60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)“—The Offspring

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Rob looks back at the comedic punk rock classic that is “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” along with much more from the Offspring’s catalog. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. .Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Zack Mykula Producers: Jonathan Kermah and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you guys hear the one about the doctor, the obstetrician and gynecologist who saved the life of a potential juror in his own medical malpractice trial? This is 2018, a dude named James Lilja, an OBGYN who practices in San Jose, California. He's on trial for malpractice. A patient has accused him of negligent treatment. Everyone's gathered in an Oakland courtroom for jury selection, and a potential juror has a heart attack. A potential juror collapses, wax his head on the way downers now crumbled on the ground, unconscious. No pulse, not breathing. And James rushes to this guy's aid and administers CPR and shocks the dude with a defibrillator.

And at least when the paramedics show up to take the poor guy to the hospital, this guy's got a pulse again. James saves the dude's life in front of God and everybody. And the judge immediately declares a mistrial, saying, that this whole potential jury pool, their admiration and positive bias toward James is now incurable. The judge dismisses all jurors, sets a new court date. James is pissed. James wants this trial with this jury pool to continue. Naturally, James later says, no good deed goes unpunished. This story went viral in large part because James Lilja in his previous life used to play drums for the offspring. the Southern California punk rock band The Ospring.

Come out and play self-esteem, all I want. Why don't you get a job? James Lilja got a job. He's a fucking doctor. He's an OBGYN and a gynecologic oncologist. He's still practicing. I think that case was eventually dismissed. He practices in San Jose.

He takes Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Signa, Medicare, Tricare, and United Healthcare. I called his office. I called his office, mostly to double-check the pronunciation of his name, but I deliberately called during off hours to get his office away message or whatever, but somebody answered a human, answered the phone at like 7.30 a.m. California time, and I went, ah, I panicked and hung up the phone. In essence, I accidentally pranked an OBGYN. I handled that very poorly.

I apologize to whoever that was on the phone. I should say that James Lilja played drums in a very early iteration. of the offspring. The band formed as teenagers in Orange County in 1984. Their original name was Manick Subsidal. I don't know what that means. Maybe they knew what that means. They changed the name. The first full-length offspring album called The Offspring doesn't come out until 1989 and James it's already long gone. He doesn't play on this record at all, but he has one co-writing credits on one song on the first offspring album and I am so psyched. I am delighted to inform you that the song is called beheaded. I am so glad it was beheaded. I somehow figured out that

James Lilja had one co-writing credit on this record before I found out which song it was. I was like, come on, beheaded, please. And then I was like, yes. Offspring frontman, Dexter Holland, the sole original member of the offspring. Now, Dexter did a little blog about this song. I think back in 2007 in the rock stars blog sometimes era and he talked about writing the chords the music for this song and coming up with the title beheaded he wanted to write a gross violent stupid jokey punk rock song in the proud tradition of the dead kennedys and t s o l and suicidal tendencies and so dexter enlists his drummer james to help write the lyrics he says one afternoon james and i just cracked each other up making up silly lines about beheading people.

He also says James is a great guy with a pretty warped sense of humor, and this guy was dying to get into medical school. In fact, he was so intent on getting into medical school that he didn't really even practice with us much, which is part of why he's not our drummer anymore. And finally, to wrap up Dexter writes, and James, yes, he got into medical school. And believe it or not, he's now a gynecologist.

I hope his patients don't find out, that he once helped write a song called Beheaded, or maybe his patients do know. Maybe Beheaded is the hold music when you call James' office now. Why don't you call this time? I don't know if Beheaded would have come up at that malpractice trial or not,

but what I do know is that the Mercury News, the Big Shot Daily newspaper out in San Jose, when the Mercury News wrote up the whole James Lilja juror heart attack story, the lead, the first sentence, the first full paragraph of the article just says, Pretty fly for an OBGYN. Two things here.

Three things. At least three. Several things here. All right. Several thoughts. I got some thoughts. Okay. Thought number one.

This is a phenomenally unpleasant way to begin a pop song. Yes. Or a rock and roll song. Or a punk rock song. Or a song conceived in a military, lab as like a bio weapon. This is a phenomenally unpleasant way to begin a musical composition of any kind. I defy you to find a three-second sequence anywhere near this shrill and obnoxious anywhere in the recorded history of popular song. I will wait. I am impressed genuinely by how

unpleasant this is. Thought number two, Dexter Holland once told Spin magazine that he wanted a Rosie Perez type to provide the Give It To Me Baby elements, but the band, they got two voice actor specialists instead to do that part. And one of them was a seven months pregnant Welsh woman. If you remember nothing else that I say, remember that. Next time you listen to this whole song, I want you to imagine a pregnant Welsh lady, third trimester lovingly cradling her baby bump sitting on a stool they better have given her a stool as she delivers the line give it to me baby early say i'm pretty fly for a white guy thought number three how are we feeling about that mercury news lead pretty fly for an obgyn i get what they're going for of course but does it work

if it doesn't quite rhyme pretty spry for a sued guy asterisk he's a doctor No, wow, that's way worse. Okay, I guess that's it. Pretty fly for an OBGYN. We're doing this. Tough break for James to get tagged with an aggressively dopey song. He had nothing to do with from a band. He hadn't been in for like 35 years at that point.

But that's rock and roll. And anyway, by now that's pretty much the least of anybody's problems. Oh my God. That gentleman counting in Spanish there was also played by the seven months pregnant Welsh woman voice actors are a man. Of course, I'm just kidding. My name is Rob Horvilla. This is the 65th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s.

And this week, we're talking about Pretty Fly for a White Guy by the Offspring. For quite a while now, I've been threatening on the internet to do this. Apparently, those were not idle threats. Pretty Fly parentheses for a white guy from the fifth offspring album, which was called Americana, released in 1998. and now let me tell you all a little something about what it was like to be a 16-year-old boy in 1994. Here's what happened in 1994 as far as I was concerned. This is comprehensive. These are the only things that happened.

