DS Interview: Bill Stevenson Talks Descendents Reissues, Influences, and Newer Fans

When I first started doing interviews for Dying Scene, one of our editors, Jay Stone, gave me some advice: Whatever you do, don’t be like Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney on Saturday Night Live. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please watch the video below. 

I would like to think I don’t do that too much, but if high school me knew that at some point in the future I would get to have a conversation with Bill Stevenson about the Beatles, I probably would have retroactively shit my pants. To say I was nervous is an understatement, and if there was someone I’d get like that with, it’s definitely Bill Stevenson. Out of all the people I’ve interviewed, Bill Stevenson was definitely one of the coolest.

Bill is out promoting the re-release of the Descendents albums that had been locked away under SST, which obtained the rights from New Alliance Records when it became a subsidiary of the record label. The whole time fans were falling in love with their old albums, the Descendents weren’t seeing a dime. Eventually, what SST was running out of was time, as the records were subject to copyright reversion. While it sounds like a simple solution, the impression I get is that it wasn’t.

While it’s been a long time coming, the Descendents will start releasing their older albums on Org Music, starting with their first LP, Milo Goes to College. Below, Bill and I talk about these re-releases, some of the band’s influences, and the newer generations of music fans.

Dying Scene (Forrest Gaddis): I know that you are re-releasing the old records. Are you changing anything in the mix, or is it just like it sounded when we bought it before?

Bill Stevenson: These are re-releases we’re doing with Org Music. They’re just exact re-releases. The exact album that we all know and love.

Was there any temptation to go in there and fix anything, or were you just like, “Let’s not mess with a good thing?”

That might be part of a later thought. The precarious state of all those old records has not been available. I wanted to just get them out there in their true form. Then we’re also doing what Org does, a lot of releases where, in addition to the original version, they do these album covers that kind of look like an old Blue Note jazz album. We’re going to do versions of each record with that too, with this kind of real different-looking art, some liner notes in addition to the actual original legit version.

I know people are always asking for unreleased songs from the early years, but was 9th & Walnut essentially like what would have been those songs?

We do have a couple of unreleased songs from each of the various album recordings over the years. I assume there’ll be some kind of place for that. A lot of times, we thought that this one wasn’t good enough to be on the album. Well, what changed? Did that song get better over the years, or should it still not go on the album? I don’t know; maybe there’ll be a time and place for that. Maybe even just an album or two with various random unreleased stuff, or yeah, maybe an extended release of some of these. Some of the albums definitely have more B-sides than others do.

Growing up, I remember there was the Still Hungry bootleg that everybody had. I know that it had four unreleased songs. It’s awesome to hear that there’s more than we thought.

I’m not really familiar with all the bootleg variations. It’s sort of not in my interest to be. That’s just somebody making money off of something that I’ve worked for forty-seven years of my life, but I want to say the one you’re talking about is stuff from Enjoy. There were a lot of extra songs on Enjoy, like maybe six or seven extra songs. I think there were more extra songs on Enjoy than there were on some of the other records.

With any of the Descendents’ albums, do you think their impact on punk has shifted at all over time?

Hmm. Yeah. That’s a tough one. I mean, I’m still getting used to the whole, “you guys are like a seminal band or whatever.” I’m still getting used to that idea. We had our influences. So I don’t know what impact we will have had on culture in the long term. I know that when mall punk happened, there was definitely an uptick in people being interested in the Descendents.

I know that every time there’s a new melodic punk band that becomes popular, I notice people refer to the Descendents all the time. It’s hard for me to understand it. I feel like we’re just part of a continuum, sort of like a river. You know, the river goes along and picks up little sticks and branches, and insects land on the river and go downstream. Bands are constantly contributing to the river or taking water away from the river. We’re just kind of one of those molecules of water in the river, part of a big circle or a continuum.

I’ve been listening to you guys since Everything Sucks. You guys have been considered seminal for at least thirty years.

I don’t know. Seminal is, like, it’s cool, and all that. Like the Velvet Underground were very seminal, you know, but you wonder if you asked them, would they have rather been seminal or been well-known, famous, and made enough money to have a place to live or whatever. Which would they prefer? I like to think I like it. It’s cool to just be part of it all. We were so fortunate to just be in that late seventies LA punk scene. It was like magic. That really was like magic.

Like almost every night of the week, you could go out and, well, it would blow your mind. Like a typical show, you know, Weirdos, Go-Gos, Germs, and Fear, you know, five bucks. A hundred people there, two hundred. It was just so crazy to have all this music happening. And I mean, a lot of it too, some of the lesser-known bands, like The Plugz, The Suburban Lawns, The Crowd, The Last, The Alley Cats, The Bags, just all kinds. I mean, even Devo kind of came out of left field. There’s all kinds of cool music happening. It was crazy to just watch it all. You’d see bands that nobody has ever even heard of, and they were headlining the show. The two that come to mind are The Last and The Alley Cats. They each had their moment in LA where they were like top dog.

