The story of The Offspring in 10 songs Dexter Holland and Noodles guide us through The Offspring’s musical history – from mainstream mega-hits to all-out punk ragers. Words: Ian Winwood With a good-natured laugh, Dexter Holland recalls that “so many people come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I thought your band’s music was really happy – until I read the lyrics’”. Sometimes maligned, often misunderstood, for almost 40 years The Offspring have been a standard-bearer for the kind of American punk rock that cracked the U.S. mainstream in the middle years of the ’90s. In this, the group from Orange County played as pivotal a role as any; released in 1994, to this day their third LP, Smash, remains the highest-selling independent rock release of all time.