Bad Habit

The Offspring guitarist Noodles explained the song's meaning in a Lollipop Magazine interview: "It's a song about this guy with a bad habit - he drives around shooting people on the freeway. That's sarcasm. It's a tongue-in-cheek look at, I dunno, psychosis. It's not the real thing." The song was controversial for its lyrical content and themes, including the line, "stupid, dumb-s--t, Goddamn motherf--ker." Noodles recalled: "We got a lot of hate mail after Smash was successful from parents with sticks up their asses. Evidently, some parents don't trust their children to have any intelligence of their own, or be able to tell the difference between sarcasm and an order barked at them." The group tried explaining the song's meaning to its critics, but it made no difference. "Parents still had a problem with it. Like kids are going to hear it and suddenly think it's OK to go driving on the highway shooting people. Have some faith in your kids. If your kids don't know the difference, why don't they know the difference?"

"Bad Habit" is part of the third Offspring album, Smash, the best-selling album of all time released on an independent label with their own distribution. The group was signed to the punk label Epitaph Records, which was run by a fellow punk: Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion. Epitaph ended up with 30-foot stacks of the CDs in their warehouse, which they feverishly worked to distribute. They also ended up with stacks of cash: Gurewitz says he got a $50 million offer for the company. The Offspring felt they deserved a bigger piece of the pie, so they left for a major label, Columbia Records.