You ready? Okay. Kirkobane died. Nine-H-nails put out the downward spiral. That is the only album that came out in 1994. It's the damnedest thing. Movies that came out in ascending order. of quality, according to 16-year-old me, included Wyatt Earp, Forrest Gump, Ace Venture, a pet detective,

the Shawshank Redemption, The Crow, and Pulp Fiction. Couple notes there. Swap the Crow and Forrest Gump on that ascending list. Forrest Gump was probably my second favorite. I was trying to sound cool. Also, I've never actually seen Wyatt Earp starring Kevin Costner in the titular role. The only thing I know about that movie is it's more than three hours long, which is why when I attended a Stone Temple Pilots concert in downtown Cleveland, Ohio in the summer of 1994. And my girlfriend at the time was not allowed by her parents to go with me. We told her parents, we were all going to see the three-hour movie Wyatt Earp. And then we went to the Stone Temple Pilots concert anyway. Stone Temple Pilots, the meet puppets and jaw box. Some assholes in the crowd booed jawbox. And Scott Weiland from SDP came out and was like, quit booing my opening band, you assholes. Great show. We got caught. My girlfriend got in less trouble than I did. I'm still pissed about that. Also in 1994, Super Metroid and Donkey Kong Country were released for Super Nintendo. Either of those was more important to me than Pulp Fiction.

And finally, I got my driver's license and a used car. A 1989 Chrysler-Liberin, black-ish, little rusty, not a convertible. The ceiling fabric sagged. My head scraped against it. The gel that I used in my hair stained. The ceiling fabric over time. You know that Neil Young song, Piece of Crap?

That album Sleeps with Angels also came out in 1994. Fine. Two albums came out in 1994. Piece of crap was my car's theme song. It was a term of endearment. My car at a tape deck. The tape in my car's tape deck is smash by the offspring. Fine.

Three albums came out in 1984. That's it. Those three. The offspring song blasting out of my car stereo is called a bad habit, the most important part of the song, Bad Habit, is the hi-hat right here. That high hat is crucial. That hi-hat is everything.

Dexter Holland's voice takes a whole hell of a lot of getting used to, but the high hat helps. Sorry, the only other thing that happened in 1994 is that punk rock was invented as far as I was concerned. What a thrill. What a privilege as a 16-year-old to bear with. witness to the birth of punk rock via the release of Smash by the offspring and Duky by Green Day. Yo, that is the last album I will concede was released in 1994. Four albums. Nine Inch Nails Neil Young, Green Day, and the offspring.

That is it. Yeah, Dookie and Smash invented punk rock. Bad Habit is the third or fourth most famous song on Smash, but this is the song that invented Road Rage. The seamless push there from the verse. to the chorus, just the perfect, furious handoff. Then your next birthday's your last, because I got a bad habit. That is a truly beautiful moment to me, that sense of propulsion.

I mean it. I meant it then and I mean it now. Stupendous songwriting. This is the best offspring song. I love this song profoundly. In 2017, I finally saw the offspring alive at a three-day hard rock festival held in a soccer stadium in Columbus, Ohio. rock on the range.

The offspring played between Papa Roach and Corn. Make of that what you will. The offspring played this song, Bad Habit. And when they got to this part of the song, and you knew this was coming. When they got to this part of the song, you better believe that 39-year-old me shouted along to every stupid, goddamn, dumb shit, motherfucking word.

39 years old. Some things I'd feel. like I'm kind of you stupid dumb shit god damn mother 16 years old 1994 green day and the offspring have invented punk rock how fortuitous for a teenage to me to have witnessed this may you live in interesting times the offspring were from garden grove california if the specific geography of orange county matters to you i don't care sorry i'm not sorry actually punk rock is good given me an attitude. First album called The Ospring comes out in 1989 to very little attention. None for me at the time. Beheaded, though, great song. Second album, Ignition comes out in 1991 to modest attention. Likewise, none for me at the time. Dirty Magic, though. Great song. That song sounds like the cure. Shit is wild. Third album, Smash. Comes out in 1994 on Deified Los Angeles Independent Punk Rock label Epitaph Records. And suddenly the offspring are one of the biggest

rock bands in the world. I thought so, at least. Classic lineup, Dexter Holland on impressively shrill lead vocals and guitar. Kevin Wasserman, aka Noodles on lead guitar. Nudles is still around today. He's almost an original member, but not quite. They nicknamed him Nudels because he'd noodle around on his guitar in between takes in the studio. I'm so bummed about that. What a boring nickname origin story. I always imagine that he'd once thrown a giant serving bowl of spaghetti noodles off a busy freeway overpass or something. You know Calvin and Hobbs, all the unexplained references to the noodle incident? Let's show a little imagination. I'm sticking with that freeway overpass origin story. Noodles did that. That's why he's called that.

Greg Kreissel on bass. He hung on until 2018, actually. Ron Welty on drums. Ron made it to 2003. The Ospring are one of these bands, like the lineup chart. and the lineup timeline on their Wikipedia page is just crazy stressful, just a startling quantity of data. Yeesh. I hope whoever compiled all that got paid. Ron Welty was not, and to the best of my knowledge is not a doctor,

but he knew how to kick off a punk rock song. Now didn't he? This is the first offspring song I ever heard come out and play. I suspect I'm in the majority. On that, this is one of the two most famous songs. on the smash record. I'd like to tell you, and I think this is true, that I remember hearing come out and play for the very first time on alt rock radio while driving, farting around the suburbs, doing 38 and a 35, and my piece of crap, Chrysler LeBaron, windows laboriously cranked down, heads scraping the car's ceiling, posing no threat to anybody, inspiring no interest from anybody. And I just marveled at how beguilingly strained. this song was at first contact what in the damn hell is happening you gotta keep them separated the person here providing the hook you gotta keep him separated is a seven months pregnant

welsh lady no rob dad stop it this guy is named blackball one word blackball he is a friend of Dexter Hollins. This is true. As recounted in the book called Smash, subtitled Green Day, The Ospring, Bad Related in No Effects in the 90s punk explosion, written by the journalist Ian Winwood came out in 2018. Dexter says of his friend Blackball, he's from the hood. He doesn't know how to sing or rap or anything, but he is real. Dexter felt the Keep Him Separated line called out for a hip-hop delivery. Apparently the offspring recorded this song in an LA studio while Snoop Dog was recording

down the hall. And this is 1993 or 94 Snoop Dog right? Whoever else is in that room Martha Stewart ain't in that room. And so Dexter says they were reluctant to knock on Snoop's door and say, how are you? We're suburban guys from Orange County.

