PZO: As a band, what do you think your best qualities are?
Jay: The fact that we don’t expect the band to make us happy as individuals as a band. We don’t have a collective thought and we don’t have a collective agenda. So I think the concept of a band is pretty much thrown out the window with Bad Religion because while we agree on what we say creatively we don’t necessarily agree with each other personally. But that’s all okay because disagreement is how you resolve issues. If everybody just agreed then you would have a club or a gang <laughs> and I think that’s what makes us unique. We are always looking for answers even within ourselves as individuals.

PZO: After being in a band for so many years, looking back is there anything you'd change?
Jay: <thinks> Uh…no. [There were] a couple of bad records that we did, but there’s not really too much you can do about that. That’s just like any other artist. Whether you are a painter or a writer you go through periods in your career that may not be as good as others. You’re always learning. I have a strong enough believe, “karmicly”, that if I were to go back and change anything--anything at all--then I wouldn’t be sitting here right now and I like sitting here right now, so. I’m really happy.

PZO: As a band what is your main goal to accomplish that you haven't done already?
Jay: Wow, nothing. I think our biggest goal was to make a record. In 1980, we wanted to make something that was real; a viable product. The concept of having a record somehow or another solidifies your existence as a band. Now and days with CD burners everybody has a record. “Oh check out my new record.” “Really, wow.” With that, Brett and I had discovered that really all that we had wanted was acknowledgement and respect of our peers; people that we liked. Over the course of 23 some odd years, that’s happened. Where everyone we grew up with--we’re still very good friends with and everyone seems to have respect for our catalog which is nice.

PZO: What was the last meaningful thing you did?
Jay: I told Dave Grohl that I was personally very happy for him. It doesn’t happen very often. Band people don’t talk like that to each other. They usually just nod their heads, “Hey, bro.” I saw the Foo Fighters play last night in Bakersfield on their first big rock tour. I was totally impressed with him and I thought about the first time I met him in ’84 when he was the drummer for Scream and running into him at Hollywood and just eating out of trash cans. <laughs> So, watching him last night and the Foo Fighters-that’s his band, his career, he put that together. I just went right up to him and I said I just want you to know how happy I am for you and I mean that; I was really happy for him.

PZO: What is one of your best childhood memories?
Jay: Wow. It’s either my sister stabbing me with a plastic knife or me pushing my cousin down a flight of stairs on his tricycle.
PZO: Wow, is right.
Jay: <laughs> Both of them are kind of funny. I don’t know. Me catching fish with my grandfather or playing golf with my dad.
PZO: Golf? Oh yeah, nice pants.
Jay: <whips out golf magazine/catolog> See? I’m already shopping.
PZO: Oh, I play.
Jay: I played yesterday.
PZO: What kind of clubs do you have?
Jay: Right now I play the Top Flite tours, but we’re looking into some new ones, right Tim?
Tim [Tour Manager]: He needs them.
Jay: Yeah, thanks. <laughs> I got the ’95 Top Flite tours and I really like them a lot. They remind me of my older clubs, but in six years the technology has changed so much. Like the Callaway X16 is just a bullet proof club. When you’re hitting 6 irons-190. That’s just so insane. I love it-anyway, my childhood was pretty damn fun ‘cause I don’t think I really-I didn’t worry about things. I grew up in a really nice and by nice I mean safe area. I grew up by Magic Mountain and at that time there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Safe-Way and maybe 50 people. Now, it’s crazy, but back then you were safe as a kid, so I never really had any-a lot of worries.

PZO: What is one of your favorite lines from one of your songs?
Jay: <laughs> “Do what you want, but don’t do it around me.” <laughs>

PZO: What is the worst advice you've ever been given?
Jay: Uh…<thinks> Oh, wow. Probably to--<thinks> I gotta think about this one for a minute. I think about it a lot, but it seems so irrelevant now. Yeah, I’m not going to say that one. <laughs> I am trying to think of one that would makes more sense. You know, and I don’t mean to be pompous on this, but I have always ignored people. People that are like, “I’ll give you some advice.” It just goes in one ear and out the other. I’m that kind of a person where I have to go see for myself. Don’t touch that fence, it’s electrified. <makes sizzling noise>
<laughter>
Jay: I just have to. I have to do it. I can’t really think of anything that anybody ever told me that I actually did. That sitting down right here, I regret it. Nope, I don’t have one.

