Brian: “I’m so freaking aware that what I’m doing isn’t anything super special. There’s no groundbreaking element to it. I can play the way I do because I’ve practiced a ton. Somehow, I’ve had a lucky life and been able to be in bands and go on tour.” “I can’t really experiment, I pretty much play the same way all the time. It’s like having your own unique style of jerking off; you develop a method that feels right and is special to you.” The chord structure on most BR songs is something like Am F C G (in different keys, though), and Hetson and Brett usually solo over this in natural minor (e.g. for Am, the scale a b c d e f g a), but Brian sometimes does some more dissonant things (e.g. “Parallel” and “Cease”). Sometimes they use melodic minor for songs, like using E major (E G# B) for the end of a verse or something (when using the aforementioned chord structure). Then, the scale is a b c d e f g# a (e.g. “American Jesus”). Hetson and Brian Baker said in a guitar magazine that using Les Pauls, SGs, and JCM 900 Marshall heads are the best equipment for punk rock. Brian said The Gray Race and Stranger than Fiction are tuned at A 440, but they play the songs one half step down live. “The earlier records are tuned to whatever the bass was when it came out of the case. When I joined the band I couldn’t believe that no one bought a tuner until 1994. Punk, huh?”. Greg: “I could never play rhythm guitar as well as Hetson, but I thought I was just about as good as Brett. So I considered myself an okay guitar player. Brian showed me what a really great guitarist can do for an album. And it helped me with songwriting because any ideas I had, he could expand on them.” When asked how it feels to hear people imitating their style, Hetson answered “I don’t hear it much. Other people do and they’ll say ‘can you hear what they’re doing? it’s a total rip-off of that song of yours!’ But I never hear it myself.” And Brian answered “I, on the other hand, absolutely hear it all the time -bright, loud as day (…) And I think it’s the coolest thing
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.
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