So there you go. Next time you listen to this whole song, imagine Snoop Dog doing the you got to keep them separated part. Have fun with that. Meanwhile, noodles. Every time this riff is described as

Middle Eastern sounding, an angel smashes a mailbox with a baseball bat. Interpret that however you like. So Dexter Holland, as you might be aware, is also a doctor. He got his PhD in molecular biology in 2017.

Took him a while. He has a day job. So in the early 90s, he's a student at USC. He talked to Rolling Stone in 2014 for the 20th anniversary of Smash, and he said, the lyrics for Come Out and Play, and most of the other songs were just about whatever was happening in front of me.

Back then I was a grad student. I was commuting to school every day in a shitty car, driving through East L.A. Gangland Central. I was there the day of the L.A. riots. So I was very aware of that part of the world, and a lot of that gun stuff came out in songs like Come Out and Play. Speaking to you here in Godforsaken May 2022, I found this whole aspect of the song much more amusing 24 hours ago, to put it mildly. So let me summarize.

Number one, Dexter Holland is pretty objectively smarter than me. Number two, Dexter Holland to my mind writes pretty smart, very stupid songs, gloriously stupid songs. There is a self-awareness amid the gleeful. anthemic, often pretty stupendous stupidity. Number three, Dexter Holland has never had any problem telling anybody that come out and play is a song about a white guy driving through a predominantly black neighborhood and describing the gang violence, the gun violence therein.

I don't mean that as any sort of self-righteous condemnation. It is what it is, but that's pretty objectively what it is. Dexter, the same, the songwriter is entirely aware of what this is. It's a white guy reckoning with a culture and an environment very much not his own. Sit on that concept for like five minutes here for me. Would you? Maybe 10 minutes. Shit, probably 20. Hopefully five, though. We may return to that idea. Okay, please let's move on to something less problematic. God damn it. Okay, it's possible I vaguely remember the very first time I heard this song, self-esteem as well, thanks to the world-class What in the Damn Hell is Happening, intro to this song. You always read that Kirk Cobain hated the smells like teen spirit guitar riff, right? He thought it was super stupid. He unfavorably compared it to Louis-Louie and Boston's more than a feeling. Apparently once in a Nirvana practice, He contemptuously made the band play just that riff for an hour straight.

I always think of that when I hear self-esteem. When I hear the offspring sarcastically vocalize their own iconic guitar riff. Self-esteem, of course, is the other super famous song on Smash. It's about a wimpy guy complaining about a sexy lady. historically unpleasant subtext and harrowing current affairs subtext abounds. I'm not sure I see the value in getting too wrapped up in this right now. Let me think about this for a second. I do not want to use the words I am inclined to use to describe the mentality described in this song. That's how I'm going to say that. How's that for convoluted? If that makes no sense to you,

You good. Excellent. What I will say. I suspect this is the second offspring song that a shit ton of people heard, alt rock radio being the monolith that it used to be. And thus, self-esteem, I suspect, helped a shit ton of people get used to Dexter Holland's voice. There is nuance amidst the screeching if you want to hear it, or I guess if you can bear to hear. it. The line delivery of

it's kind of hard when she's ready to go sticks with me. The wording and the delivery. It's such an adolescent, a pre-adolescent phrase. You can picture the clumsiness, the helplessness, this poor, powerless, inarticulate, underage, even if he's of age,

dufous, nervously scratching his right calf with his left foot on the word kinda. It's pathetic in such a startlingly vivid way, especially the way Dexter like whimpers and slurs the words themselves as he harmonizes. This is a remarkably smart, very stupid song. It's just stupid enough to be dangerous.

Nobody sings the word dweeb quite like him. Can we please not overthink this stupid fantastic record? Smash is just incredibly, inconceivably stupidly fun. F-U-N fun. The whole thing. Even the deep cuts are ridiculously fun. The song, What Happened to You? Super Fun. The Ospring should make a whole ska album. There is no way I could ever regret.

Having said that, the song's solo alone, look me in the eyes and tell me this doesn't sound like a blast. Yeah. See, it's contagious. There's 16-year-old me, exhilarated in my piece of crap, LeBaron, and now I'm going 85. in a 35. Punk rock is the greatest music ever made. Quote unquote punk rock. Fine.

Listen, if you want to argue with me about what is and isn't punk rock, I'm available anytime by phone. Just call 1-800-p5-1-dudu. Okay, enough stupid jokes about punk rock being invented in 1994. But it felt that way. If you were a sheltered and uncultured teenager in 1994,

is my point. When you read about 1994 now, the shock of the great 1994 punk rock explosion has never fully worn off for the dudes who lived it and profited enormously by it. The dudes in Green Day still sound a little dazed, describing the process of selling eventually 20 million copies of Duky worldwide. The dudes in the offspring still sound a little dazed, describing the process of selling eventually 11 million copies of smash worldwide. That 11 million figure is arguably more impressive given that epitaph records was an independent label. Duky came out on a major label. Maybe you heard about it. People were pissed. Green Day basically got excommunicated from 924 Gilman. It was a whole deal. Sellout by Dan Ozzie. Great book. Deified Los Angeles independent punk rock

label Epitaph Records, on the other hand. Run by guitarist songwriter and semi-accidental mogul Brett Gurwitz, aka Mr. Brett. Epitaph was very emphatically not a major label. I quite enjoy Brett's oft-quoted description. It's in that Rolling Stone Smash anniversary piece and sneaks into both the sellout book and the smash book. I love Brett's dazed description of the Epitaph office in L.A. being loaded floor to ceiling with offspring records and tapes and CDs. No room to move or breathe.

