Hardcore will never die, at least while Keith Morris is still alive and kicking. The 55-year-old Morris co-founded the legendary Black Flag with Greg Ginn before leaving the band three years later to start the equally seminal Circle Jerks with future Bad Religion guitarist Greg Hetson. That band lasted a decade, though since 1994, the Circle Jerks have continued to tour sporadically but haven’t released a new album since 1995. That was going to change when the band convened last year with producer Dimitri Coats (Burning Brides) to work on new material. The result, however, was Morris quitting the CJs and forming OFF!, a new hardcore supergroup with Coats on guitar, Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) on bass and Mario Rubalcaba (Rocket From The Crypt, Hot Snakes) on drums. OFF! recorded four EPs that will be released as a vinyl boxed set, First Four EPs (Vice), on December 14. The band will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with Morris.
“I got a baby’s brain and an old man’s heart/Took 18 years to get this far”
Steven: I think I was past 25 when that lyric first stuck out to me. Alice himself was probably nearing his mid-20s when he wrote it. Technically, I don’t think any 18-year-olds could have enough objectivity to be aware of their situation and place in the world to write that. But for me, it is the perfect description of the teen dilemma, so elegantly summed up in a two-line stanza. “I’m Eighteen,” from top to bottom, start to finish, is the perfect teen anthem. I don’t think anything will ever touch it, and it’s not only the words and music, it’s the performance of the Alice Cooper group captured on the recording that is true magic. It’s a perfect record.
