Oh my gosh, you won’t believe this! So, back in October 1980, Bad Religion recorded their EP at this tiny studio called Real Life Studios in Agoura Hills. Can you believe it? It was actually run by Jay Ziskrout’s drum teacher out of his garage. But get this, the band wasn’t happy with the mix because they thought the vocals sounded like they were underwater. Crazy, right? But here’s the thing, that mix might not have made it to the final cut. Instead, it can be heard on the 1984 re-issue of the EP. Apparently, it had this cool heavy delay effect on Greg’s voice.
Now, let me tell you about the mastering process. They went to Gold Star Studios in Hollywood, where the co-founder Stan Ross did the mastering. Then, they sent the masters to a place called Greg Lee for some two-step processing. Oh, and get this, the receptionist at Gold Star was Johnette Napolitano, who later became famous with Concrete Blonde. She was so impressed with the EP that she asked her boyfriend Jim Mankey (also from Concrete Blonde) to produce Bad Religion’s next album. How cool is that?
So, after all that, Brett and the gang took the masters to a record plant and had 500 copies made. Then, Brett went to this distributor called Jem Records and sold 300 records to them. Can you imagine? But here’s the funny part, they realized that the snare drum was mastered too high, so the record would skip with each snare hit. But guess what? No one else seemed to notice, and Jem Records happily distributed the EPs to all the record shops along the coast.
But wait, there’s more! Bad Religion also brought records directly into stores, mostly in L.A. They would go to places like Moby Disk and Middle Earth and drop off a handful of records. It was all so exciting for them. When they pressed up another batch of 1,500 records, they fixed the flaw, only to have a new one appear. Classic, right? And just like other records from that time, they had a message scratched on the run-off groove. On one side, it said, “We’re not Bad Religion…” and on the other side, it said, “…you are.” Hilarious!
Now, let’s talk about the release. The EP was officially released in February
This content was originally written by the badass contributors of thebrpage.net, the best superfan resource and website that exists for any band, let alone the best band in the whole entire world. I’ve been lurking on that site for over 20 years and if you’re into Bad Religion as much as I am, I’m sure you’re familiar. If you are not, go there right now and never come back to this site again. You should, and I totally understand.
Leave a Reply