Just the physical crush of physical offspring product. What he called a Rubik's Cube of Pallets back when Smash was selling 100,000 copies a week. Smash is the best-selling independent album of all time. Let's celebrate. Yeah! I was a Bay Area all-weekly music editor in the mid-2000s, and I edited a cover story in 2003 about Rancid, the quite famous and fiercely independent Berkeley punk rock band, Rancid. Their great breakout album, Let's Go, came out in 1994, along with just those four other albums. And the whole story was about how Rancid jumped from Epitaph to Warner Brothers, a major label for their new album, Indestructible.

but Rancid didn't put the Warner Brothers logo on the CD, so hopefully nobody would notice. Many thousands of words on this topic. It was a great story. I don't think I can convey to you how much the indie versus major debate used to matter in punk rock especially, but also in this instance,

I don't think it much matters. The more important concept that I don't think I can convey to you is just how shocking it was in 1994, that punk rock band, could sell millions of records under any circumstances. Just how astonishingly lucrative this music suddenly became. Quick thought experiment for you. You're in a band called The Digits, D-I-D-J-I-T-S, straight out of Mattoon, Illinois,

which is not close to Chicago, by the way. It's like a three-hour drive. I map-quested it. Okay, The Digits. You are Rick Sims. Frontman and frequent songwriter for The Digits. you've been kicking around since 1983 to modest success.

You get signed at Touch and Go Records. That's a super cool independent label. In 1990, you put out your third album called Hornet Piniata. Fantastic title. Great job. All your album titles are great, actually. Sales are modest, but you're used to that. You're not in it for the money because there's no money in punk rock.

The first song on your album, Hornet Penaata, is called Killboy Powerhead. And then in 1994, the off. Cover your song Killboy Powerhead on their ungodly blockbuster album Smash. And you, Rick Sims, who wrote the song, Killboy Powerhead, receive $600,000 in songwriting royalties. And what do you, Rick Sims, do with 600K? You buy a house. You buy a house, according to the Chicago Tribune. in Rosco Village, which is in Chicago.

Suck it, Matoon, Illinois. Plus the digits get to make more records and they even get the highest honor one could possibly receive in the 1990s. Yes, one of their videos gets made fun of on Beavis and Butthead. This guy fries butt nuggets. I'm not even giving you the context for that. It has been way too long since Beavis and Butthead showed

up around here. Welcome back, fellas. What on earth happened in 1994 to make punk rock so lucrative? You know what it was, actually? You know who it was? It was me. Punk rock started selling hundreds of thousands of CDs per month in 1994 because I started buying them. Hey, you ever hear this band I just organically discovered called Bad Religion? That's American Jesus from Bad Religion's 1993 album Recipe for Hate, their seventh full-length album. They'd been around since 1980, one of the best punk rock bands ever born,

the most scholarly, the most erudite punk rock band ever born, and the only punk rock band even theoretically capable of using the words erudite or theoretically in a punk rock song, Bad Religion are the best. Fat Mike, the front man for Noah. effects, another beloved, slightly less scholarly LA punk rock band who'd been around since 83.

Fat Mike praises bad religion to the skies in that smash book. He calls the bad religion album suffer, their third album from 1988. He calls it 20 odd minutes of pure joy. It's 26 minutes and 13 seconds. Bad religion are somehow both verbose and succinct. Bad religion are the first band released on Epitaph Records because Epitaph Records owner Brett Gurwitz, is playing guitar in bad religion at the time punk rock fans will tell you about the holy trinity of bad religion albums suffer no control in 89 against the grain in 1990 and i too will tell you all about the holy trinity of bad religion albums but not that trinity that's infected from bad religion's 1994 album, Stranger Than Fiction.

I can't keep this bit up anymore. Lots of albums came out in 1994. You got me. Bad religion started existing for me when they jumped to a major label. Their first three albums for a major label for Atlantic Records are my Holy Trinity of Bad Religion albums. Recipe for Hate, Stranger Than Fiction, and in 1996, the Grey Race. This song's called Punk Rock Song, because that's what it is.

And this is just a punk. These three albums are incredible. The Holy Trinity, my Holy Trinity. My Bad Religion, Holy Trinity is superior to their far more broadly acknowledged Holy Trinity. You don't like it? Call me up and yell at me about it. Operators are standing by at 1-800-P-5-1-Doodoo. Bad religion didn't exist until I started listening to bad religion.

That's the fact of the matter. Same deal with no effects. The very first no effects album is called Punkin' Drublich, and the very first no effects song is called Linolium. Both are fantastic. Beginners luck, I guess. You know how babies love playing peekaboo so much because when you put your hands over your face, the baby thinks you've disappeared. And when you remove your hands from your face, the baby thinks you just magically appeared at that moment. Same principle.

As a teenager, I did not grasp the concept of me. musical object permanence. I can listen to suffer, no control, and against the grain, not stop for years, and I do love those records, but I will never love those three records the way I love those first three major label records, because I heard recipe for hate, stranger than fiction, and the gray race when I was a teenager. That's it. That's all. So thank you, major labels. In this era, Brett Gurowitz would leave the band and then return. Bad religion eventually, it would return to epitaph records. They're still around. They're still the best. They wrote an autobiography. I miss seeing them live last year due to COVID. I'm still pissed. Yeah, okay, post-1994.

Major label, punk rock fever starts cooling off almost immediately. Green Day's next album called Insomniac comes out in 1995. And it's not a flop, but it's a letdown commercially and otherwise. They'll be back. They'll be fine. The offspring's next album called Ixnay on the Ombray. Jesus, 1997 same deal it sells a million copies and it's got some jams mota but now the offspring are just a prominent alt rock band fighting to remain a prominent alt rock band they will of course never lose the punk rock aspect entirely but it's mutable it's variable at that show i saw in 2017 the offspring also played gone away off xnais on the ombre and it rules but it's pretty close to just a straight-up power ballad nobody raises lighters a

concerts anymore, but maybe I do. Even if you've never heard Dexter Holland's voice before today, and I very much doubt that you'd already be used to Dexter Holland's voice by now. Wouldn't you? He grows on you, or he grates less on you. But yeah, the offspring are on the move stylistically. In 1998, talking to Spin magazine, a guy named Mike Pier, a music director for the New York City rock radio station K-Rock. Mike says, the punk fad might not be the coolest thing in music anymore, but you have to look at the offspring as a rock band now. They've progressed. That's K-rock, K-Hifin, R-C-K in New York, not the famous K-R-O-Q in L.A., who helped break the offspring in the first place, two different radio stations. There's only so many ways to spell rock. What did the offspring progress to

in 1998, you ask? You're going to make me, okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Americana, the fifth offspring album comes out in November 1998.

