Pennywise Interview

5 Pennywise lives, loves punk rock MUSIC INTERVIEWS

By KELLI FADROSKI

Daily Titan Staff

Being in a band for more than one album is a major accomplishment in today’s music scene.

If a band is able to truly focus on its music and hurdle the pressures of labels, marketing and publicity, the band might be lucky enough to last a decade.

To tough it out for more than 15 years and still be touring, writing, recording and selling albums proves gut instinct prevails over conforming to what’s popular.

With each album, Pennywise becomes more intense, more passionate and defi nitely more furious. The Hermosa Beach punk legends have unleashed their all-out musical assault on the problems of society today. The Fuse, the band’s 10th album, was released in August and takes Pennywise back to its fast-paced roots, as the album was recorded in a 41-day whirlwind.

Vocalist Jim Lindberg, guitarist Fletcher Dragge, drummer Byron McMackin and bassist Randy Bradbury took a cue from their punk forefathers – Black Flag, Bad Brains and Minor Threat – and decided collectively to push through the process and release their most raw album in years. As the pressure was applied, the band squeezed out 15 tracks without looking back.

“We worked on it like the old school punk albums we grew up on,” Dragge said. “Those were recorded in, like, days and the sound might be shitty, and stuff is out of tune and there are problems technology wise ... but the passion of those albums is what’s moving. We were trying to get a hold of some of that but at the same time ... we had to have a good sound.”

Pennywise didn’t head into the studio with any particular direction, just a slew of songs that had been brewing in the guys’ minds.

“Everyone starts writing songs and you don’t really fi nd a direction for it until you start picking at your songs and you have fi ve or six songs that you like and you start fi nding a theme of the album,” Dragge said. “[The new album] is all over the place thematically. We’re a little politics, a little bit of hope and a little bit of negative images in life.”

The band’s previous album, From the Ashes, was recorded in twice the time it took to record The Fuse.

The guys found themselves just “letting it go” and trusting that the energy they packed into each day would carry the album.

“It was really enlightening to just do it and go, ‘Wow that sounds good,’ and then move on,” Dragge said. “I really liked the album and thought it turned out really good ... We were willing to let it go. It was an easier and more fun process than it had been in previous years.”

“‘Disconnect,’ the fi rst single, received constant play on rock radio in Southern California.

“Jim wrote that one and in my eyes it’s such a fast paced world with cell phones and palm pilots, blackberries and laptop computers, you can’t imagine life without a cell phone,” Dragge said.

The underlying message isn’t to completely bash technology and revert to the days of stuffi ng change into socks just in case the need to use a pay phone presented itself.

“We’ve become so reliant on email and we are constantly bombarded,” Dragge said. “Before, when you were driving from L.A. to San Diego it was quiet time, but now you have 13 business calls. Sometimes you just want to unplug and go back to when it was more peaceful and quiet, when you didn’t have ‘You’ve got mail’ popping up in the background or 10 missed calls. You want to just disconnect and go back to the simple life but you can’t because we’re moving that fast and without it you are totally screwed.”

Although only 15 tracks appear on the new album, the guys created nearly three times that before they recorded the new disc.

“If you want to go the political route, we could write 50 albums,” Dragge said. “We’re never going to run out of topics. We’re about ... having songs that we think are all good. We try to put out an entire album of good songs and we actually fi ght until the end to make sure that every song is a good song.”

Now that the secret is out that there are so many extra songs fl oating around, the true fans continue to wait for a B-side album to emerge.

“There are literally hundreds of songs,” Dragge said. “We talk about doing a B-sides release, but we never get around to it. We have a ton of songs that are in their early stages and even some in the fi nished stage but they’ve never gotten heard and probably never will.”

With years worth of material, the band has to narrow their live set down tour after tour to accommodate the classics as well as new material. The band does have their favorites to perform live.

“There are a couple that really stand out,” Dragge said. “‘Every Single Day’ has one of those break downs and an ending that goes completely crazy. With ‘Fuck Authority,’ the energy of the crowd is huge because they can relate to it and they just cut loose. ‘Bro Hymn’ really has the most emotion to it and it’s our biggest song.”

