Day After Day #308: Stranger Than Fiction

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Stranger Than Fiction (1994)

By the time the California punksplosion happened in 1994, Bad Religion were already veterans of the scene. The band was formed in Los Angeles in 1980 by high schoolers Greg Graffin (vocals), Jay Bentley (bass), Jay Ziskrout (drums) and Brett Gurewitz (guitar). In 1981, the group released an eponymous EP on a new label called Epitaph Records, owned by Gurewitz. They were recording their first album How Could Hell Be Any Worse? in 1981 when Ziskrout quit the band and was replaced by Pete Finestone.

Bad Religion's second album, 1983's Into the Unknown, was a complete left turn, with the band playing keyboard-dominated hard rock. The band split up shortly after the album came out, but Graffin later reformed the group with Greg Hetson of the Circle Jerks stepping in for Gurewitz, who went into drug rehab. After another breakup, the band reformed in 1986 with the original lineup plus Hetson and recorded Suffer, which came out in 1988. 

Over the next few years, Bad Religion kept selling more albums with each release, with 1990's Against the Grain selling 100,000 copies, pretty good for a non-mainstream punk band. The group specialized in powerful, catchy and literate punk rock. In 1993, the major label thirst for alternative guitar bands was at an all-time high thanks to the success of Nirvana, Pearl Jam et al. Bad Religion signed to Atlantic Records and re-released Recipe for Hate, which had come out on Epitaph a few months earlier. "American Jesus" and "Struck a Nerve" got some play on rock radio and the band took several bands on tour as openers, including Bay Area punk upstarts Green Day, who were on Lookout Records.

In September 1994, Bad Religion released their eight album Stranger Than Fiction. By this point, Green Day had made their major-label debut on Reprise and just blew up, while the Offspring on Epitaph also were getting popular. Stranger Than Fiction had success with "Infected," a re-recording of "21st Century (Digital Boy) and the title track, which was written by Gurewitz.

"A febrile shocking violent smack/And the children are hopin' for a heart attack/Tonight, the windows are watching, the streets all conspire/And the lamppost can't stop cryin'/If I could fly high above the world/Would I see a bunch of livin' dots spell the word stupidity/Or would I see hungry lover homicides, lovin' brother suicides/And olly olly oxen frees who pick a side and hide?/The world is scratching at my door/My morning paper's got the scores/The human interest stories/And the obituary, oh yeah/Cockroach naps, rattlin' traps/How many devils can fit upon a match head?/Caringosity killed the Kerouac cat/Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction."

Gurewitz left the band right before the album came out, saying that he needed to spend more time at Epitaph because the Offspring had become so huge. He was replaced by Brian Baker of Minor Threat, who turned down a touring gig with R.E.M.

"In my alley 'round the corner, there's a wino with feathered shoulders/And a spirit givin' head for crack and he'll never want it back/There's a little kid and his family eatin' crackers like Thanksgiving/And a pack of wild desperadoes scornful of living/The world is scratching at my door/My morning paper has the scores/The human interest stories/And the obituary, oh yeah/Cradle for a cat, Wolfe looks back/How many angels can you fit upon a match?/I wanna know why Hemingway cracked/Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction."

But there were also tensions with Graffin over the signing with Atlantic. Graffin started singing alternate lines like "I want to know where Brett gets his crack" or "I want to know why Gurewitz cracked." Whatever the case, the song got some play on MTV's 120 Minutes and hit #28 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The album peaked at #87 on the Billboard 200 and became the only Bad Religion release to go gold.

"Life is the crummiest book I ever read/There isn't a hook/Just a lotta cheap shots, pictures to shock/And characters an amateur would never dream up/Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction."

Bad Religion made three more albums for Atlantic, but their popularity was on the wane as punk went back to its underground status. The band went back to Epitaph in 2001 and Gurewitz rejoined the group; the band has released six albums since 2002 and continued to tour periodically. Graffin, Gurewitz, Bentley and Baker are still members, along with guitarist Mike Dimkich and drummer Jamie Miller.