Essay/Term paper: Greg graffin

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Music

Greg Graffin



The band Bad religion was formed in the
early eighties and has now been around over
15 years and has released over eight albums,
the lead singer has continued his schooling
and now has one bachelors degree ,a masters
and is working on his Ph.D.

Greg Graffin was born in 1965 in
Wisconsin. His mother and father were
divorced after his birth. In 1976 his mother his
brother and him moved to San Fernando
valley California, which is now the punk rock
capital of the world. "Like millions of other
victims of divorce in the seventies I had to
deal with the fact that my father was now
living far away(In Racine, Wisconsin) and that
I would not get to see him very much." While
his father was in Wisconsin he began work at
the university of Wisconsin as a professor. He
still works their today. Greg was often picked
on in high school because of his "Punkness".
"There were three people at my high school
who were punkers, I mean I got beat up
everyday by long haired people who listened
to Rush and would beat me up because I
didn't. When he was fifteen he started a band
with other social outcasts who didn't quite fit
in. They settled on the name BAD
RELIGION.

Bad Religion does not pertain to any kind
of sacrilegious activities or the like. Instead it
is a statement against any establishment that
promotes dogmatic thinking or punishes
individualism and rewards followers. Greg
once said in an interview "Instead of
rewarding uniqueness we, for some reason
probably because of cultural and social
necessity, we chastise unique behavior and
reward conformity". On 15/10/93 Greg said
BR has 108 songs and 5 or 6 are about
religious issues.

Greg has a very different view point about
education then most punks. When the band
broke up in 1983 he moved back to Wisconsin
and attend the university of wisconsin-
madison. soon the administration had found
out that he was not an official resident any
longer so he was kicked out. (he had recently
spent several years as a California resident)
He traveled back to California where he was a
resident and attended school at UCLA. in
1987 he received his masters degree in
geology. He had previously received his
Masters degree in Anthropology and a his
B.Sc. in geology. This work was very field
oriented since he had to study fossils to get the
degrees. In 1990 he transferred to Cornell
University (in Ithica where he currently lives)
for a Ph.D.. It will be a biology degree, but
since he studies fossils it will be evolutionary
biology-paleontology. Because
of touring with his band the Ph.D. is on hold.
Currently he still has to write his thesis on
bone tissue , finish up some of his actual lab
work and take the orals. He is planning to
due this in 1997. He was a teaching assistant
in The evolutionary department at Cornell
university. He taught mainly pre-medical
students when they took a course in
comparative anatomy. His Ph.D. is in
evolutionary biology but he sometimes refers
it to Zoology since the fossils he studies are
from vertebrates. The actual Ph.D. is on bone
tissue he has been referred to as one of the top
five bone paleontologists n the world. He has
had one of his papers printed in a leading
scientific journal. He says that he plans to
stay involved in science for the rest of his life.
He said "if I could make a million dollars with
Bad Religion , I would start an institute that
would be for research on early vertebrates ,
that is what I study."

Greg says he chose punk rock as his
medium because he saw a vacancy in the
music. "Maybe that's what attracted me to it. I
saw that there was definitely a vacancy.
People didn't perceive (punk) as valuable, and
I like challenges ... What better thing to do
than use a style of music that the media
characterizes as all negative and use it for
something positive?" says Graffin. "There has
always been this problem because the media
stigmatized punk from the earliest days. I
think what they were concentrating on was the
fashion. When you say 'punk' people
automatically think of spiked hair
and leather jackets and violent people. And
that has nothing to do with what I thought of it
in the early days, (which was) really thought-
provoking music with a great melody," says
Graffin. In fact he considers the music he and
his band make as folk music. "The music is
very sparse, the guitars aren't Multi-layered or
processed. It's not elaborate; it's something
that anyone can play in their garage. It's very
populist oriented. Even the things we talk
about are populist in scope. So it's very much
like folk music. A lot louder of course..."

At a concert in '96 Greg announced in a
Philadelphia concert: "This is about half
over.......not the show, our career. We've been
around 16 years and we plan on being around
16 more!!!" So hopefully they will be around
to inspire more people to use their minds for
exploration and to create great music.