punk rock
On Thursday (May 16), the art, music and activism of Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova was honored at a benefit pop-up in New York City, presented by the American Folk Art Museum. Held at Canvas 3.0 at The Oculus, An Evening with Nadya Tolokonnikova, Creator of Pussy Riot featured a showcase of the Russian-born punk […]
Operation Ivy fans rejoice! The legendary late 1980s Berkeley, California ska punk band featuring Rancid singer/guitarist Tim Armstrong and singer Jesse Michaels is partially reunited on the debut single from Armstrong and Michaels’ new band, Bad Optix.
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Their easy skanking first track, “Raid,” dropped on Wednesday (March 29) and it features the former bandmates trading off vocals on a track about looking for distraction in a time of anxiety and confusion. “Rethrone a crown with their hands made of stone / New crew got oil in our bones / Good things perish on the road to the castle,” Armstrong sings in his signature dead-set vocal style over a bubbling ska arrangement.
“RAID/ Hit them where they live, where they kill, where they bury/ RAID/ We won’t step in line for the party secretary,” the group gang up on the anti-authoritarian song’s urgent chorus. The band featuring Circle Jerks/The Bronx drummer Joey Castillo and Trash Talk bassist Spencer Pollard share a writing and production credit on the song, which will kick off the new Hellcat Single Club.
The Club will roll out a series of releases by a number of as-yet-unnamed bands curated by Armstrong and the Hellcat squad.
“’Raid’ is about every person’s spiritual autonomy from the powers that be, regardless of who they are or what their particular struggle is,” Michaels said in a statement about the rockstady song. “Like many of the tracks we have worked on, I heard the music and wrote the lyrics very quickly, almost on the spot. This was only the second song we did but it felt hot immediately and just flowed so we thought it would be a good way to introduce the new band to the world.”
According to the statement, the group formed in March 2021 and Michaels said despite the more than three-decade gap between the 1989 dissolution of the short-lived Op Ivy and the formation of Optix, his creative connection with Armstrong has only gotten stronger. The band was birthed when Michaels and Armstrong reconnected to hang out and Armstrong played his old friend some tracks he’d been working on.
“As soon as we started writing together, we found that we had the same collaborative energy that we had in the past, so it was natural and fun just to keep going,” Michaels said of the immediate lyrical/vocal inspiration he felt. “It came back, just like that. Like when we were kids,” Armstrong added. “There is a special chemistry between us and I don’t take it for granted.”
Armstrong and Michaels performed together for only the second time in 33 years last February to play the Op Ivy song “Sound System” at the Musack Charity Concert in Los Angeles.
Armstrong nodded to his long association with Michaels in an Instagram post, writing that they’ve been friends since they were teens in the early 1980s. “We formed Operation Ivy in 1987 and 2 years later we broke up. Jesse and I both continued down our own musical journeys through the years,” he said. “I always felt a little sadness that Jesse and I stoped making music together. But we never lost touch. And then it happened. A few years ago we started writing songs again! A couple of the songs ended up on Grade 2’s record. Jesse and I just stared writing again a lot. It came back. Just like that. Like when we we were kids. There is a special chemistry between us and I don’t take it for granted.”
Armstrong also had high praise for Castillo, who he called “one of the best drummers in the world and a dear friend,” and Pollard, who he met a few years ago when Castillo brought Trash Talk to record at Armstrong’s studio. “The rhythm section of Joey and Spencer is as good as it gets and their respected styled has added another element to the song writing,” he wrote.
In an Instagram Story, Michaels elaborated on the inspiration for Bad Optix and what’s to come, writing, “It’s funny how life happens because I had been sort of thinking about anything and everything besides doing music at that time but that’s the way it always works. Anyway, we kept writing songs over the last year and we have more to share, which we will do over the coming months.” He also teased some live shows (“eventually”), but said for now they’re just taking things slowly and having fun.
While “Raid” has a vibe that fits with both men’s musical lane, Michaels promised that they’ve also written “a lot of punk stuff and some stuff that is hard to even categorize. Really excited about this project and hope you guys dig it,” he wrote.