I remember trying to find Last albums after hearing the song, “Van.”

The Last were, in terms of songwriting, I feel like Joe Nolte, their main songwriter, really laid the blueprint in terms of how a well-written song should sound or what that feels like. I absolutely worshipped them when I was a kid.

Do you feel any of the albums are of the time, or do you think they still resonate with the newer generation of punk rock kids?

I mean, maybe some of them are both of those things. They’re of the time, and in theory, they still resonate. I think with music, if it’s honestly done and it’s genuine, it’s from a real personality, from the heart, however you want to say that. I think that kind of music can last through different phases. Well, now people are into ska, and now they’re into death metal, and now they’re into whatever they’re into. Now they’re into EDM and whatever. I think a real, well-written song, and that it’s got something behind it, I feel like that can be more timeless than, say, a genre can..

Do you think any of the songs from those older albums aged horribly?

Well, definitely, because at the end of the day, you’ve got to remember, you’re dealing with some white, suburban, sheltered, middle-class little dumbasses writing these lyrics. So, yeah, plus now it’s a whole new world that we live in. There’s all new slang for everything. Almost a new vocabulary in terms of what the younger generation is speaking on a regular basis. They don’t even use any of the same words we used to use. So yeah, totally.

Not a lot of people can say that their whole coming of age, their whole teenage years are all out there on display for people to just look at it, listen to it. Do you have a bunch of shit you did when you were a young dumbass and you’re hoping nobody sees it or hears it, right?

It’s easier for me if, when people ever ask me about any of our lyrics from the late seventies or early eighties when we were just teenage kids and we had our heads up our ass. We had absolutely no way of talking to girls or getting laid or anything. That wasn’t a possibility. Some of the stuff we wrote came from a kind of a weird, bitter chip on the shoulder sort of a place. If people ask me about it, I just say, “Look, I was a dumbass teenager. Weren’t you?”

That’s the thing people have brought up in the last five to ten years; that whole incel thing. When you’re a teen, you’re still learning. Like you were saying, all of this is recorded on albums that are legendary to a lot of people.

Okay. Now you’ll have to fill me in here. I don’t know enough about that word, “incel,” or how it ties in. I mean, maybe it’s not even worth explaining, but I am curious, I suppose.

It’s short for involuntarily celibate, which is what it refers to, and it’s just kind of the misogynistic, sexist guys who blame women for not being able to get laid. People feel some of the older Descendents’ songs, are Incel-y. “Pervert” would definitely be considered an incel-y song. I know you guys haven’t played “Pervert” in years.

So, like with “Pervert,” I mean, obviously, Milo’s kind of in character there, you know? Like he goes, “coochie, coochie, coo.” 

I recognize that, but you guys shouldn’t be held to something that you wrote forty years ago, especially if you acknowledge you were dumb kids. ( I previously used “Pervert” as an example in an article about I Don’t Want To Grow Up.)

I think people seem to tolerate somebody being in character, making almost like a social commentary, or being in character. I think people tolerate that way more in books than they do in music. Yeah. Everything keeps changing. I think it’s good. We’re adding new words to the dictionary, and we’re making some of the old words taboo, and I guess life just goes on, right?

With the re-release of the back catalog, are you going to get some of the deeper cuts into the set lists?

We just kind of choose all the songs that we feel like playing. The songs that we rehearse and keep up to speed can be thrown into the song list or into the encore whenever we might want them. That repertoire is about sixty songs. It’s a bit more than just the fifteen greatest hits.

More than just Somery.

Yeah, there’s a lot to it, and then sometimes something will come out of the woodwork, like some band covered “Good, Good Things.” I don’t know the name of the band. (Note: The band was Drain.) Then all of a sudden it was like a ton of people at our show that only knew that song came to see us play that song, but we don’t always play that song. So lately we’ve been playing that song every show. Otherwise, a bunch of people would be bummed that they drove all that way if we didn’t play it.

I saw you guys in San Diego after things opened up after COVID, and I was excited to hear it. 

Yeah. I don’t know what it is. In our set list, we always kind of thought in a given set list, we’d either play “Silly Girl” or “Good, Good Things.” They’re about the same person and kind of cousin songs, but now lately we’ve been playing both of them.

“Silly Girl” was the bigger song for my friends and me, but “Good, Good Things” grew on me as I got more listens into I Don’t Want To Grow Up.

It’s interesting when a song of yours gets really, really popular. Due to no effort of your own.

Would that be an example of a song that maybe got better over time?

That the song got better? 

Not got better, but the perception of the song. Are there songs that you feel have aged better than other songs over time?

