Greg Graffin
Greg Graffin
Gregory Walter Graffinis an American punk rock singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, college lecturer, and author. He is most recognized as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and only constant member of the noted Los Angeles band Bad Religion, which he co-founded in 1979. He also embarked on a solo career in 1997, when he released the album American Lesion. His follow-up album, Cold as the Clay was released nine years later. Graffin obtained his PhD at Cornell University and has lectured courses in life...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth6 November 1964
CountryUnited States of America
You can look at Bad Religion, and, really, almost everything I've ever done was an exercise in creativity. I've always had a desire to challenge and question authority, and that's where the fire inside comes from. I challenged authority out of a desire to make things better, not to be nihilistic about it.
You can't take up all the music bins at a CD retail outlet with Spice Girls CDs and leave nothing for the Joan Jett catalogue.
As I’ve said, I’ve never believed in God, which technically makes me an atheist (since the prefix “a” means “not” or “without”). But I have problems with the word “atheism.” It defines what someone is not rather than what someone is. It would be like calling me an a-instrumentalist for Bad Religion rather than the band’s singer. Defining yourself as against something says very little about what you are for.
Almost everyone shuts down when science becomes too technical; you've got to infuse it with entertainment and storytelling to make it effective. From high school on, science is taught in a very dry manner, which isn't as potent.
It’s a similar feeling from being in a community of punk rockers as a teenager and the feeling I still get today when I’m in a community of skeptical scientists. The idea with both is that you challenge authority, you challenge the dogma. You challenge the doctrine in order to make progress. The thrill of science is the process. It’s a social process. It’s a process of collective discovery. It’s debate, it’s experimentation and it’s verification of claims that might be false. It’s the greatest foundation for a society.
If you can believe in God, then you can believe in anything. It's a gang mentality.
Life is never static. Despite catastrophic tragedies, life has persisted in evolving new varieties of unimaginable forms. I find comfort in the narrative of evolutionary history.
The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian.
Science is very vibrant. There are always new observations to be found. And it's all in the interest in challenging the authority that came before you. That's consistent with the punk rock ethos that suggests that you should not take what people say at face value...
there is no such thing as hell but you can make it if you try
You can't let your personal disposition be dictated by the world around you.
Whether you reach a lot of people or have a profound impact on a few people, their memories of you are your afterlife.
It's my firm conclusion that human meaning comes from humans, not from a supernatural source. After we die, our hopes for an afterlife reside in the social networks that we influenced while we were alive. If we influence people in a positive way -- even if our social web is only as big as our nuclear family -- others will want to emulate us and pass on our ideas, manners, and lifestyle to future generations. This is more than enough motivation for me to do good things in my life and teach my children to do the same.
PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.