The sound is recognizable in the first few seconds. The rumbling bass lines, the thundering drums, breakneck guitar riffs that explode out of the speakers and that voice, a searing howl equal parts snarl and desperation. This is The Offspring! SoCal legends ready to plant their punk rock flag in the sand once again with their blistering new album Let the Bad Times Roll.
The album is the band’s 10th, but their first new offering in eight years. There wasn’t a break up, no hiatus (they’ve kept up a steady level of touring during the span between albums), simply the band likes to take their time. And Holland had something else he needed to wrap up, finally getting his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from USC, a 30-year odyssey that culminated in his thesis on the makeup of the HIV virus. “I had kept in touch with my professors and they encouraged me to come back and finish it up,” he says. “The band was cool about it,” before adding with a laugh “and that only took five years.”