By the end of 84 Dexter and Greg were playing songs and recruited Doug Thompson on lead vocals and guitar and Jim Benton on Drums, who were their cross country buddies. They called themselves Manic Subsidal. Soon after this they replaced Jim Benton with James Lilja.
Once the group had started college the only time they could rehearse was at weekends. By this time Dexter had written a few songs such as 'very sarcastic' and 'sorority bitch'. Soon after this Doug Thompson was forced out so Dexter took over on lead vocals and they recruited Kevin Wasserman (Noodles) to play lead guitar, who at the time was a school janitor. He was the only member of the band over 21 so the others found him useful for buying beer.
At this time they had started to do gigs but James Lilja was finding it difficult to play in the band whilst attending medical school as a result he missed a lot of gigs. Ron Welty had just moved to the area because his mother had just remarried, his step sister introduced him to Dexter. He was only 16 then which was 4 years younger than Dexter and 8 years younger than Noodles. He begged Dexter to let him be in the band and they agreed to give him a try, he soon became the full time drummer of Manic Subsidal. Manic Subsidal was soon changed to 'The Offspring' after nobody got their name.
In 1987 the Band made a 7" called Baghdad but found it hard to sell the 1,000 copies they printed. Then in 1989 the band finally got a contract with Nemesis records, and recorded their first album called 'The Offspring'.
In 1992 the offspring started to send out demos to every punk rock label they could find and were finally accepted by Epitaph records, who are responsible for Bad Religion, one of California's finest punk bands. With Epitaph they recorded their second album called 'Ignition'. They got good underground following and The Offspring were approached by several other record labels.
They decided to stay with Epitaph for their third album 'Smash', which was finally released in 1994 along with the single 'Come out and play', which was picked up by Los Angeles radio station KROQ and quickly spread across the US. It was followed by 'Self Esteem' and 'Gotta Get Away' which got a very high MTV rotation. Smash sold 4 million copies that year.
The major record labels soon approached The Offspring again and after months of talk they signed a deal with Columbia records sparking public critisism from Epitaph.
Their fourth album 'Ixnay on the Hombre' was released in February 1997 and although many Offspring fans considered it to be a better album than Smash, it never sold as well. They released a Home Video called Americana which was banned in England because of the clips of Molatov Cocktails.
In October 1998 Americana was released with Columbia records. The album was greatly received and the single 'Pretty Fly (for a white guy)' reached no 1 in the UK charts. The follow up singles 'Why Don't You Get a Job', 'The Kids Aren't Alright' and 'She's Got Issues' were also popular and got high MTV rotations.
The Offspring received the award for best rock band on the MTV European Music Awards and were also nominated for best album and also had a World Tour.
They have recently released their sixth album Conspiracy of One which was an improvement on Americana. They released their first single Original Prankster which got into the top 10 but the album failed to make an impact on the top 10 albums. They have also completed a US tour followed by trips to Europe, Australia and Japan in early 2001. They also released their second video called "Huck it" and the second single on Conspiracy, Want you Bad.
Tom Ingram
1984, Doug Thompson, Guitar & Vocals
Bryan (Dexter) Holland, Guitar
Greg K, Bass
Jim Benton, Drums
1984, Doug Thompson, Guitar & Vocals
Bryan (Dexter) Holland, Guitar
Greg K, Bass
James Lilja, Drums
1985, Bryan (Dexter) Holland, Guitar & Vocals
Kevin Wasserman (Noodles), Guitar
Greg K, Bass
Jim Benton, Drums
1985, Dexter Holland, Guitar & Vocals
Noodles, Guitar
Greg K, Bass
Ron Welty, Drums