Interview by Kris Peters
Punk royalty hits Australia next week when Californian punk legends Pennywise return to our shores as part of Good Things 2023.
The lovable larrikins were only out here for a massive headlining run of shows last year, but such is the demand for their musical prowess and undeniable charm the good folk at Good Things have spun their plane straight back around and pointed it back in this direction.
Pennywise will be joining Fall Out Boy, Limp Bizkit, Devo, Corey Taylor, Bullet For My Valentine, Behemoth, Sepultura, Enter Shikari, Frenzal Rhomb and more for a run of three shows through Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, with lead singer Fletcher telling HEAVY in a recent interview that the band is frothing at the bung to get back out here and play.
Given their almost four decades of service to the Gods of Punk it is almost a given that Pennywise have played with pretty much every band on the planet at some stage of their careers, but that doesn't dampen Fletcher's spirit when it comes to festival gigs.
"I don't know the whole line-up, but I know there's a couple of Aussie bands that I haven't heard of but people said I should check out," he said. "I think we've done Bullet For My Valentine before. Devo… we've played so many big festivals that we've probably played with every single band (laughs) but we just haven't seen them. Darren Hawthorn is our guy over there and our usual tour manager, and he actually works for Good Things on the production side so he'll have our list of dos. He will be like 'you're going to watch this band today, let's go'. And we'll grab a couple of beers, and we'll go check it out. We'll be making the rounds for sure. Obviously, Devo is one of the bands that turned my life around and got me into punk rock, so I'll be checking them out as much as possible. And Limp Bizkit as well. I'm a fan. I know a lot of people wanna hate them, but we toured with them on the Warped Tour when they were tiny and there was 300 people wathing them play, and I liked it. I liked it from the get go. It's hard, it's heavy. Yeah, it can get kind of goofy at times, obviously, but they're all cool guys and have always been good to us, so I will definitely check out some Limp Bizkit. Fall Out Boy is another band. Not my real go-to cup of tea if you must know the truth, but great songwriters with a good live show. We'll be making the rounds. It's gonna be a great tour. I like the diversity."
In the full interview, Fletcher tells us what it's like backstage at shows like this, catching up with old friends you might not have seen for a while, their sideshows and how they will differ from the festival appearances, the early days of the band and where they fit in, what makes the Californian punk scene so special and more.