Noodles once said that they almost named this album, You're Too Fat for Porn. If you forget anything, I say, forget that. And this record spawns immediately. The surprise hits. single Pretty Fly for a White Guy. This is the highest charting offspring single ever, which admittedly doesn't mean much in this context. It peaks at 53 on the Billboard Hot 100. Actually, it's the first

offspring song to even appear on the Billboard Hot 100, not a singles band as we used to think of singles bands. But you get the impression reading interviews with the offspring from this era from 1998 and 99. You get to thinking that everyone in this band's orbit is very surprised that this song got even this popular. You might even say they're alarmed, even. And alarmed with good reason. I know it just fits the meter, but I do enjoy that the white guy in question is introduced as our subject. Dexter is a scientist.

This is a scientific endeavor. Pretty fly parentheses for a white guy is a song about a white guy who gets so into rap music that he starts dressing and acting like a rapper, i.e. a black guy. I don't want to belabor this, but I didn't need to say that. Dexter Holland, talking to spin for just a little blurby dude. Dexter described this song as a character study about guys who are from like Omaha, Nebraska, regular white bread guys, but who act like they're from Compton. It's so fake and obvious. They're trying to have an identity. He added, I wanted to write a song where people in high school would go, I know exactly who this guy's talking about. So and so in third period. And as for the actual so-and-so in third period,

Dexter says, he'll like it too. That's kind of the beauty. Making fun of people who don't know they're being made fun of. Hmm. Okay. One more quick note, actually. This is the very beginning of the song. Dexter reports that the sample here from the death leopard song Rock of Ages from 1983.

If you don't know who or what that is, stay away from me. All right. Just stay on TikTok. Christ, that sample costs the band $10,000. Dexter says, hey, it's art, dude. I do love that. Hey, comma, it's art, comma, dude. This is the vibe we're dealing with.

here. This is my kind of vibe. Unfortunately, this song is quite well constructed on both a structural and an ironic level. They give it to me baby girls and the gentleman counting in Spanish, those people function almost as samples. Yes, the syncopation, the overall emphasis on rhythm and percussion and swagger. It has been pointed out that this song decrying the influence of rap music is very clearly influenced by rap music. Yes, the video for Pretty Fly for a White Guy, starring in the titular role in Israeli actor named Guy Cohen. The band apparently wanted Seth Green as the star. Seth Hackers stole my cartoon NFT ape green. I refuse to engage with that story, of course.

The video for Pretty Fly for a White Guy starring in the titular role in Israeli actor named Guy Cohen. The band apparently wanted Seth Green as the star. Seth Hackers stole my cartoon NFT ape Green. I refused to engage with that story. Of course, the video for Pretty Fly for a white guy, which was super

flashy and gaudy and directed by a gentleman named Mick G, Big M, Little C, Big G, who'd go on to direct the Drew Barrymore Charlie's Angels reboot and also directed the Disney Plus pilot for the Turner and Hooch reboot. I didn't know that was out.

already. The video for Pretty Fly for a White Guy is basically a rock band doing a straight up parody of a rap video. You know how every rap video is a scene of lame white people acting super lame like the air traffic controllers in Dr. Dre's video for Keep Their Heads Ranging. The idea here is to make the whole video the lame white people elements of most rap videos. It's like a why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box situation. The video for Pretty Fly for a White guy, which also is in the rock band parodies rap video vein, uh, neatly echoing the rad New Jersey stoner rock band Monster Magnets, 1998 rap parody video for their rad hit single Space Lord. If that means anything to you, Space Lord mother, mother.

Unfortunately, the video for Pretty Fly for a White Guy is also fairly well constructed. Unfortunately, one of the most maddening aspects of this song is that the line to delivery of you can always go on Ricky Lake is very funny. Yes, Ricky Lake the trashy daytime tabloid talk show where perhaps Ricky might interview white teenagers who antagonize their parents by dressing and acting like rappers. It is vexing to me how funny that line is. This song is very stupid and also very funny. And yeah, this song, in this song's somewhat alarming popularity, vexed a lot of people, including, I think, the guy who wrote it. So the offspring got written up again in Spin Magazine in March 1999, but this time they're on the cover of Spin Magazine.

Dexter Holland's giant head is on the cover of Spin Magazine, to be precise. Dexter looks quite pale and frightening with his bleached white hair against a hot pink background. Have I mentioned yet that Dexter Holland used to have drawn? Redlocks in the smash era and that Courtney Love once referred to those dreadlocks as the worst hair in rock. Yeah, the offspring are on the cover of Spin now. And two things have happened since Pretty Fly for a white guy came out in November 98. First of all, this song has gotten surprisingly alarmingly popular. And second of all, Dexter Holland, a very smart guy. who writes very smart, incredibly stupid songs, is maybe a little vexed at how popular this song has gotten.

He has struck a nerve. An MTV executive named Tom Calderone in this spin cover story says, Pretty Fly is a reaction. The offspring were able to take hip-hop, an incredibly strong musical force, and comment on it on so many different levels. It's a great reflection of where the times are right now. Dexter Holland is maybe a little vexed about this reaction and what it suggests about where the times are right now.

The spin story brings up disco demolition night, right? For those of you on TikTok, Disco Demolition Night was a 1979 rock radio stunt where a Chicago DJ encouraged listeners to bring their disco records to Kamiski Park and burn them on the field during a double header between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit. Detroit Tigers. And this stunt ended in a riot. Duh. The White Sox forfeited the second game. And with the fullness of time, unfortunately, we can see this more clearly as a literally rioting group of mostly white people, literally burning disco albums primarily made by and or for black and or gay people. Disco demolition night comes up in passing in this offspring cover story. That's a lot of sociocultural weight to don't. on this stupid little song. But nonetheless,

Dexter Holland would now like to reframe this conversation slightly. So Dexter says, now, he says, it's really inspired by wannabe gangsters,

guys who go to malls and get the gangster rap clothes, guys on Ricky Lake who won't listen to their moms, but he would also like to shift the target. He'd like to move the crosshairs of his confrontation hit song Pretty Fly for a White Guy to another less controversial target. And fortunately for him,

by March 1999, another less controversial and far more agreeable target has emerged. Perhaps Pretty Fly for a White Guy is about teen pop. It's about boy bands. It's about the backstreet boys and in sync. Here we go. Much better, much safer. Dexter says, I mean, those groups make Hanson. of Mbop fame look like rancid. I really do hate that stuff. Buff white guys singing slow jams. The spin article says, Holland actually likes some rap.