PZO: You've traveled around the world, are there any trends that you'd like to see integrated into our country?
Jay: Yeah, all of them.
<laughter>
Jay: You know what? In traveling around what I’ve realized is that America as a country is too large; there are too many people and it’s just too vast. Watching Europe kind of come together as a euro nation--you can see the problems they are having trying to just make it all happen and all that’s within the span of half of what the continental United States is. I find that that it’s just overwhelming what America is. When you think of any trends that you’d like to bring back to America you look at the comments made by I think it was Rumsfeld who said, “You’re thinking of old Europe.” He was talking specifically of Germany and France. Those are countries that have been quote on quote “simonized” for thousands of years. They’ve pretty much been running since a thousand, <laughs> right, and now we’re 2003.

It shows when you go there, you can see that these civilizations have been through this already and they really understand preservation and conservation and all of the things that it takes to maintain sustainable growth. Even though as a species-Yeah, the Matrix is right, we’re a virus. Just as a being on this planet we just take everything that we can and move on to the next and then we take everything that’s there and move on to the next thing and the next thing, well eventually there won’t be another next thing and that’s the end of it. I think, if anything, the one thing that I would like the most from people that live in America is to kind of realize that time is short and resources are short and it’s not quite as safe as they think it is.

When 9/11 happened and everyone was so shocked-this has been going on for thousands of years. Welcome to the real world. This is how it is outside of that bubble that is America. So maybe if people could just kind of step onto the 21st century and say, “What can we do to make things better?” I’d like to see that.


PZO: What keeps you grounded and optimistic?
Jay: My kids.
PZO: How old?
Jay: Nine and eleven.

PZO: What do you think of the war in Iraq and how the media is covering it?
Jay: It’s pretty much one-sided isn’t it? I don’t understand Arabic so when they show aljazeera I don’t know what they’re saying, but I know what Wolf Blitzer is saying.
<laughter>
PZO: Yeah, you know that guy really does look like a wolf.
<laughter>
Jay: He’s an idiot. He’s just lucky that he got trapped in wherever the hell he was in ’91. They kicked everyone out, but me and I’m in a hotel with a satellite dish. It’s like: oh God, not you; of all people, you. Might as well have Jerry Lewis in there; would have been better. It’s one-sided and when I hear reporters using the term “we” in reference to the coalition I am so fucking pissed off. “We, We” It’s like what’s this “we”? You’re supposed to be a journalist? There’s no “we”. That’s biased reporting right there. Obviously, it’s now a video game it’s something that people are bored of watching on TV already. “Well, I’ve seen that already. I’m bored of it.”

They never show the people huddled in the corners crying. They never show the people that aren’t happy with their coalition forces storming through Baghdad. All they show is what the 120 people raising an American flag and stomping on a picture of Saddam Hussein. That doesn’t really seem like a country of people that are happy to have invaders. From what I’m reading in the news I’m pretty unfulfilled. I feel like this is biased journalism. This is the worst kind of thing they could be doing. What everybody knew would happen is like-well okay you have nothing in power so what’s going to happen? Well anarchy well reign for awhile- and anarchy isn’t anything that will last because that’s just what Saddam Hussein was running: anarchy, but I’m the king. You can’t beat me. The strongest always wins.

It’s such a cluster fuck what they’ve gotten themselves into and no one realizes that the UN forces are still in Eastern Europe and have been there for 10 years and they’ll be there for 15 more because they can’t leave; if they leave all hell will break loose. The same is going to happen there and now they have 350,000 forces there because the fight against terrorism and they just turn the people from Afghanistan and say okay now march over to Iraq and we’ll take them out. Well now they’re going to take those 350,000 people and go, What do we do with these guys? March them up to Syria. It’s not going to stop and people don’t realize that. They keep thinking bring our troops home. Why? They’re there.

Rumsfeld, Bush, all those guys have an agenda since Ronald Reagan which is control the Middle East. It’s not really about the oil. It’s a great slogan, it’s a great sentiment, but there’s so much more to it. It’s so much more about control. Saddam Hussein is an evil sadistical mad man and doesn’t deserve to rule a country. I agree with that. But he said something that meant more than anything that’s come out of George W. Bush’s mouth which was: “Who made you the police man of the world?” The UN said we don’t want you to do that. That’s the United Nations and Bush says I don’t care. Fuck you, I’m going anyway. Wow, really. So now the UN has basically been rendered worthless and it will never recover from this. It can’t because it has been proven to be weak and ineffective.