“Bro Hymn” is Pennywise’s signature. Released on 1997’s “Full Circle,” the band has yet to complete a set without playing that song. “It’s a hit song, but it was never a hit song,” Dragge said. “People feel so strongly about it and they just go crazy. There can be a mediocre show and it’s not going crazy, but then you play ‘Bro Hymn’ and, boom, it’s nuts ... It’s a secret weapon. Other bands say, ‘We’re not playing after Pennywise; we’re not playing after ‘Bro Hymn.’’ I’m just like, ‘You’re Bush, you’re Gavin from Bush, don’t worry about it.’ These huge, big bands say they don’t want to play after us, especially after that song and it’s funny.”

Pennywise isn’t out to win any awards or keep up in the Billboard pop-race. The guys are satisfi ed with their situation and their music.

“Everything has become so done and played out,” Dragge said. “The bands are add-water these days. ‘I’ve got my instruments and I’ve made a recording in my bedroom with my Pro Tools rig and now I’ve got a Myspace page and 10,000 listens, and I don’t have a record label and I’ve got my tight pants on and fi ngernail polish and my tight shirt on’ … nobody is original, and nothing seems passionate. It’s so hard to hear something that sounds real and original now.”

Although the pop music scene has become rather cookie-cutter, Dragge refuses to dismiss it totally.

“There’s a million other bands that are super into what they do that are good, but it’s not something that you go, ‘Wow-must have,’ like when you put on Rage Against the Machine or Nirvana’s N e v e r m i n d, something that just goes, ‘Wow.’ When’s the last time we’ve had that,’” Dragge said. “System of a Down: They are different and they have a crazy singer and an original fl avor and they are one of the biggest bands in the world and I’m not giving out any secrets when I say that they are a good band. You have to dig pretty deep and in your own back yard and fi nd people that are doing it because they love it, and not because they want to be rock stars and on a major label and have 24-inch rims on their Hummer.”

The allure of money can be strong, but when the passion is deeply rooted, it’s hard to break away from what is cherished and not become an industry robot.

“At this point we can’t really change,” Dragge said. “We could

All I know is that I like the music we play, I like to listen to our albums and I like playing live.

Fletcher Dragge Guitarist for Pennywise “ ”

KELLI FADROSKI/Daily Titan Pennywise frontman Jim Lindberg delivers a verbal lashing to fans.

be a pop-punk band and we could write some ska songs and shift to whatever is popular, but we’ve kept a certain integrity in our music for all of these years and we’ve survived pop-punk, nu metal and we’ll survive the emo-screamo thing. The scene has kinda separated the troops a little bit, but we just keep doing what we do.”

When Dragge attempts to predict what the next trend in music will be, endless possibilities blow his mind.

“I think once everyone takes a good hard look around and realizes that everyone looks the same and plays the same style of music and realizes that they don’t want to be robots, then they’ll move on to something else,” Dragge said. “I don’t know what it will be; I can’t imagine what will be shocking or fresh at this point because everything’s just been played to the gills. I mean maybe we’ll have rap-punk rock or rap music with super fast infused punk or country-rap.”

If rap-punk or country-rap takes off in the next few years, it’s safe to bet that Pennywise will once again not conform to the new “popularnorm” and continue to play the punk they set out to play more than a decade ago.

“All I know is that I like the music we play, I like to listen to our albums and I like playing live,” Dragge said. “I like all kinds of music but this is what I’m passionate about.”

Pennywise is not big on taking long breaks, so rest assured that if they’re not seen around town, they’re writing new songs or in the studio preparing for a new album.

The guys plan on continuing to tour and will enjoy their downtime.

“Everyone has got different things,” Dragge said. “Byron hangs out and goes to a lot of events ... We’ll go to the drag races or Indy car races, skate or surf contests. Randy spends a lot of time with his family, writing songs. Jim writes songs, spends time with his family, surfs, goes to bars and gets drunk. I’ve been skating a lot lately and working on old cars and giving some people tattoos if they bother me enough.”

With no plans of slowing down, and members already working on new material, Pennywise will continue to ride the tide of The Fuse.

“We’ve always had the underlying message of no matter what you do, you can get what you want out of life if you’re willing to put the effort in and no dream is unreachable. We’re living proof of that,” Dragge said.

Pennywise will be performing at the House of Blues in Anaheim on Dec. 14 and 15.