Review: ‘Do What You Want’ examines Bad Religion’s incredible 40-year run

Punk rock was never meant to be a lasting proposition. Many of the early L.A. punk bands fizzled out quickly due to drug addiction or a general lack of interest as the scene became increasingly more macho and violent in the ’80s. Yet against all odds, Bad Religion has persevered for 40 years (!), and are still making music as vital and thought-provoking as anything they’ve released throughout their extensive catalogue. To celebrate that four-decade milestone, the band (with author Jim Ruland) has just released Do What You Want (Hachette Books), a band “autobiography” tracing their evolution from teenage punks who could barely play their instruments to one of the most respected and successful punk bands ever.

Do What You Want moves in chronological fashion, starting with the band’s early days in the San Fernando Valley, hardly the epicenter of California punk rock credibility. That sense of being slightly removed from the L.A. punk scene is an essential element of the band’s early rise; as outsiders, they were more or less able to do their own thing, completely harnessing their sound and presentation before they ever played a show. Combining lightning-fast punk rock tempos with political and social lyrics and their ingenious and controversial “crossbuster” logo, Do What You Want illustrates that the template for the band was fully-formed very early on, and has remained remarkably consistent over the decades (with 1983’s infamous journey into prog-rock territory, Into the Unkown, being the one glaring exception).

The whole Into the Unknown debacle is one of the most fascinating aspects of the book, given that the band has rarely discussed it in the decades since its release and instant nosedive into obscurity. It’s the only true left turn in the band’s catalogue; a synth-heavy prog rock album that owes more to Yes than to any of their punk and hardcore contemporaries. The album was so poorly received that it even caused the band to split up for years after its release. The band’s primary songwriters — vocalist Greg Gaffin and guitarist Brett Gurewitz — are open about what they were trying to accomplish with the album and its eventual ramifications for the band, which would soon return with the absolutely classic Suffer, an album so influential that it would spark an entire sub-genre of melodic Southern California punk rock, paving the way for the ’90s punk explosion a few years later.

Once Suffer takes off around the globe, Do What You Want mostly focuses on the band’s prolific output; in just two years, they would release Suffer, No Control, and Against the Grain (all released on Guerewitz’s own Epitaph Records) as great a run in any punk band’s discography since the first three Ramones albums. But that breakneck recording and touring pace would have lasting consequences for the band; Gurewitz became a full-on drug addict, and communication between the band members began to break down. Punk rock had become a real job.

Alongside the band interviews, Jim Ruland does a great job of placing the band’s material into context, providing a deep dive into the band’s lyrics and themes. From Gurewitz’s more obtuse and literary songwriting to Graffin’s direct and scientific examinations of the pitfalls of religion and society (Graffin is an evolutionary biologist, which gives the band an added heft in the lyric department), Ruland provides an inside look at the thought process behind some of the band’s most beloved tracks and albums.

While Do What You Want primarily focuses on the band’s music, there are still moments of behind-the-scenes drama, from a seemingly petty disagreement about guest list spots that caused bassist Jay Bentley to quit the band at one point, to various members falling into long bouts of drug and alcohol addiction. It’s during these personal moments in the book that you really feel the hands of the band members the most — the firing of longtime guitarist Greg Hetson is never explored at length, and you occasionally get the notion that certain disagreements and band squabbles have either been brushed over or sanitized for the band’s chosen narrative, a potential pitfall of any group autobiography.

40 years is a lot of punk rock history to chart in one book, and Jim Ruland and the members of Bad Religion have provided a highly-readable overview of their career (I plowed through it in one day). Fans will eat up the lesser-known tidbits (like Gurewitz writing 1994’s “Infected” to appeal to the grunge crowd), while newcomers will get a thorough look at one of the most consistent and thought-provoking punk bands of all time.

Do What You Want: The Story of Bad Religion is available now.