Iraq went to the UN and said please stop them from invading my country. We can’t, we’re powerless to do anything against this giant country. Great. So now, basically the US has just said we are the kings and we tell everyone what to do from now on. China’s not too happy about that. North Korea isn’t too happy about that and for what? This war, it’s the tip of the shittiest iceberg out there and it should have never happened. It was something that could have been solved with the weapon inspectors. That would have never fit the agenda that Rumsfeld came straight out of Reagan’s evil empire list. That’s been running now for 15 years. This was something that they’ve had written down on paper for so long that they gave Dick Cheney’s Halliburton company the contract to rebuild Iraq before the war had even started. <laughs> You have the contract already written up? Well how did you know the war was going to start? Oh, well we had inside information. If people would just look into it they’d realize how insane this all is and how unbelievably unlike what everyone says it is.

The fact when polled, 51% of Americans said Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the terrorist attacks on the world trade center on 9/11. Fifty-one percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible. I’ll bet 100% believe that Saddam Hussein would give weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaida and other terrorist networks, but what they don’t know is that al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein hate each other passionately. Saddam Hussein’s mission in life was to wipe these Islamic fundamentalists out. He hates them because their not into his party, they’re into their own thing. So if he gave them weapons of mass destruction they’d use them on him. It’s was just bull shit that was being said. They’re trying to connect these people. There’s no connection. There never was. There never will be. They’re fundamentally apart from each other. Just because they live in the same region doesn’t necessarily make them all the same.

That’s why I got so frustrated with George Bush because he said this is what’s happening here and no one ever questioned it. No one ever asked if that’s true? No one ever looked into it because no one wants to bother. It’s too much hassle, it’s too old school. It’s been a war since Biblical times. Well yeah, so you would think you’d look into it because I don’t think 18 days of the coalition forces attacking Iraq is going to change twenty-five hundred years of history. It’s not. They’ll leave and it will all start up again in some other way, shape or form. But now instead of America just being isolated from that and just being considered the Western evil now American is right in the middle of it, stirring up the pot. Why? Why did you have to involve yourself in all of this? There’s the threat of terrorism. I didn’t see you attacking Northern Ireland. Right? We’re talking about the war on terror. Fine. Let’s see the warships go into Northern Ireland. Then I’ll believe it’s a war on terror. For right now it’s a war on the Middle East and its people and no one will admit that. So that’s my take. Sorry. <laughs>

PZO: If you could pass a law, what would it be?
Jay: That George Bush couldn’t be president. <laughs> I would eliminate guns. I mean all of them. The whole, but then only bad people would have gun and no I mean all of them. This is the new law. Here’s the deal: You get caught with a gun you go to jail forever. That’s just the bottom line. I don’t care what anybody says. Guns kill people period. You could maybe slide the argument saying well bullets actually do the damage. Okay, then we’ll just outlaw bullets. You can carry guns around with no bullets. You’d just get no bullets. Yeah, that’s what I would do.

PZO: Given the opportunity, who would you kidnap for a day?
Jay: <thinks> Hmm…can they be dead? <laughs> I guess that wouldn’t work very well. I don’t really want to kidnap a dead person. That’d be kind of morbid. Let me think about this one for a second. This is a hard one. One person, huh?
PZO: Yep.
Jay: Wow, I’ve never thought about that. I’m a firm believer of never meet your heroes because you’ll always be disappointed. So I’m trying to think of someone that I don’t necessarily see as a hero, but I would actually just like to talk to them. Maybe: Einstein or Stephen Hawking. Everyone else is a lunatic. Probably Stephen Hawking because he seems to have a better handle on the physics of what we are and why we are here. Unless I could actually go farther back and kidnap Jesus and get into that. That would be okay too. It’s not like a blind-foldy way, right? It’s like a cool thing.
PZO: Right, hang out.
Jay: Okay, yeah I do believe-well I don’t know what to believe because it’s only written documentation and it’s so old that you just-I know I can’t get the words ham sandwich around the room before it comes back. Hand job? No, I said ham sandwich. Have you ever played that game?
PZO: Yes.
Jay: So after 2000 years of things being written down I’m fairly certain that some things have changed along the way. But yeah, I could probably do that. That’d be the one.

