed what they observed as a human rights crisis going on in the states.
“The song is based on the 1789 document, ‘The Universal Rights of Man.’ Since we’re a band that has a longstanding tradition of championing the enlightenment, we wanted to emphasize that our society is based on a profane rather than a sacred theological justification for human rights,”Graffin explained in an interview with Rolling Stone. “In sum, the song is about Bad Religion’s belief in a secular basis for the protection of human rights for all people.”
A third track entitled “My Sanity,” was released last month. This track describes the difficulty of maintaining a grip on reality when the surrounding world has gone crazy.
Bad Religion formed in 1980 with Graffin, Jay Bentley, Jay Ziskrout, and Brett Gurewitz. While Gurewitz left the band after a year, Bentley, Ziskrout, and Graffin continue to be part of the band’s line-up to this day.
In addition to his work with Bad Religion, Graffin is also a an academic, receiving a Phd from Cornell in the history of science. He also holds a degree in Zoology and has taught at schools such as UCLA and Cornell, which are both his alma maters.
Due to his position as an academic and Bad Religion’s constant discussions surrounding politics, Graffin has been equally political. In 2017 he spoke with Loudwire regarding the influx of fake news on social media.
“It’s troubling to see how willing most people are to believe what they read on Facebook because 10 of their friends say it’s true, therefore it must be true,” Graffin stated in the interview. “Facts will always rule the day. It may take longer in this climate for them to get discovered, but it’s never been more important, even if you don’t have any Facebook friends, to state the facts.”
Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna
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