We can’t change the thinking of men
We can’t turn right from wrong
Change takes time, we’re willing to work on it
Give us a chance, we’ll give it a try but
We can’t change the world!

 Rome wasn’t built in a single day
Patience is a virtue we still don’t have
Some things we face will be out of our power
Don’t put us down, you have to remember that
We can’t change the world!

 See, society – they're the sheep
Mom’s on drugs, uncle’s a thug
Dad the star in a company car
Sister, brother, don't look out for one another
Poor black sheep.

It's so hard growing up today
Should have it better in the USA
So why are things at home so bad?
Why won’t mom and dad
Listen to the things I say?
Why can’t I ever have things my way? 

I can’t stand hanging around my home
Nag and nag why don’t they leave me alone
Mom says I’m free to leave when I please
But a life out there will never be

We rule and you don’t
We thrill and you won’t
We laugh and you cry
We live and you die

 Snivel and cry you stupid shit
In your conceited face I spit
Smoke some pot, get so mellow
Back off, you coward, you’re yellow

 Shut your mouth you fucking fool
Hang out and shine but you're no jewel
Hide your feelings, don’t be loud
Be in with the out crowd

 They stomp my opinion and feed me theirs
All the mindless do not care
I’ve taken too much, got nothing to give
I’ve got no reason left to live 

I can’t live this life anymore
Rather end it with a war
I’m just another kid from OC
No one ever listens to me

Do the Eddie, do the Eddie
Do the Eddie, do the Eddie
Smoke a joint, play one note
Mike, Matt & the stupidest song ever wrote
Do the Eddie, do the Eddie
Do the Eddie, do the Eddie

And then Richard hung himself.
Just the other day they said that Richard hung himself

 Too many reasons for him to cease to exist
And not enough reasons for him to want to stay
Looking for an escape, a better way than this
He may have found it or may have lost the way 

But Richard hung himself
Just the other day they said that Richard hung himself

 Switch to Pomona behind the cornfield
Around back, underground, where the trees shield
In the corner of the yard, another death room
Where the dead are buried in an unmarked tomb

 Stiff blue painted cat wired to the roof
Cyanide in the darkness and dangling goat hooves
Floor covered in dirt, dead grass, and decay
Now Richard joins them and calls it escape

Reagan plays the liar powers his desire
There's nothing for the world we can do
Reagan plays the lyre the flames are burning higher
While the world burns down around you 

Do you wave the flag? Can you support a man
Who’d rather arm the world than give it food?
As the new master turns the nuclear screw
Laughs as Kiev burns on the six o’clock news

The girls are purple polka-dotted tarts
Playing the game with interchangeable parts
Looking like vamps dressed for the kill
Sharpening claws just for the thrill 

Tonight – We sing a Peasant Song tonight. 

Yeah I see my doll she’s only five foot two
You know she’d use her stockings to strangle you
Ripping up the town she’s my trashy bag lady
She can play cool and she can play shady

 Leaving a trail of death behind
She never returned to the scene of the crime
The vamps say they’re gonna do the peasants wrong
The widows in the fields of this peasant song

 We scream for revolution but nothing will change
We’re left unfulfilled waiting for the reign
In the fields we’ve plowed for generations passed
We are the revolution, we are the masses

 In a hopeless situation of world insanity
The millions dead thanks to man’s vanity
Look into these eyes and see the raging fire
That can only be quenched by freedom's desire

I recently went to see Cheap Trick because my eight-year-old daughter insisted on seeing them. I hadn’t seen them since 1978 and really didn’t know what to expect. Their fans were wonderful – among the most courteous and embracing of any I’ve ever met, and the band was as fun as I remembered them. We stood on Rick Nielsen’s side, and he gestured to my daughter to walk toward the stage, which she did timidly – and he snapped a pick at her, and then bombarded her with twenty more. It was priceless.

As I watched, I remembered being 15 years old and gushing praise on this band, firing off multiple letters to them; receiving answers, guitar picks, bow ties. It was a magical thing – the band and the fan actually communicated. I mean it literally, I actually talked to Bun E. Carlos on the phone once on the Rodney on the ROQ show and I just blabbed on and on about another band and Bun E. patiently allowed it, sharing that he too, was a music fan.

So I stood there in Long Beach, 2004, at a night club – reflecting on how I had seen this same fine band a few blocks away at an arena 200 times the size of this club, some 26 or so years ago – and how the music and the experience was every bit as magical now as it was back then… back when I was starting a band with a guy named Steve who had a love of hooks, melodies, played bass, and loved the Beatles – and a guy named Frank who played an Gibson Explorer just like my hero Rick Nielsen did, and how this lady at the record label – Lisa Fancher – didn’t laugh at me when I asked her to have someone design a typewriter logo for my record, kinda like Cheap Trick’s, and she came back with the logo we all know today…

Tony Reflex

October, 2004

After many shows and a song on the first “Rodney on the ROQ” LP, we signed with Frontier Records in January 1981 and recorded the “Blue Album” in early March. From start to master, the album was done in four days and started hitting the stores in April. Rikk was relieved from the band just as the album was being released, and was replaced by Pat Smear (formerly of the Germs and destined for Nirvana & Foo Fighters). This line up lasted until the end of June when Pat left…

We were planning our first tour for late summer through the fall and Pat couldn't tour. He was replaced by Casey's roommate, Steve Roberts. This line up recorded the “Welcome to Reality” EP in July, which was eventually released in October 1981.