PZO: What is the most memorable bumper sticker you've ever seen?
Jay: The one on my wife’s car which says: My other car is a broom.
<laughter>
Jay: Or Only users lose drugs. <laughs>

PZO: What band or artist would you like to see call it quits?
Jay: Me. <laughs> I’m just going to say it because I am tired of biting my tongue, but I would like to see Good Charlotte stop. I don’t care about bands when they get popular or whatever, but I just happened to catch a snippet of that new song [The Anthem] that they have where-I could be wrong, but what I got from it was something about I don’t want to go to a university and learn the things like you, I don’t want to be like you. So okay what you’re saying is that you want to be stupid for the rest of you life. So you’re just going to dye your hair black and wear eye makeup and get tattooed and be dumb. So when you’re forty why don’t you give me a call and tell me how that’s going. That really made me mad. That’s something that we take fairly seriously. I have no problems with bands talking about teen angst and getting immature and having fun with that stuff. I just seem to have a problem when a band reaches a certain level of popularity I do believe they have a responsibility to the people that listen to them. I think if you’re sending out a message that being stupid is okay I’m just going to stand up and say I have a problem with that. I don’t think being stupid is okay.
PZO: It’s great that you don’t hate them for being a pop punk band, but actually for what they profess.
Jay: It has nothing to do with that.
PZO: Exactly.
Jay: I know most of these people. I know Good Charlotte too. I just spent the Warped Tour with them and that just really set it in stone for me. I can’t abide by that because you sell too many records. If you’re in a band and you’re punk rock and you’re selling 10,000 records and you say, “Fuck universities!” We’ll all have a good chuckle and a laugh, but when you’re selling 7 or 8 million records and kids that are impressionable are looking up to you, and the same thing with the rap people, if they are knowing full well that their fan base is impressionable youth and you’re talking about hurting people or using terms for people-little kids don’t need to know that. You’re abusing your privilege, your privilege of being an artist and selling that many records is, in my opinion--its irresponsible and that’s something we’ve talked about.

Brett and I talked about this. At what point does a band get to a point in popularity where it gets responsible for its lyrics? How easy is it for a band to say you want to solve the problems of the world? Pick up a gun and shoot 15 people around you and then shoot yourself. The problems are us, but you can’t say that ‘because that’s not okay. That’s obviously a very extreme example, but I really believe when you become a mainstream artist you become responsible for what you say. If people want to claim that I am a censor, that’s fine. It’s okay for me because I turn it off. I don’t like people that don’t like my band. I don’t like your band. Don’t listen to it. That’s totally fine. I don’t care, but because I am also apart of this entertainment industry I do look at what other artists are saying when they reach a certain level and it’s not okay. All they’re doing is selling records and saying things for shock value and that’s not really healthy.

PZO: What's one slang word that you can't stand?
Jay: <laughs> Something that I use or that people say?
PZO: Either or.
Jay: I can’t tolerate racial slurs and slang like that. It bothers me immensely. That’s really about it. I think adding the “z.” I think that’s cool, that’s great. I just don’t like racial words people tend to throw at each other. I understand the concept of it which is well maybe for some people by using those words you give them less power. But I still think that they hurt people, so I don’t think that’s ever okay.

PZO: What is the best insult or would be insult you've heard or used?
<laughter>
Jay: I have to go back and think about this one. <laughs> <thinks> I can’t even answer that one. There’s been so many. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure Brian Baker has said it at some point in his life because he is the king of that. I’d have to think about it for a minute. I actually think he works on them. I think he sits at home and thinks about, “What would I say if someone did this?” and then he comes up with them because he’s so fast there’s just no way that it’s not-yeah I don’t know.

PZO: If you could have your own 1-800 number, what would it be?
Jay: Do you mean who would answer it or what would the numbers be?
PZO: The numbers/words.
Jay: I don’t know. Do I have to come up with a name or just a reason for the number? See my whole thing with that-when we were kids the big thing was if you could put an ad in the back of a magazine that says: “I’ll tell you how to get rich. Put $1 in an envelope and send it to this address.” Then you send back a letter that says: “Get people to send you $1.” So the 1-800 number would be like just call me and it’ll cost you a quarter and I’ll tell you how to get rich.
PZO: That’s a good idea.
Jay: Of course it is. Then you go to jail for mail fraud.
<laughter>

PZO: What questions are you tired of being asked in interviews?
Jay: “How did you come up with the band name?”
PZO: Is that the biggie?
Jay: Yep. “How did you get the band name?” “What are your influences?” “When is Greg getting his PH.D?” He’s tired of that one. “Where is Greg?” those four. That seems to work for me.

PZO: What question would you liked to be asked?
Jay: I don’t know. I wouldn’t know it until someone asked it. Every interview is different. There were some great questions in this one that we talked about that I never really talked about with people which is cool. But what is the one all being great question that I secretly longingly wait to be asked? There isn’t one. I’m a long winded conversationalist. That’s me. So when I sit down to talk with people doing interviews I just talk.