Listen to “Raid” and see Armstrong’s post below.
A Los Angeles judge has handed The Offspring a victory in its long legal battle with former drummer Ron Welty, who claimed he was owed millions more in profits from the veteran punk band’s $35 million catalog sale.
Welty, the band’s drummer from 1987 to 2003, claimed that lead singer Dexter Holland tried to “erase” his contributions to the Offspring’s golden era, including by failing to pay him his rightful cut of the sale of the band’s rights to Round Hill Music in 2015.
But Judge William F. Fahey largely rejected his accusations after a bench trial last fall, calling some of Welty’s allegations “completely illogical.” And in a final ruling on Monday, the judge sided with the Offspring on all remaining claims.
“Judgement is entered in favor of defendants Offspring Inc.,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiff Ron Welty shall take nothing.”
In a statement to Billboard on Wednesday, Welty’s attorney Jordanna G. Thigpen vowed to continue the fight: “In the few months I have been working with my deserving client and attempting to resolve this matter, it has become clear that the lower court was not the place where justice will be done. We are absolutely appealing, and look forward to higher authorities’ review of this court’s several decisions and its ultimate judgment.”
An attorney for the Offspring declined to comment on the decision.
Come Out and Pay
Welty joined the Offspring in 1987 and served as the band’s drummer across its heyday, including on its breakout 1994 album Smash and its 1998 peak with Americana, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and spent more than a year on the chart. When he left the band in 2003, no reasons were reported at the time.
But 17 years on, Welty filed a sweeping lawsuit in September 2020, claiming Holland and the other members had “forced him out of the band without cause” despite his “significant contributions to The Offspring’s success.” His lawyers claimed he was owed millions of dollars, and that the band was trying to “erase Mr. Welty and his achievements from the band’s history.”
“This lawsuit seeks, among other things, redress for The Offspring’s failure to pay Mr. Welty his rightful share of the band’s proceeds and a prohibition against their ongoing efforts to harm Mr. Welty, his legacy with the band, and his ongoing career,” his attorneys wrote at the time.
In particular, Welty’s lawsuit challenged the 2015 sale of the band’s music to Round Hill, which saw the company pay a reported $35 million for both the recorded masters for six studio albums and a greatest hits album, as well as the band’s music publishing rights covering its entire career.
But as revealed in later court filings, that deal was really structured as two separate deals: one $20 million payment split among the band’s key performers for the rights to the recorded masters, and another $15 million paid directly to Holland for the publishing rights, which he had retained exclusively.
In his lawsuit, Welty claimed he had not only been underpaid for his portion of the recordings, but that he was owed a portion of the $15 million Holland had earned from sale of his publishing rights.
But at a bench trial held in October, the other members of the Offspring’s best-known lineup testified that structure of the deal was fair. Both Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman and Gregory “Greg K.” Kriesel told the judge that Holland had written all of the band’s music, thus had rightly retained all publishing rights.
In a written decision in January citing that testimony, Judge Fahey ruled that the deal had been “structured in accordance with industry standards” and that Welty had failed to prove that he was entitled to a cut of Holland’s $15 million.
“It is hard even to envision a reason why these two other band members would agree to such a structure unless they believed that Holland was the creator and owner of the music compositions,” the judge wrote at the time.
“To adopt Welty’s theory would require this court to conclude that Wasserman and Kreisel knowingly walked away from a share of the additional $15 million … as part of some scheme to deprive Welty of additional compensation,” Judge Fahey wrote. “Such a conclusion is completely illogical as well as unsupported.”
The January ruling also rejected Welty’s separate accusations that he was owed hundreds of thousands in unpaid royalties.
Following that decision, other issues in the case remained technically unresolved, and the case might have proceeded to another trial at some point in the future. But in Monday’s decision, Judge Fahey made clear that his January decision had effectively ended the case and that “no issues remained to be tried.” All of Welty’s remaining claims against the band were “premised on the same allegations and present the same factual and legal issues on which the court already ruled in defendants’ favor,” he wrote.
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