“The guitar playing was secondary. The beer buying was more important.”
“He’s unmistakable,” says Dexter of the man who introduced him to a full band dynamic when Noodles invited him to jam with early outfit Clowns Of Death, with adrenaline-pumping results. “He’s the guy you know, who brings energy and personality. You can’t ignore him when he’s around. He has a way of connecting with others, onstage especially, that makes people smile.”
“He’s organised, studious and ambitious,” says Noodles in return, noting Dexter’s enviable abilities as a songwriter at an early age. “He’s always made stuff happen. He wanted to make his own hot sauce, so he went and figured out how to do it and started a hot sauce company [Gringo Bandito]. He wanted to learn how to fly, so he went off and learned. And then there’s me, who’s just trying to decide what beer to have tonight.”
While we can’t comment on the credibility of the guitarist's self-deprecation, or his choice of beer for that matter, he’s right to focus on Dexter’s capacity for hard work. One of the many reasons The Offspring’s new album took time was Dexter’s bid to finally complete his PhD in molecular biology at the University of Southern California. He eventually managed the mighty feat, graduating in 2017 after completing a 175-page dissertation on HIV research, written under his birth name Bryan, entitled: ‘Discovery of Mature MicroRNA Sequences within the Protein-Coding Regions of Global HIV-1 Genomes: Predictions of Novel Mechanisms for Viral Infection and Pathogenicity’.
As well as affording him the opportunity to use the moniker Dr. Dexter, The Offspring leader’s interest in science made the arrival of a global pandemic an interesting time as well as a terrifying one. “I’m not a practicing virologist,” Dexter clarifies, having recently read a tweet in which a fan suggested, mistakenly, that he’s a world leader in the field. “I don’t want to come across like I’m an expert, but it has been fascinating to see how this all unfolded. I really wish I had more time to work on that stuff.”
“It is strange to have these two things in my life, one that’s so left brain and the other so right brain,” says Dexter of his double life. “I don’t know if together they calm me down, but I think they do.”