Unfortunately, the “Classic” Adolescents broke up in August 1981 just before our first ever tour was getting under way (oddly enough, we’d never made it out of California). After the break up, Tony formed the Abandoned, Steve & I joined Legal Weapon, Casey formed D.I. and Rikk joined Christian Death after his departure.

The Adolescents reformed in April 1986 after an inspiring reunion show at Fender’s Ballroom in Long Beach. The reformed Adolescents started out with the original “Blue Album” line up. Shows were plentiful and we started working on a new album. By the time the recording of the album was near, Casey and I left the band. Casey wanted to keep D.I. going, and I lost interest. Sandy Hansen took Casey’s place and my younger brother Alfie took mine. They recorded the “Brats in Battalions” album in the mid to late summer, shortly after Casey and I split. The album was eventually released a year later in August 1987.

At the end of 1986, after touring much of the second half of the year, Alfie went off to college and his place taken by Dan Coburn. This line up toured for most of '87 and by the end of the year Tony and Dan burned out and left. Tony went on to finish his teaching degree and started the “Flower Leopards”.

New year... 1988. Rikk and Steve decide to keep the ball rolling. They replace Dan with a guy named Paul Casey and decide not to replace Tony and sing themselves. Paul lasted only four months and quit while they were on tour after a violent feud with Rikk (Rikk is notoriously difficult to get along with at times). So in mid April, I get a call from Soto saying they’re in Salt Lake City with no guitar player. I fly out the next day and join the Adolescents once again. After the tour, we finished the “Balboa Fun Zone” album. Rikk, Steve and Sandy recorded most of the it before they left on that tour. “Fun Zone” was released in June 1988. We stuck it out for another year but broke up for good in April 1989.

After playing [a-delete] some sporadic “reunion” shows throughout the next decade, we decided to get back together in October 2001 following a successful show at The Galaxy in OC (Fender’s Ballroom flashback!) Once again, we started out with the “Blue Album” line up but after a year Casey was replaced by Derek O’Brien, former drummer of Social Distortion, D.I. & Agent Orange; and in the beginning of 2004, Rikk left for the usual reasons.

What happens next? Along with this “Demos” album, an album of all new songs – “OC Confidential” is being released in the late spring of 2005. Whatever else, as is said, only time will tell…

Frank Agnew

October 2004

So we started playing shows and one night I meet this crazy kid. The power had gone out at the club we were playing and while we were waiting for it to come back on, I struck up a conversation with Tony. He was out of control and we became fast friends. The General was going to start a new band and I suggested Tony as the singer. He was into the idea but for whatever reason he ended up reuniting with his old band The Detours instead… Good thing because I got kicked out of Agent Orange shortly thereafter.

So I started a band with Tony, I still called the General because we needed a guitar player and he was cooler than us (i.e. leather and cigs), he passed but suggested his little brother Frank who was quite the guitar player being that he was only 14 years old.

We had some other guys - a drunken Injun named John and a drummer who looked like Peter Pan although he couldn’t fly and seldom wore green tights… They weren’t around for long. John was more concerned with acting like Johnny Thunders instead of playing like him and Pan refused to shave his sorry excuse of a teenage mustache. I think Pans’ girlfriend was supposed to pay for our first demo then pleaded broke when it came time to pay the man. It’s a bit foggy really but they played on a few tracks, then left us behind in a quest for fame and fortune. We had been playing around a bit and had gotten on some cool shows and finally the General came on board. He brought some great songs (Amoeba, Creatures…) and Casey Royer (a Russian spy and former Social D drummer) to replace Pan. He then changed his name to Rikk with two K’s, which really bummed me out because I had been toying with the idea of changing my name to Stevve (two V's) but didn’t want to look like a follower… He beat me to the punch.

We recorded some more of these demos under the watchful eye of Eddie from the Subtitles who had become our manager. He was in his thirties and was totally ok with providing us with pills and liquor… What a guy… Creepy as this all seems now we were quite taken with Eddie and he was quite sure he could take us straight to the top of the punk heap. We even wrote a song about the bastard! So he took these demos around LA and the next thing ya know we got a record deal. He even got us an advance check that he promptly cashed and left town… Thanks, Eddie. So then we made a record proper and if you have this, it’s probably because you already heard it, right? It was blue, right?

Steve Soto

November 2004