Oh, that’s a great thing to think about. Off the top of my head, I don’t really know. Honestly, I hate to just say, “I don’t know.” I love to see people’s interviews and sometimes just think, “I could never pull that off.” Let’s see, what’s one that they really love and then they didn’t use to really love?

I don’t know. I think some of them, we just shove them down their throats regardless. We always play “Van.” That’s not exactly a crowd pleaser, but we always play it anyway because we love it so much and it’s fun for us to play. It’s in those nines and sevens, all that weird timing. That’s fun for us, you know, because we’re up there, obviously, for the people that came to see us, but we’re also up there to have some fun. I think that when we’re up there having fun and just kind of doing what we want and doing it how we want it, I think people can really tell that and it makes them feel better.

Every time I’ve seen you guys, it’s been nothing but an amazing show.

To be honest, I’m grateful to just still be able to do it. You know, fifteen years ago, I had some real serious health problems. It almost killed me. I’m glad to be doing it. Plus, the older you get, you think about it and it’s like, when I’m taking my last breaths on my deathbed, who the hell do you think is going to be in that room with me? It’s going to be my guys. It’s going to be Karl and Stephen and Milo. Chad and Scott, that’s who it’s going to be. They’re my best friends in the whole world.

You’ve gone on to produce a lot of bands. Was recording Milo Goes to College what piqued your interest in producing records, or were you kind of looking to do it before?

Maybe the seedling of that goes back to me just having a curious mind with respect to music at a very early age. It was the same with the drums. When I was five, I would go in the kitchen and get all the pots and pans and the spatulas and the big soup ladles and the forks, knives, and whatever.

I’d lay that shit out all over the kitchen floor and play drums. It’s like I had an interest in it, even though I had no idea what I was doing. Then I feel like with the producing, the example I always use is, I’ve always been like a curious listener.

When I listen to a song, I’ll listen to the song the first couple of times, but then I immediately start listening to every little part of the song: all the drum parts, all the bass lines, the vocals, the backing vocals, the harmony vocals, the mix, and what kind of guitar tone was used. And I’ve always done this. I think way back to when I was thirteen and I got this album. It was called The Beatles Rarities. It’s a bunch of B-sides and unreleased stuff. There was the song, “Love Me Do“ on that, you know, “Love Me Do?”

Yeah. I’m a huge Beatles fan. 

“Love Me Do” is on that. Every time I would listen to it, I would stop what I was doing and sit there. Without knowing exactly what was going on, I knew there was something wrong with it. I felt like it was that McCartney wasn’t playing the right notes or wasn’t playing in the right key or something. There was something off about the bass. Now, when I got a little older, I realized what it was. The bass is really, really out of tune on that record. It’s so sharp.

I mean, it is so sharp that it almost sounds like he’s playing the song in a half step higher key than the other guys. When I was young, I didn’t know what I was hearing, but I was hearing something that wasn’t right. It’s kind of like at a real young age, I’ve always had that kind of curious mind. I can be a pain in the ass with respect to dissecting a song and turning it inside out. What about the bridge? What if we go to C minor there instead of E flat or whatever it is?

I’ve always been curious that way, and with the sound, too. If I hear a record and I really fall in love with the sound of it, I will listen to that record endlessly for weeks and months because I’m obsessed with trying to know every little thing about it. Then at the same time, if the sound of the record doesn’t please me. It’s like poison to me. I hate it. 

What’s the last record you obsessed over like that?

That’s a good question. Let’s see something really great-sounding. It might be some of those Luna albums or the New Pornographers. I mean, the easy one before that is those first three Billy Idol solo albums. Now, Generation X has been one of my all-time favorite bands, but sonically, I fell in love with those first three Billy Idol albums. I mean, I know every bass, guitar, drum, and vocal molecule on all of those records. I could play all of those songs on any instrument right now.

I’ll get into something and I’ll become just obsessed with the way it was mixed, something like, “OK, I’m not really a fan of this band at all. I’m not a fan of what they do,” but that very first Rage Against the Machine album. The mixing of that just strikes some kind of chord with me. It’s unbelievably powerful and just great and awesome. I don’t really like the band. I could never sit through a whole Rage Against the Machine album, but I like the way it sounds.

How fast are these releases going to come out for the other records? 

I don’t know the exact cadence, but I feel like they’re going to come one after the other, maybe every four, five, or six weeks or something like that. Maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe it’s not quite that quickly. I just wanted them out there because people are constantly talking to me, emailing me, saying they can’t find our stuff, and it’s just like, yeah, let’s get it all out there. I’m excited for these. Just too much of a pain in the ass to try to get that stuff from SST. 

Was there a point where you gave up trying to get the tapes back at all?

