Guitarist Stephen Egerton is the virtuoso buzz behind the Descendents fast, frantic, upbeat punk rock that has helped redefine the genre, as well as help create pop-punk. The legendary act is currently on tour with fellow old-school classic acts the Circle Jerks, and the Adolescents, and the band has shown no signs of switching to decaf anytime soon.
“The music industry on the recording side has changed so dramatically, and really it is still in flux,” Egerton said before a show at Houston’s House of Blues. “There’s still a strong interest in live music, and in our case, we enjoy the experience.”
Stephen Egerton has also produced music in his downtime. Photo by Jeff Neumann
There are certain punk guitarists like Brian Baker from Bad Religion that get a lot of credit for their sphere influence, but it is easy to hear the Descendents signature guitar sounds in bands they helped birth like blink-182, MxPx, NOFX and countless others.
“I don’t notice it, I mean there were so many great guitar players from many eras and generational times of punk being 50 plus years old, there’s just a massive range of talented guitarists that come through,” Egerton said.” Usually, someone will have to say ‘I was influenced by your playing’ when I can sort of catch it. Music is a continuum- people are learning from each other all the time. We build on what was given before, so it’s nice to think that I’m part of that.”
The influence remains generational, as younger fans whose parents grew up with the band are going to shows, and word-of-mouth continues to spread from the band playing high-profile festivals, being name dropped by artists like blink-182 and Foo Fighters, and their songs being covered by newer bands. Hard core act recently Drain covered “Good Good Things” on its debut album with Epitaph.
“I’m always surprised by (especially on this run), the amount of young people that have discovered this music,” Egerton said. “It is not uncommon to find a healthy amount of 20-year-olds in front and enjoying going to the shows. There were different stages when records came out in different times, and we just happened to fit in some weird, niche culturally thing. When we did the ‘Everything Sucks’ record punk was really exploding and being played on the radio, and that was something we never expected to happen, and as the bands were getting bigger and younger fans were checking out punk rock and they would start to trace their way back they’d stumble upon us, so there’s a whole group of people.”
In 2021, the band released “9th and Walnut,” which consisted of songs written in the late 1970s/ early 1980s, but were never recorded until recently and shown how older songs could sound with new recording techniques. According to Egerton, the band hopes to have new music out next year.
“In general, our records have all four of us contributing equally,” Egerton said. “We don’t have that much left to record before we can put something out, which would be 9 years since our last album.”
By MIKE DAMANTE
If you are a fan of pop-punk, Mike Damante’s latest book “Hey Suburbia: A guide to the emo/pop-punk rise” is out now, and features interviews with Descendents, Alkaline Trio, blink-182, New Found Glory and others.