Christian punk-rocker Mike Herrera says MxPx just wants to get out there and be positive

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JULY 7, 2005

By Steve Newton

When MxPx bassist, vocalist, and main songwriter Mike Herrera went looking for a recent album to hold up as a model for his group’s latest CD, Panic, he set his sights pretty high. He picked one of the top-selling discs of last year, Green Day’s multiple Grammy-scooping American Idiot.

“Green Day sort of reinvented themselves with that album,” says Herrera, on the line from his home in Bremerton, Washington, “not so much stylistically or musically, but just the whole attitude. It’s almost a new way of life for the band, and I think that’s what this record is for us. You know, [1997’s] Life in General was the first album that we really played together on, and it’s the album that got us recognized with the punk people. Then we put out a buncha records. And now we’ve done another record like that, Panic.”

Recorded in 22 days at the band’s Bremerton home studio by noted knob-twiddler Gavin McKillop (Goo Goo Dolls, Barenaked Ladies), Panic finds Herrera, guitarist Tom Wisniewski, and drummer Yuri Ruley laying down some pretty catchy pop-punk ditties. But bleak titles like “Cold Streets”, “Young and Depressed”, and “Waiting for the World to End” are a tad misleading, as there’s not a lot of negativity emanating from the Billie Joe-inspired noise.

MxPx also contributed a song to last year’s tribute album to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, but they don’t ram their religious beliefs down anyone’s throat.

“We’ve been a band for a long time,” says Herrera, “and we’ve always had the same ideas about music and spirituality and the fact that, for me, it’s a personal thing. A lot of people don’t agree with that, but I don’t care. We just get out there and be positive, and try to relate to people and their lives in a good way.”