The fact that Dexter Holland has a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Southern California is often mentioned in profiles of The Offspring's frontman. But rarely do fans of the Orange County punk veterans get to hear Holland - or Dr. Holland, as he never asks to be called - talk about the specifics of his academic work, and the reasons for his interest in this particular field.
A new interview with The Offspring's vocalist/guitarist in Men's Health rectifies this. For when writer Ryan D'Agostino asks the 58-year-old musician why he elected to focus upon HIV in his studies - work which led to a dissertation titled Discovery of Mature MicroRNA Sequences Within the Protein-Coding Regions of Global HIV-1 Genomes: Predictions of Novel Mechanisms for Viral Infection and Pathogenicity - Holland sounds positively delighted to share his enthusiasm for the subject.
“I know this sounds funny to say, but I think viruses are cool,” Holland explains. “They’re cool because they’re so gnarly. They go in and they take over your cell, and they tell the machinery to stop making cellular things and start building viruses, so all the things that would normally be making your mitochondria, or your cell membrane, those parts now get taken over and turned into hundreds of viruses—little robots!—and when the virus has finally used up all the stuff in your cell, the last instruction is: Blow the cell up! And the viruses go out, and it’s just evil! It’s like Darth Vader stuff, right?”
