Bad Religion was formed in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1980 by high school students Greg Graffin (vocals) and Brett Gurewitz (guitar). The band considers their first show to be a gig in 1980 when they opened for Social Distortion in an empty warehouse.
Bad Religion chose their band name because it's provocative and fit their punk rock ethos. "The motivation for the name was pretty juvenile," Greg Graffin explained in the book Rock Names. "However, it was a time when there was a lot of televangelism, if you remember. So it was sort of timely that we would poke fun at some aspect of American culture. And it turns out that the name, although it started out on a juvenile foundation, became actually a pretty good name over the years because we use religion as a metaphor for organized, dogmatic thought - really the opposite of what punk rock is all about, which stresses independence and individuality more than anything else."
In 1981, Bad Religion released their eponymous debut EP on Epitaph Records, managed and owned by Brett Gurewitz. He set it up just to release the band's own material but ended up releasing albums for other acts, including NOFX, L7 and Pennywise. During the punk boom of the mid-'90s, Epitaph was a major player, releasing The Offspring's Smash album and Rancid's ...And Out Come the Wolves.
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