Ice tea, NWA, public enemy, the Beastie Boys, and is careful not to be construed as anti-hip-hop. That's a very funny list, actually. Dexter says, I don't really want the song to be a black-white thing

because that wasn't exactly the issue. It's definitely part of it, but it's more about posers of any kind. Dexter explains, and this was quite illuminating for me, he says, see, when you start a punk band, you got to do about three or

four obligatory songs. First, the anti-cop song, then the anti-war song, then the death song, and then the alienation, My Girlfriend is a Bitch song. The Americana album, as you might be aware, has

for sure got one of those. My friends got a girlfriend, man. He hates that bitch. He tells me. Yeah. Uh, wolf, that's why don't you get a job? That's the first verse. In fairness, I should also note that this song is gender neutral, or at least equal

opportunity gender aggressive, per the beginning of the last verse. Uh-huh. Okay. Dexter says, and this was quite funny to me, he says, I think part of the reason people identify with what we're doing is because I write songs about regular real things. I guess you could say the same thing about Bruce Springsteen, but I don't understand that guy at all. That is a hilarious image to me. Like I picture that meme of Julia Roberts looking confused with equations floating around her head,

except now it's Dexter Holland listening to Born in the USA. It's fantastic. But what I want to say is that the Americana album also has a fantastic alienation song. Not an alienation comma, my girlfriend is a bitch song, just an alienation song. It's the song right after Pretty Fly for a white guy, in fact. It's called The Kids Aren't All Right. The Kids Aren't All right is about how hard it is to be a kid in 1998 versus five, 10, 15, 20 years ago. This song talks about dropouts.

Drug abuse. I'm pretty sure teenage pregnancy and suicide. It does not mention school shootings, but you'll forgive me in this moment if I am just seeing and hearing and feeling school shootings everywhere. Fah. A neat little quirk of the streaming era, the ringer is on by Spotify, is that you can watch in real time as a band's less popular song slowly emerges as a more popular song. Here in 2022, the Kids Aren't All Right has almost twice as many plays on Spotify as Pretty Fly for a White Guy, closing it on half a billion. And as I hope we've established, I enjoy Pretty Fly for a white guy quite a bit, but I am still quite heartened by the Kids Aren't All Right emerging as the biggest song on the Americana record. For another dumb little punk song, the empathy for the kids that animates the kids aren't all right. I find the empathy quite comforting right this second.

An empathy palpable in Dexter Holland's voice. An empathy that perhaps even extends to a lonely, scared, confused white suburban kid who finds additional comfort and empathy and strength in rap music. Okay, while you're tooling around the Spin Magazine Archives, read another article for me, would you? It's also from 1998. Read an article by the great Charles Aaron called What the White Boy Means when he says yo. Just trust me. Okay. Okay. Here's one more thing Dexter Holland says in his 1999 spin cover story. Hit the deck. Quote, political correctness. It's gone so far now that it's almost statured. A lady sues McDonald's because she spilled coffee on herself because the cup didn't say this coffee's hot. The street I grew up on had like one stop sign when I was a kid. Now there's four stoplights in a hundred yard distance. That kind of stuff gets to the point where you want to move to Montana or something. Get an electrified fence and a shotgun, end quote.

Okay. Okay. Dexter Holland is smarter than me. But yeah, kids today got too many stoplights is not the smartest arguments he ever made. So I read these words here in 2022, and I know what I have to do, and I don't want to do it. So I put off doing it. But eventually I do it. I look up Dexter Holland to cancel culture.

But I do it poorly on purpose, right? I half ass it because I don't find anything on this subject immediately. Oh, I can't do it. And I instead become super distracted by what I do find, which is Dexter Holland's commencement speech to the May 22 graduating class from USC's Keck School of Medicine. I want to ask you all if you remember there's this picture, a poster, and it has the kitten and it's hanging on a branch,

and the caption says, hang in there, baby. He's got the bleached white hair. Maybe it's not bleach. She's got the glasses, the robe, of course. Dexter looks the part, both parts, the punk rocker and the scientist, the prankster and the empathizer. It's all terribly, terribly, terribly sweet. Well, that's what you did. You hung in there.

You persevered. You kept the faith. You have kept science alive. You, my friends, are ready to prove that science rocks. I think Dexter would back me up here. Now, when I say to you, when I say to all you kids out there on the cusp of summer 2020, I don't think any kids listen to this show, but I take no offense. To all you kids out there, kids who are objectively less all right than kids have ever been in my lifetime,

if it brings you comfort or wisdom or power or solace of any kind, listen to whatever the fuck music you want. Our guest today is Zach McCullough, who plays drums in the Canadian punk rock band Pup. Pup are the greatest punk rock band of the 21st century, at least. Their new album is called The Unraveling of Pup, the Band. We are so psyched that Zach is here. Zach, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. A glib, stupid thing that I used to say, I think I've written this a few times. I used to say the offspring have aged worse than any. other band from the 1990s. Do you have any idea what I might have been going for there? I mean, they are, they're obviously quite sarcastic. They're always trying to hit at something beneath the surface, and I could see that maybe being lost with the passage of time. So maybe their sardonic attitude is a little bit, it's seen as more a surface

attitude. So, yeah, I kind of get it. Yeah. I, I, I think what I meant is that the Osping are very funny. Like, I genuinely often find this band to be very funny. And a lot of people in the moment look down on funny punk rock, even before the humor starts aging poorly. Like, you were the drummer in an incredibly funny punk rock band. Like, what's the secrets to that, first of all? If I were to guess, I mean, this is probably me just projecting.

But if I were to guess, they're doing what I think Stefan does with his lyrics and we do with our humor like our music videos and it's humor as a coping mechanism and just trying to make it through this horrible world. Yeah. And yeah, I think that's probably I would I would wager to say

that's accurate given how, I mean, I know how intelligent Dexter is and yeah, it's, you know, the burden of intelligence. It is. It's wild to think about how horrible everything seemed in 1994, 1994, 1998, you know, 2003, on

and on and on, you know, and how articulate, as you say, the offspring were often about that horribleness, like, compared to now. Like, it's just, it's unpleasant to revisit this catalog. It'd be like, well, this used to be bad. This was genuinely very bad at the time.

