Brian Baker got a rented acoustic guitar when he was eight, right around Christmas. During that same Christmas, his best friend (who would later be the guitarist in S.O.A. and the Faith and Embrace) got a guitar. They quickly formed their band, kind of like The Everly Brothers, but they hardly knew how to play. He has never not had a guitar since he was eight. He begun his career back in the early 1980s in the DC hardcore band Minor Threat (which would become Fugazi). There he played bass by default, but also guitar when the band added a fifth member to play bass. In the mid-80s, when the Misfits split (around the same time as Minor Threat) Glenn Danzig set up Samhain, and Brian played at early jams and rehearsals, together with Lyle Preslar and Jeff Nelson. He was an actual member of the band too, for about 10 minutes. From there, Brian went on to the seminal Meatmen (for a few minutes too), before leaving to form Dag Nasty. The latter had close ties to Fugazi's Ian MacKay, who co-produced the group's first three records; eventually, however, Dag Nasty would move over to Epitaph for just one album. Brian's next step was into the majors with Junkyard, who released two albums on Geffen, before he finally joined Careless. He was also in Government Issue and other bands. He first met BR several years ago when Dag Nasty released their album Four on the Floor via Epitaph, although he had known Hetson since 1981. In 1994 he was working as a guitarist-for-hire, he had just finished a stint with Tommy Stinson's Bash and Pop and was working in a pool hall; the very same week he had been asked (and had accepted) to fill in for Peter Holsapple of R.E.M., and was preparing to join R.E.M.'s Monster Tour, he got the call from BR offering him the job. He considered R.E.M. one of the biggest bands in the world, but also considered BR one of the biggest punk bands in the world. So two days after Greg's call he phoned R.E.M. again to tell them he was joining BR, he packed his bags, sold his car and left the Hollywood bar scene to move to Washington DC. and begin his new career; or as he puts it "that's me in the corner, choosing Bad Religion". "Touring for 19 months with one of the biggest bands in the world isn't exactly a shitty offer, and I was absolutely blown away that these R.E.M. people even knew who I was (...) My best friend Nathan [ex-Careless] got the gig. After the Monster tour ended, Nathan bought a house and built a home studio in the backyard. He's happy. I rent a one bedroom apartment and record my songs with an acoustic and a boom box, but I am in Bad Religion. I'm happy". His first gig with BR was at a festival in Germany. Greg at a DC concert (4/96): "This is our new guitarist, Mr Brian Baker -don't you think he sounds a lot better than that other guy?". He says his only real influence, the one you can still hear when he plays today, is Captain Sensible from The Damned. He heard him and that's how he wanted to play guitar. He wanted to look and sound like him, and learned every single note he ever played. And according to Brian everything he plays to this day is a combination of Captain Sensible and Angus Young. He now lives in D.C. In 1997 he recorded an album with Ric Ocasek on vocals, Mellissa from Hole on bass and the drummer from Nada Surf (whose albums are produced by Ric). I think Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins produced the album. Brian says that if someone writes his biography the title should be "Arrogance and Affluence: the rise and fall of Brian Baker". And another thing... his earliest childhood memory is falling out of the back of a convertible and cracking his head open when he was 2 years old. Biography Written by: Roger Vulture and Michael Murphy |
