- Memorable Screwball Shows, Pennywise Band Merchandise and Band T-Shirts
Pennywise – Bro Hymn
Any memorably screwball shows?
(Read All Pennywise Articles) – Every time we play, something weird’s going to happen — all the way from playing in our friend’s backyard for two people to playing big festivals in Europe. We’ve pretty much had everything and in between.
They even have some of the most incredible Pennywise band merch that anyone would be proud to wear.
DIY punk rock is now corporate punk rock: What happened?
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It’s unfortunate, but it’s a progression that’s come about because so many people are into punk band merchandise & music. It attracts a lot of people out there with a certain mind-set; whenever that happens, you’re going to have people following the money and people trying to exploit that.
How do you account for the band being around so long?
Probably just sticking to our roots and doing things our own way. We don’t change for any kind of trends. We play the kind of music we want to play and don’t listen to anyone else. You have to stick to what you believe in. People can say what they want — like you said, the songs all sound the same, but we’ve been around 20 years, so we proved ‘em all wrong.
Can you describe that magical power that music has?
A lot of times music brings about something deep inside of us that we didn’t know how to express. Having it put into musical form with drums, distorted guitar, pumping bass and screaming vocals makes it that much more visceral and urgent, especially when you hear a song about something you believe in. That’s why you’ve got so many people who base their lives around music.
Is there a little-known fact about Pennywise?
Probably that we’re all very pro-American. Everyone is proud to be an American and happy to be living in this country. We just want it to be the best place on Earth.
Another Pennywise Interview
Even a stopped watch is right twice a day. Not that there’s ever been anything broken with the music of Pennywise, a band who’ve haven’t strayed far from the muscular and melodic Southern California punk style they helped to popularize in the early ’90s. It’s just that as styles in popular culture shift year in and year out, the band might themselves falling in and out of favor while they themselves remain true to their roots, says bassist Randy Bradbury. This definitely seems to be an up year for the band, who’ve just released their ninth studio album “Reason to Believe” on long time home Epitaph in conjunction with MySpace Records. Offered in the first two weeks for free on the social networking site, the band logged some 400,000 downloads. Metro caught up with Bradbury on the road from Myrtle Beach.
You just released the new album for free through MySpace. That seems to be the new business model that’s going to make sense for bands.
Well, it’s the new business model that music fans want… they want to go get their music for free. And the Internet has opened up so many possibilities for that to happen. So we’re just embracing the inevitable. It’s worked way better than we could have imagined. We’ve always said most importantly we want to get our music out there to as many people as we can… Anyone that can relate to our music and is into it, we want them to be able to hear it….You just have to accept it. You’re not selling CDs, you’re not making as much money, but you’re still doing what you love. We’re really pleased with it.
Will more kids be at a show singing the new songs now?
Yeah, an unexpected plus to this is we do have more kids at shows singing a long to the new songs where before they wouldn’t have known them. The shows are packed… We have a really loyal following anyways. We don’t want to take it for granted, we’ve always been lucky to have a packed house.
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