Punk Rock, Parenting and Politics. A Conversation with Bad Religion’s Jay Bentley

Politico-punk vets Bad Religion visit the Agora Ballroom (5000 Euclid Ave., 216-881-6911) Thursday, October 11. Check out this week’s Scene for a show preview, and read on for part one of a bonus interview with bassist Jay Bentley. Matt Gorey -- self-proclaimed biggest BR fan in Ohio -- almost succeeded in summoning all of his will power to avoid bombarding Bentley with nerdy questions during this interview, like “Remember when you made Suffer? That was awesome.” PART I: PUNK Age, fatherhood and outside commitments haven’t slowed Bad Religion. The legendary So Cal punk group sounds more energized than ever on its latest New Maps of Hell. Guitarist Brett Gurewitz runs a little record label called Epitaph, singer Greg Graffin teaches at UCLA and bassist Jay Bentley is the committed parent of two teenage sons. But New Maps of Hell is an extremely focused affair. How has New Maps of Hell been received? It’s been really positive. We got a couple of weeks on the Warped Tour in before it came out so we kind of got to watch people starting to sing the songs and getting to know the songs as the tour went on. Everybody says it’s one of the best records we’ve done in a while.