Bush bashers Bad Religion and Less Than Jake BY SEAN RICHARDSON

This year’s Warped Tour ends its two-month crescendo this Friday in Foxborough, where more than two dozen acts are set to converge for a special 10th Anniversary Reunion Show. After that, just about everybody involved in the venerable punk trek will turn his or her attention to another red-letter day: November 2. The build-up to Election Day is already under way: on August 10, Fat Wreck Chords and Punk Voter released the second volume of their best-selling Rock Against Bush compilation. That same day, scene mainstays NOFX made their live television debut, performing the uproarious "Franco Un-American" on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

Bad Religion, who appeared on every date of the Warped Tour this summer and are also performing at the reunion show, are a big part of the punk initiative to remove Bush from office. The LA band contributed the scathing "Let Them Eat War," from their current The Empire Strikes First (Epitaph), to Rock Against Bush. And bassist Jay Bentley wrote an essay on the Nader factor for the Punk Voter Web site. "I spent a lot of time talking to [NOFX frontman] Fat Mike," he says, "and we came to the conclusion that the goal is to find the best person to remove the president. I don’t think Kerry is the answer for humanity, but I think he’s the answer to get Bush out. On this tour, there’s no reason for me to be up there saying Bush is a bad president, because I think most people agree. But it’s important to make people understand that come November, they need to go to the polls."

Bad Religion have never been a one-trick pony, so it makes sense that "Los Angeles Is Burning," the first single from Empire, should deviate from the album’s anti-Bush norm. On that track, the band have a bone to pick with the media circus that surrounded last year’s Southern California wildfires. "More a question than a curse/How could hell be any worse/The flames are stunning, the camera’s running, so take warning," howls frontman Greg Graffin, making clever allusions to classic titles by his own group and Operation Ivy. In the video, he portrays a television anchorman with devil horns on his head. Despite the element of disgust in the song, it boasts the prettiest melodies on the disc — a Bad Religion trademark.

"In LA in particular, I think you get desensitized to tragedy," Bentley muses. "It’s just another news item, no different from what’s happening on Jerry Springer or 60 Minutes. It’s all a flash of information that you don’t really respond to. I’ve found that once you get out of that scenario, you start reacting like a normal human being. When something bad happens, you actually have a sense of empathy for the people involved. It was written while LA was physically burning, but it’s got the allegorical side where the media are blowing it out of proportion, because they want you to watch their program versus another company’s program."

Two years ago, after a long stint on Atlantic, Bad Religion reunited with founding guitarist Brett Gurewitz and his Epitaph label for The Process of Belief. As is often the case, that return to roots resulted in renewed interest in the band on radio and in retail. Around the same time, they also hired new drummer Brooks Wackerman, a skilled player who (like returning guitarist Brian Baker) once spent time on the Hollywood hard-rock scene. All of which makes for something like a dream line-up — even though Gurewitz’s day job means he’s seldom able to join the group in concert. Don’t count on seeing him in Foxborough (but do expect the main-stage bands to play a little longer than Warped’s customary half-hour).

"When we put out Process, Brett came out on that first tour," Bentley explains. "He had a great time, but that was when he realized, ‘I can’t do this, because it takes too much time away from my job.’ Unlike the rest of us, who can have this Peter Pan existence, he actually has to get up and go to work in the morning. So he’s pretty much come to this thing like, ‘Look, I’ll play any show I can drive to.’ " According to Bentley, a part-time Gurewitz is better than none at all. "It’s what I’ve always thought of as Bad Religion, which is having Brett and Greg both writing. And then with Brian and Brooks, all of a sudden you’ve got this super-talented band."

A decade after the release of their best-known album, Stranger Than Fiction, Bad Religion remain one of punk’s most idiosyncratic treasures. Empire starts off fast and furious, breaking the three-minute mark only once in its first seven tracks. "Sinister Rouge" sets a goth choir and lead-guitar pyrotechnics to a hardcore beat; "Social Suicide" and "Atheist Peace" deal in soaring harmonies and anti-conformist rage. "Let Them Eat War" starts with an uplifting guitar fanfare and moves into a righteous breakdown starring Epitaph rapper Sage Francis. The chorus is a bitter refutation of the idea of war as a tonic for economic woes: "Let them eat war/That’s how to ration the poor."

The disc’s second half is more diffuse, with bigger words and slower rhythms. On "The Empire Strikes First," the band revive the beat from their greatest hit, "21st Century Digital Boy," and Graffin brings some arena-ready vocal theatrics to the protest. "Even 10 million souls marching in February couldn’t stop the worst/C-c-c-couldn’t reverse," he spits, as Baker supplies the raunch. The singer shows off his PhD on "Beyond Electric Dreams," which threatens to fall off the sci-fi deep end. But the closing "Live Again" brings things back to earth, challenging the religious values at the root of all the warmongering: "Live again, live again/Would you give it all up to live again." After all these years, complacency is still not an option for Bad Religion.

LIKE BAD RELIGION, Less Than Jake are as popular as ever today, after years of straddling the mainstream and the underground. The Florida band have been through the industry wringer, leaving Capitol for Fat Wreck Chords at the beginning of the decade. Last year, they surprised scenesters everywhere when their Sire debut, Anthem, became their most successful release. They’ve kept the momentum going this summer, drafting Billy Bragg to appear with them on Rock Against Bush and playing the main stage on Linkin Park’s gigantic Projekt Revolution festival. The group are taking a day off from that gig to hit Foxborough for the Warped reunion show.

Since they’ve never been shy about their pop and ska influences, Less Than Jake have always been hurting for cool points. But last year’s hit video for "The Science of Selling Yourself Short" is a top-notch alt-rock guilty pleasure. "I’ve been spending my time at the local liquor store/I’ve been sleeping nightly on my best friend’s kitchen floor," sings bassist Roger, in his girliest voice. The goofy, half-animated clip follows him from the poker table to the strip club to the hospital bed. The band share the hard luck: guitarist Chris sings the bridge, and drummer Vinnie wrote the words. The bright melodies and easygoing ska rhythms make it a slacker anthem Sublime would be proud of.

As they plan their next album, Less Than Jake are keeping busy with a handful of auxiliary projects. The most significant of those might be Vinnie’s label, Fueled by Ramen, which has a development deal with Island and is in the process of breaking its first band, recent Alternative Press coverdudes Fall Out Boy. The label also just put out The People’s History of Less Than Jake, a DVD full of archival concert footage. And the group have a new Sire CD, B Is for B-Sides, full of "12 unreleased Anthem session tracks."

It may seem that Less Than Jake are selling themselves short with that marketing scheme, since the songs are all brand new to American consumers. But it ends up making sense, since Anthem producer Rob Cavallo (Green Day) gets credit on only two of the tracks; the band produced the rest of B-Sides themselves. That makes it a much rawer affair than its predecessor, which for obvious reasons did not include the pair of one-minute in-jokes here. One of those, "Jay Frenzal," is a sordid tale of drunken vandalism that’s tailor-made for mix CDs. Some of the choruses scream for Cavallo, but the losers’ sing-alongs "Portrait of a Cigarette Smoker at 19" and "Goodbye in Gasoline" get the party started just fine. And "National Anthem" does twentysomething malaise as only a mid-level alt-rock band can: "My American dream is to have it/A little better than my parents ever had it." The desperation in Chris’s voice on that song shows that Less Than Jake have found a way to rock against Bush without even mentioning the war.

Bad Religion and Less Than Jake play the Warped Tour 10th Anniversary Reunion Show this Friday, August 20, at the Gillette Stadium parking lot in Foxborough; call (508) 543-3900.