Greg Graffin

Gregory Walter Graffin III was born in Madison, Wisconsin on November 6, 1964, raised by his parents Walter and Marcella. Before moving to Racine, Wisconsin his parents spent some years in Evanston, Illinois. When Greg's parents divorced when he was seven years old, he moved to Milwaukee along with his mother and his brother Grant to stay there the following four years, and then in 1976, his family moved again, this time to San Fernando Valley. There, he attended Hale Junior High School and later on to El Camino Real High School, where he met Brett Gurewitz, Jay Ziskrout and Jay Bentley. In 1979, after discovering punk music at the age of 15, Greg and his friends decided to form a band together, named Bad Religion. Over the course of their inital five-year run, Bad Religion recorded an EP in 1981, which is self-titled, followed by their debut album "How Could Hell Be Any Worse" (1982) and its follow-up "Into the Unknown" (1983). Although Bad Religion had enjoyed some success, difficulty keeping Greg and his bandmates together caused them to disband in 1984. Following the end of Bad Religion, Greg planned to move back to Wisconsin to get instate-tuition in Madison, but eventually had to move back to Los Angeles as he wasn't allowed to take part in the academic program as a non-Wisconsin resident. Instead he enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he got his Bachelor of Arts in biology and a Bachelor of Science in Geology. After spending 1985 and 1986 performing sporadically, Bad Religion reunited properly in 1987, with a renewed lineup featuring Graffin, Brett Gurewitz, Greg Hetson, Jay Bentley and Peter Finestone. In the following year, the band issued their first album in about five years, "Suffer", which many now consider to be one of the classic punk albums ever made. Four follow-ups ensued - "No Control" (1989), "Against the Grain" (1990), "Generator" (1992) and "Recipe for Hate" (1993) - before they signed to Atlantic Records. Then in 1994, Bad Religion delivered their most successful album "Stranger Than Fiction", spawning their biggest hits "21st Century (Digital Boy)" and "Infected". While it seemed that the band was strong, Brett Gurewitz suddenly departed in 1994 admist the success of the band's original label Epitaph Records, which was responsible for breaking the label's then-current act The Offspring into the mainstream. Brian Baker (formerly of Minor Threat and Dag Nasty) became Gurewitz's permanent replacement. Two more albums followed before Greg reconciled with Brett in 1999 to co-write a song called "Believe It", which appeared on their 2000 album "The New America". 2001 became an big year for Bad Religion: they brought Brett back in the band full-time, resigned with Epitaph and hired current drummer Brooks Wackerman. Bad Religion is still touring and making music as of August 2010.