Bad Religion - Logo

Logo

Bad Religion's logo has been referred to by fans as the "Crossbuster". It features a black cross with a red prohibition sign over it. It was created by guitarist Brett Gurewitz by drawing it on a piece of paper and showing it to the rest of the band. They supposedly thought it would be a good way to annoy their parents.

In the live documentary Along the Way, frontman Greg Graffin claimed to regret choosing that as their symbol because it may have put off a lot of religious people who he feels could benefit from listening to Bad Religion. When bassist Jay Bentley was asked about it in the same documentary, he claimed it was a symbol meant to "piss off our parents" and that it was "something easy to put on t-shirts and for kids to spray paint on walls"; when people ask him what it means, he says, "whatever you think it means". Guitarist Greg Hetson claims in the documentary that it stands for anti-establishment.

Brian Baker, who joined the band later in their career, sums it up as follows:

“The name Bad Religion and the crossbuster logo came to pass in the minds of two fifteen-year-olds who were trying to find the most offensive name and image they could possibly find for the punk band they were starting in their garage… These are not people who thought that 21 years later they would be on the telephone doing interviews.”

A lot of Bad Religion merchandise including hats, belt buckles, t-shirts, and hoodies contain the Crossbuster. The logo was also used on the covers for their early EPs, 1981's self-titled and 1985's Back to the Known, and the disc for New Maps of Hell. It can also be found on other Bad Religion albums including Suffer (on the back of the boy on fire's t-shirt), No Substance (on Kristen Johnston's right breast, behind one of the actors playing a TV host and on a woman's fingernails), The Process of Belief (inside the booklet there is a small one mixed with all the other symbols) and on 30 Years Live (replacing the zero in 30).