Well, no, we got all those rights back. That’s what this is all about. We got all the rights back. It’s more just the waiting game. This is all based on what you’d call a copyright reversion. So, like, in a few, maybe in another year, we’ll start getting ALL stuff back, too.

Are you guys going to try to get some ALL shows going when you get those ALL records back?

We do ALL shows every once in a while. We just played in Tilsonburg, Canada, which is about a two-hour drive from Toronto. It’s near London, Ontario. We just played two shows up there. We play shows every once in a while: Punk Rock Bowling, Riot Fest, or The Fest in Gainesville. All of us are really good friends. We really should do more ALL shows. They’re fun.

I interviewed Chad a couple of months back, and he was telling me about that Buddies Fest. It sounded really cool.

It was fun. I had a great time.

What do you feel are the differences between playing an ALL show and a Descendents show?

The differences would be more on a song-to-song basis, not on a basis of which band name we happen to be using at the time. “I Wanna Be A Bear” is a really different experience than “Educated Idiot.” “World’s On Heroin” is a really different experience than “Van.” I played a little devil’s advocate there because if you try to stereotype what an ALL song is, “Van” would be an ALL song. If you were going to try to stereotype, “World’s On Heroin” would probably be a Descendents song. They’re not, because I don’t write for ALL or for Descendents. I just write, you know, we just write.

Did you have any songs on that Lemonheads album (self-titled, 2006)? I’m trying to think; it’s been a minute since I’ve gone back to listen to that.

Yeah, I wrote three: “Become the Enemy,” “Steve’s Boy,” and the chorus of “Let’s Just Laugh.”

That was a fun album. 

Yeah, I love Evan. It was fun to do that. It was something different. I mean, looking back on it, I feel like it’s maybe too much Descendents with Evan singing. Maybe it’s too much that way. Maybe I should have played softer, or what are those things that those kinds of drummers use? What do they call it? They’re like, they make a kind of mellower tone. Are they called hot rods? I mean, it’s between a drumstick and brushes. It’s like if you took twenty chopsticks and you bundled them all together and you played the drums with that, that big bundle of chopsticks. Any drummer that reads this will know what I’m talking about.

I think all I was saying is that maybe Karl and I playing with Lemonheads, maybe, you know, a little too beefy or a little too muscular for that sort of, I hate to use the word college rock, but Evan’s got a, he’s got a genteel kind of a voice. He’s a natural baritone, and he’s got a smooth voice like butter.

Do you have a favorite song that you like playing from each of the bands ALL and Descendents?

I like playing some of the real weird ones like “Wienerschnitzel.” I mean, I have pride in “Wienerschnitzel” because there’s never been a song like that. You know, it’s like I kind of invented my own little weird genre there. I like playing “Van” and “Wienerschnitzel.” Those are probably my two favorites. “I Wanna Be a Bear” is really fun to play live.

With ALL, I like “Educated Idiot” a lot, and I like “Scary Sad” a lot. That’s a fun one. I like some of those real weird ones like “Greedy” and “I Want Out.” The ones that are like they’re impossible to figure out. There’s so many different time signatures that cannot be figured out.

Are you guys doing anything for the 30th anniversary of Everything Sucks? Do you know if Epitaph is doing anything?

We’ve been kind of talking about it. Maybe we could go do a handful of shows where we play the whole album through, but there’s a few things to me that signal the ship is going down. One of them is if somebody in a band writes a book, I feel like the story’s kind of over. Otherwise, they wouldn’t write the book yet. Same with a movie. With Filmage, I was like, let’s wait till we’re done. Then with that thing where it’s like, come see whatever band playing such and such album all the way through, I got a few thoughts on it.

One, I could probably name on one hand how many total albums in my collection that I think are really good all the way through, top to bottom. When bands play their whole album, a lot of times they’re lowering their quality level. They’re playing a bunch of songs that aren’t that good. They’re neglecting songs on other albums that are better than those songs they’re playing. I get that it’s kind of a time and a place thing and a mood thing. People can relive their whatever when the album came out, so it might be fun. I wouldn’t see us doing a whole tour of that, but if we did a handful of shows of that, it would be fun.

The only argument I can think of with playing the whole album thing is, I saw Elvis Costello do all of Imperial Bedroom, and it was fucking fantastic.

Yeah, I mean, we’ve done it a couple of times before. We’ve played Milo Goes to College all the way through a couple of times before. We did it at two different Riot Fests, like Riot Fest Chicago and then Riot Fest Denver. The other thing, too, Milo Goes to College is like nineteen minutes long. Then you basically play a whole show anyway.

Thank you very much for this. This was super awesome.

I appreciate you making time for us. I’m always kind of blown away that there are people out there who are still interested in what we do. It makes me feel happy. I get happy thinking that we can stoke a few people out.

Milo Goes to College reissue drops on 9/15/25. Preorders for both editions can be found here at Org Music.