THE OFFSPRING Guitarist Explains Why It's Taken Nine Years To Release Follow-Up To 'Days Go By'

THE OFFSPRING singer Bryan "Dexter" Holland and guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman spoke to Terrie Carr of the Morristown, New Jersey radio station 105.5 WDHA about the band's upcoming tenth studio album, "Let The Bad Times Roll", which will arrive on April 16 via Concord Records. The follow-up to 2012's "Days Go By" was produced by Bob Rock, who also worked on the band's last two LPs.

On the topic of the long delay in getting the new album released, Noodles said: "I've been saying this record is gonna come out since 1985. So I figured I'm finally right. This year is the year, finally… And we did take our time doing this, for a couple of reasons. We always go out and tour, and it's hard to record while we're out touring. We tour, like, three or four months out of every year, for sure. My friend Dexter went back and got his PhD [degree in molecular biology]; we're very proud of him. He got that about three years ago. And then the last three years, we really kind of knuckled down and started working on this record. There was a couple of things that were done, but we had a real creative spurt at that point, and we have even more songs than just what are on the record now. So we are already kind of looking ahead at the next record. When the pandemic hit, we looked at what we had for this one and went, 'Well, we don't know if we wanna release it when we can't tour. So let's keep working on it.' And eventually, it was, like, 'It's done. The fans need to hear this. We wanna get it out to the fans.' So we couldn't wait anymore."

Holland, Wasserman, drummer Pete Parada and new bassist Todd Morse wrote and recorded "Let The Bad Times Roll" in the last few years at various locations, including the band's studio in Huntington Beach, California.

In December, THE OFFSPRING released the official music video for its Rock-produced cover version of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", a rock song originally sung by Darlene Love and included on the 1963 seasonal compilation album "A Christmas Gift For You" from Phil Spector.

Last April, THE OFFSPRING jumped on the "Tiger King" bandwagon by recording a cover version of THE CLINTON JOHNSON BAND's "Here Kitty Kitty", a song made popular by Joe Schreibvogel — better known as Joe Exotic, the "Tiger King" — through the Netflix docuseries.

Two years ago, bassist Gregory "Greg K." Kriesel, who hasn't performed with THE OFFSPRING since 2018, filed a federal lawsuit against Noodles and Dexter alleging trademark infringement and breach of partnership agreement over the rights to THE OFFSPRING name. In response, Holland and Wasserman filed a cross-complaint, denying basically everything Kriesel alleged and asking the court to appoint "three disinterested appraisers to appraise the fair value" of Kriesel's shares of THE OFFSPRING.

THE OFFSPRING has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide, won countless awards, and has toured consistently, playing more than 500 shows in the last decade alone. Their music has had a lasting impact across film, television, and video games.

Photo credit:: Daveed Benito