Seven Things You Didn't Know About Smash

4. At the time of the recording, all of the band members still had day jobs, Noodles was a janitor.
"We all could not make a living off the music, that's for sure," Holland says. "I was a student, Greg had a job, Noodles had the most colorful job, he was the janitor." When things started taking off, the band had to go on tour and Noodles' boss at the Garden Grove School District said he really needed the guitarist to finish out the school year. "Noodles is such a nice guy, he decided to stay and keep on working, even though by this time we were on Buzz Bin on MTV, our video was literally getting played on MTV," Holland says. "And kids at school were recognizing him, "Mr. Noodles, I saw you on TV this morning."

5. The band was getting better response in NorCal and LA than in their hometown when the record came out.
For the better part of the Offspring's career, they were used to playing for an average about 10 people per gig in Orange County. Even at the time they were recording Smash, the band wasn't even close to being huge, even in OC. "The first place we found that was kind of a home for us was in Berkeley at Gilman St.," Holland says. "We did better in Berkeley than Orange County for a while." Right after the record came out, Holland says the band played a show at Goodies, a now defunct club in Fullerton, and only about 100 people showed up.

However, about a month after the album came out, the band did a sold-out show at the Whiskey that gave them some major confidence. Holland remembers one girl in the front of the crowd at the LA venue calling out for them to play "Self Esteem" before it had even hit the radio or got any major exposure. "I was amazed she was already calling for out for that. Then we played it and it went off and we were like wow, maybe there's something bigger going on with this record. It was a sign of what was gonna happen."

6. "Bad Habit" was inspired by people's road rage toward Holland's slow driving
During the recording of Smash, Holland's primary mode of transportation was a shitty Toyota truck. It didn't go very fast. He wrote most of the lyrics to the Smash record while sitting in freeway traffic during his hour-long commute each way, since his car had no radio. "It was really just a way for me to sit down and concentrate on songs for two hours a day," Holland says. But not everyone was glad that Holland's slow truck gave him more time to focus on music. Sometimes people would throw stuff at his truck on the freeway because he wasn't moving fast enough. "A guy threw a Big Gulp right on my hood from the next lane over because he was pissed off," Holland says laughing. The road rage he endured went on to inspire "Bad Habit," which alluded to the rash of freeway shootings that were happening on Southern California freeways in the mid '90s.

7. The band tapped John Mayer for the loungey voice over for intro and outro of the album
No, not that John Mayer. The John Mayer that the band used was a voice actor hired to portray a kind of soothing, Bing Crosby-style voice to open and close the record. A nice contrast to the gut punch guitar solos and driving energy of the album. Dexter wrote the words for the intro "Time to Relax" and gave them to Mayer to record. "There was something over-the-top about his voice and I just loved it," Holland says. "And we've become good friends, I see him regularly and he's a great guy, he did stuff on Ixnay on the Hombre, Americana and I still have him do stuff for him from time to time."

See also
10 Punk Albums to Listen to Before You Die
10 Goriest Album Covers
10 Most Satanic Metal Bands

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