Style and Influences
The band's major influences stemmed from late 1970s punk acts like The Ramones, The Germs, Sex Pistols and The Clash, along with such early 1980s American hardcore bands as Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Minor Threat. Unlike many other hardcore bands of the era, they also acknowledged proto-punk bands like the New York Dolls and MC5. Even more unusual for a band of the scene that spawned them, they were also informed by such new wavers as Elvis Costello, The Jam and Nick Lowe, as well as authors like Jack Kerouac.
Greg Graffin called his influences "pop-sounding rock tunes that were not necessarily commercial." Brett Gurewitz acknowledges attempting to emulate Germs singer Darby Crash early on in Bad Religion's lyrical style. "He wrote some intelligent stuff, and didn't shy away from the vocabulary, which I thought was cool." In addition to their use of unusually sophisticated vocabulary for a punk band, Bad Religion is also known for their frequent use of vocal harmonies. They took their cues from The Adolescents, in the way that they used three-part harmonies. Bassist Jay Bentley says, "Seeing The Adolescents live, it was so brilliant. So, in a way, the Adolescents influenced us into saying we can do it, too, because look, they're doing it."
In turn, many of today's punk bands cite Bad Religion as an influence, including AFI, All, Authority Zero, The Bouncing Souls, Death by Stereo, Lagwagon, NOFX, The Offspring, Pennywise, and Rise Against. Funeral for a Friend vocalist Matt Davies-Kreye has also stated Bad Religion as an influence, particularly with their Against The Grain album
Read more about this topic: Bad Religion
Famous quotes containing the words style and, style and/or influences:
“To translate, one must have a style of his own, for otherwise the translation will have no rhythm or nuance, which come from the process of artistically thinking through and molding the sentences; they cannot be reconstituted by piecemeal imitation. The problem of translation is to retreat to a simpler tenor of one’s own style and creatively adjust this to one’s author.”
—Paul Goodman (1911–1972)
“A style does not go out of style as long as it adapts itself to its period. When there is an incompatibility between the style and a certain state of mind, it is never the style that triumphs.”
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971)
“Without looking, then, to those extraordinary social influences which are now acting in precisely this direction, but only at what is inevitably doing around us, I think we must regard the land as a commanding and increasing power on the citizen, the sanative and Americanizing influence, which promises to disclose new virtues for ages to come.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)