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Cooper's sole writing credit is on lyrics to the lead track, "Descendents", which are attributed to the entire band.
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Although Frank Navetta had left the band, one song he had written lyrics for, "Rockstar", was used for the album. In addition to the songs Stevenson had written, the other band members made songwriting contributions to the album. He pulled me aside and he’s like "Hey, I got these songs, but they’re not Black Flag songs, they're really more Descendents songs", and I said "Let me hear them." It was just an instrumental track and he sang over it and sang "Silly Girl" to me and I was like "Wow!" He said "I can't do these in Black Flag." I said "Well, maybe we should do them!" īy April 1985 Stevenson had left Black Flag and he, Aukerman, Lombardo, and Cooper reconvened as the Descendents to record the band's second album. According to Aukerman, the idea to record a new Descendents album originated in March 1985 during the recording of Black Flag's Loose Nut album:īill was recording with Black Flag and he invited me up to do backing vocals for Loose Nut. Stevenson remained in Black Flag, with whom he recorded five studio albums, a live album, and two EPs, and toured consistently from March through December 1984. Navetta ultimately quit the band by setting all of his musical equipment on fire and moving to Oregon, where he became a full-time fisherman. With the Descendents effectively on hiatus, Navetta, Lombardo, and Cooper tried to start a new band, the Ascendants, but only played one show. Flag had all this stuff in progress, so I put Descendents on hold." "When I joined Flag I had every intention of doing both bands but it was physically impossible. "I got in over my head", Stevenson later said. That was a bad scenario." Stevenson soon found Black Flag's touring and recording schedule too busy to allow time for the Descendents. I don’t think Frank even believed him at first. "Frank said no, and I had to say no also, so he said he had to leave the band and we were both kind of bummed out. With this experience, he desired to take the Descendents on tour as well: "I got a taste of touring in Black Flag," he later recalled, "and I wanted to take that and spread it laterally to what the Descendents would or could do." However, he encountered resistance from Navetta and Lombardo: "Bill kind of sat down with me and Frank and said something to the effect of we were at a point where we needed to grow by going on the road", Lombardo later said. Other than that, I'm a nice person." He spent most of January–May 1983 on the road with Black Flag, touring the United States and Europe. "I'm the Descendents' drummer", he said at the time. Stevenson also joined Black Flag in early 1983, intending to be in both bands simultaneously. Cooper preferred playing guitar to singing, however, and the band would occasionally perform with Aukerman as a quintet during his return visits to Los Angeles. In his absence, the band-guitarist Frank Navetta, drummer Bill Stevenson, and bassist Tony Lombardo-recruited Ray Cooper as singer and continued performing locally for a time during 19. The Descendents' first full-length album, Milo Goes to College (1982), had been so named because singer Milo Aukerman was departing the band to attend college he enrolled at El Camino College for one year, then attended the University of California, San Diego from 1983–85, where he studied biology.