Offspring still in love with Smash

Dexter Holland says The Offspring still draw inspiration from their seminal album Smash 20 years later.

As the band tour in celebration of the album’s 20th anniversary – along with punk icons Bad Religion and Pennywise – frontman Holland admits he’ll always look back to those songs when writing new material.

He tells Loudwire: “I think it’s natural for someone to revisit stuff they’ve done before if you’re trying to make something up, if you’re an artist or a writer. Sometimes you try to get away from that because it can be a trap in a way because then it just sounds like you’re putting out the same stuff all the time.

“But when it’s been a while and you go back to it, you can see it from a new angle or perspective and go, ‘Wow, that was kind of cool because it was raw and straightforward.’ You try and take all of those things in small bits in order to make something new.”

The guitarist and singer adds that he doesn’t see himself giving up on music any time soon, despite returning to his studies and enjoying his passion for flying.

“The band, for all of us, is our passion,” he says. “It’s our main thing, it’s what’s most important to us and that’s why we keep doing it. That’s why were out doing this tour for Smash 20 years later, but we all have other things we like to do on the side.

“I really like to go flying. That’s the main thing I like to do on the side. I do other stuff too. I’m trying to finish up school now, and I don’t really know how it affects it. I think it’s probably just good to take a step back so you’re not always in the music world. It can very much be like, people call it a bubble when you’re on tour all the time and it’s your only reference of what the world is like, it’s just great to get out of it once in a while.”

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.