It's like, people are romanticized the 90s as this period of zero, you know, zero problems. And I, you know, take offense to that. It's like you weren't, you may have been ignorant to the problems, but there were,

there were quite a few. Right. I was going to ask, did you learn anything about humor or punk rock from the offspring? Like, is that band a tangible influence on you or on Pup as a whole in any way? I mean, for me,

I'm not going to saddle the rest of the band, but that's, but I'm going to say that's, both directly and, kind of tangentially, as far as like informing humor and music, they definitely had an influence. Just like being able to present issues, especially in a sarcastic way. It's a big deal. But then also, I mean, I was like hesitant to bring this up, but Weird Al's version of the song in particular.

Please, please bring up Weird Al. Yeah. So that's one of my favorite. I think one of my favorite things ever. and I'm trying to get nailed to the wall for that or admitting that. But it's, you know, it's funny. I don't know. That's funny.

You are referring to Pretty Fly for a rabbi, which is indeed one of the funniest things ever made. So I thank you genuinely for bringing that up. That is ageless. That does not age poorly. Weird Al only grows with the fullness of time, always. I don't know if I'll go. that far, but I definitely like that song. Okay, let's stop it.

I like that song. Just to get as stupidly broad as possible, like, what band first got you into punk rock? How did the offspring fit into your growing conception of punk rock? It actually might have been Smash or Ixnay that got me into

punk rock, and just like the first taste of like the D-beat sort of like just like the fast stuff. And I was through my stepbrother whose dad was like a big a punk fan and he brought bad religion into the house and like that's

those are the two things and offspring I it was funny I re-listened in preparation to um to Americana which that that's like by far the most I'd listened to a record and at least at that age I probably was like 12 or something

um and I I don't remember there being that much fast punk I just maybe I just skipped to Pretty Fly for a white guy or whatever every time. But definitely like smash was going on in the house. And so was ex-nay.

So they're there. And it was, it was, it was formative in its way. What drew you to them? Like, what was it about the offspring that attracted you? I don't know.

There's like, I guess it was like a, there was a sensitivity in some ways, but there was still that like, you know, craving for a male role model in some, way.

And it's kind of rewarding later on to find out that, like, say, the Woodstock that they played, they were one of the few bands that spoke out against all the horrible shit that was happening. And it's, that's, that's rewarding. So that's, I think there's a bit of that, but it's just, like, fast, energetic. It was fun. And that was, I think, something lacking when I, like, especially as a Canadian kid, listening to, like, you know, depressing stuff like, Our Lady Peace.

and like, you know, that kind of stuff, which I love, I love my piece. I'm not going to knock them. They're like part of my coming into music, but I needed that kick of energy. I had forgotten the Woodstock 99, the documentary that the Ringer did. Like, their, Dexter is yelling at people. He's like the only male voice of reason in that entire two-hour movie. I completely forgotten about that, but you're absolutely right. among young people or like younger people today who love this music do you sense do you have a sense of how the offspring are thought of like are teenagers now becoming offspring fans or Green Day fans for that matter

uh i feel like Green Day is probably the obviously more more connecting with people um offspring I'm not sure I don't want to say there for the old heads but I think that's kind of the thing and it's like we had the privilege of playing with them in, um, in Italy once and just watching them and they're, you know, they're professionals. Um, and it's cool, but it's like a totally different demographic in Europe as far as, um, kids that, that get into them. So it's hard. I mean, I'm not young. So it's, I'm probably the wrong person that ask about that. But I, yeah, I'd say Green Day definitely has left its stamp and especially for people that are looking for, you know, the beginnings of pop punk. I think they're, they're, they're in there. In your head, is there a genre called 90s punk?

Like, what do you think about when you think about punk rock from the 90s? I definitely think about offspring, Pennywise, bad religion. Those guys, maybe, like, I don't know, is suicidal tendencies too early? That, like, that kind of stuff, just like the, not the beginning of the fast stuff, because that, I mean, bad religion started in the late 70s, which is crazy to think about. It is. But, like, yeah, in the 90s, that's when it was in full swing,

and bands like Green Day and even some 41. I mean, some 41's later, but bands like that opened the door, open the door for punk rock, especially fast stuff. So I think that is like the DBD, like super fast stuff, I think is the punk rock of the 90s. Yeah, you and I talked a little bit about, bad religion, you know, our love for bad religion. Like, I got into them as a teenager through the major label shit, like the 90s records. And I still love those records the most, even if I feel

weird about it. Like, what does bad religion mean to you? You know, it was the start of, similarly, like, looking for something energetic and aggressive, but it was kind of the start of a, I would say, healthy skepticism about the world. And like, I remain very impressionable in general, but I think then I was as a as like an early teenager quite impressionable, and it started getting me to think about what does religion mean and what do rules mean, especially when they put certain people more at risk than others. And I think that was what it was for me at the beginning. And just like I love the songs, they're super catchy.

There's like some I call them cheesy harmonies. I wouldn't. I love the harmonies, I love musicality. And yeah, it told me that it kind of showed me that like punk can be a poppy in the same way that I'm sure Green Day did for a lot of people, punk can be poppy, but also can carry a pretty ferocious message, especially like Recipe for Hate, which like the album cover, if I recall correctly,

it's like the two, there's two figures on it with the heads of a, dog and the bodies were these two white supremacists that were acquitted for murder by an all-white jury. I didn't know that point. And they were like, they're like mocking people and there's a photo of them mocking the, I guess the crowd is they're leaving the courthouse or they're celebrating. And then the heads are dogs from, I think it's, I might need to be corrected, but guard dogs from Burkinaw.

It's just like this like crazy imagery, which I obviously had no idea at the time first listening. to it. Yeah, it's just like there's, yeah, just that message is so powerful. I was going to say the totality of that message did not hit me at 14 or whatever, you know, it's maybe better absorbed subliminally

over time. Yes. And it's stuff like that, it's like that and stuff like kerosene, the song kerosene was like very, you know, talking about homelessness and stuff. It's just like those messages were very impressive to me. I love the harmony. It's like the combination of

the harmonies and then his vocabulary, right? Like, just like six-syllable scholarly words and like perfect harmonies. Like it's, yeah, the the thesaurus aspect of that band is very important to me. It's a trip to think about the way like they've aged, like political punk age, like a record like against the grain, which is from 1990, you know, it's got 21st century digital boy on it. Like that record should not hold up whatever that means in 2022, but it does, right? Like, why do you think music, political music like that, never gets old in the same way? I think it's, like, kind of the same way that love songs don't get old is, like, you kind of transpose the meaning to your specific, you know, state of existence.

