Los Angeles, CA · punk · melodic-hardcore

Bad Religion

3 upcoming festivals

Forty-plus years of polysyllabic melodic punk — three-part harmonies over an unwavering political line, still the genre's reigning intellectuals.

Bad Religion formed in the San Fernando Valley in 1980, and guitarist Brett Gurewitz and vocalist Greg Graffin have anchored the band for most of its existence. Gurewitz founded Epitaph Records, which released much of their catalogue and became one of the most important independent punk labels in the United States.

The band's approach has stayed consistent: fast, melodic punk with dense multi-part backing harmonies they nicknamed the "oozin' aahs", and lyrics that draw on politics, religion and science with a notably large vocabulary. Records including Suffer, No Control and Against the Grain shaped the sound of Southern California melodic punk, and the group has continued recording and touring for more than four decades.

punkmelodic-hardcore