He formed Bad Religion in 1979 at age 15 when he was in high school. The band released a self-titled EP in 1981 and disbanded in 1984, re-forming in 1987. They signed with Epitaph Records and recorded Suffer, releasing it in 1988.
The three more popular records on Epitaph are No Control, Against the Grain, and Generator. He recorded a solo album in 1996, called American Lesion. The band recorded The Process of Belief in May 2001 and released it in the end of the year with the first hit "Sorrow" which came out the United States in winter 2002.