And it's, you know, like, a song, like, there are tons of songs that I'm like, stranger than fiction or, like, even, um, no substance. Those, like, the later ones that I'm sure some people revile, um, which have some great songs on it still, but it's like, and like the song Kyoto Accord from process of belief where it's like it's about climate emergency, basically, but you can obviously, we're still able to talk about that. So there's sort of a transposition that happens regardless of the specific subject matter. And I think that's, I think that gives it some staying power. That song is called Kyoto now, I think, which is very upsetting.

Yes. To think about now. Yeah. how much ground we've lost and the progress we could have made. So when you went back to the offspring to Americana, like there was more, I think you said, like there was faster punk.

Like there was more to it than Pretty Fly for a white guy. Like what did you, what did you dig about that album? And like, how did Pretty Fly the song strike you within that album? I mean, I'm sure they're trying to make a point in some way. And they accidentally got like,

way more famous because of it. But it strikes me as way less serious compared to the rest of the record. And it's, I mean, I can't fault them for that. It's like, there's like a, at the risk of criticizing them, they have a very similar song on a previous record, which I think everyone is pretty familiar with.

And they, I guess they just found a formula that works and they just refined it. And that's cool. like that's fine. I know bands that do that and there's nothing wrong with that in the context of capitalism and so forth. Yeah, it's just like way less serious sounding. It sounds like a party song and I think that's why I was drawn to it when I was younger and then I listened back to

the songs now and I'm like there is some more serious shit happening on this record than I gave it credit for or could give it credit for at the time. Yeah, lead with come out and play two and then hit them with the serious shit. You know, once they've bought it for $18. Exactly. 1994, specifically when Dooky and Smash sold millions and millions

of millions of millions. In retrospect, is that a huge cataclysmic moment when punk becomes this mainstream, like, compromise thing that changed the music forever? Or was it just a fad for people who thought it was a fad? And like, everyone who loves punk rock just went on loving it and not caring about it, like, once

that moment was over from a mainstream perspective. I think that that sounds more, or at least feels more correct to me, that it's, that punk stayed for the great many people that had already tuned into it. And otherwise, it was just like, you know, moments in pot that happened, obviously. And they, these punk bands, all they know how to do is keep trucking, because, like, they've been slogging anyway, so they might as well keep doing it.

So I think, yeah, I think it was just like a moment. pop and then it, you know, obviously paved way for a more easy reception to that kind of music now, which we owe like a lot of our success to. And we're very grateful for that. Yeah. So I think it's, I think it's cool. It's, it worked out. Yeah. I have to ask you about the video for DVP, which is seriously one of my favorite video. I like, I watch it once a month just to like pump myself up for whatever I'm doing. Like, it's all clips for 80s and 90s video games. I love that video. Does that era of video games still hold a special place in your heart?

Oh, yeah, I love it. Like, Nestor and I and Jeremy are, our director, where, like, the main, I guess the main people involved in that video. And the opportunity is just, like, go through all these games that we used to play. And, like, it's just like there's just like the digital ephemeral. aspect of it. The nostalgic comfort still, like, I go back, I play a level.

I die. And I'm like, that's enough for today. I got my fix. And I'll move on to, like, playing something more modern, like Eldon Ring. And then I'll die in that, and then I'll go back to the 90s game. So that's, yeah, it's still very special to me. I think a lot of my musical sensibility actually came from games like Mega Man or Super Metroid. and like it's yeah it was a big part of my childhood the base in those games i can still sort of i can

still sort of feel it on a visceral level just the very the very tinny chip tuned base of like super mario three or whatever it's as ingrained in me just like some of the arrangements the music like musically are wild in those songs it's just like unsung heroes of those games especially in the not to be too hyperbolic but in a cinematic sense setting the scene for plot, like music is such an important thing. And I think they did that in those games. You alluded to it. This is a ridiculous, heavy question to lay on you.

But like, this has been an awful week for like society. And like I'm listening to these old offspring records that at least try to reckon with how awful things were at the time. Like as a black humored and good-hearted punk rock band yourselves, like, what do you do when things get this awful? Like, how does your. music change to meet this terrible moment? I don't like, I can't say, because we've never been an overtly political band lyrically. I think the closest thing to lyrics that are political that we got to was on this record,

the unraveling. The song is grim reaping. But it's not, it's still not overly political. So there's not like, we're not doing anything musically necessarily, but there is a certain anxiety in the music that's always present and I think that is reflective of society at large but that might be too grandiose to say in general but there's you know it's like like anyone kind of responsible to the greater whole trying to like pull together local concerns and like trying to do something wherever you can try like there's I mean I there there is obviously fatigue like

fundraising fatigue for everybody because every week there's like a new thing but like we're trying to fundraise we try to fundraise for as much as we can but it's like a lot of the time it feels like an uphill battle but the important thing is not to lose sight of the small bits of progress you think you can make and not get bogged down by the larger hopelessness because that that cynicism does not serve anybody. So, yeah, just get involved in your community, mutual aids, like all that stuff. That's the best thing you can do.

Speaking is a huge fan. I can hear that I can tell you're freaked out, but that you still care, you know? And that's political in its way. That's political enough. Yeah, I mean, I never know it's enough. It's like, it's just like, it's hard. And it's especially because like the issues are so complex and like what you're alluding to obviously is the is the shooting.

It's cool. And it's like gun control is one component to a larger hole. And it's like, you know, it's and then you get discouraged to like you like I spend way too much time on social media and I see that stuff and you get discouraged. Yeah. And it's just like hard. again, hard not to get bogged down, but it's important not to lose sight of the good people that you surround yourself with

and the various concerns that are out there that you can support. Zach, it was great to talk to you. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks so much to our guest this week, Zach McCoola. Thanks as always to our editors and producers, Justin Sales and Jonathan Kerma. And thanks as always to you for listening.

And now, without further ado, here's the offspring with Pretty Fly for a White Guy. See you next week.