Pennywise: The Patriots.

Pennywise play the Vans Warped Tour at the Gold Coast Parklands on March 29

While many of the others are just youngsters singing little songs about wanking and teenage lust - the world may change but getting to first base still seems to be everything when you're young and horny, Pennywise has always stood for honesty and positivity. And that's just a little of what Pennywise have always been about. This is the premier latter day punk band.

 Their seventh and most recent album, Land Of The Free?, was a strident and well-conceived soundtrack for worldwide political activism, catalysed by both the farcical US Presidential elections and the global protests against the World Trade Organization. Songs such as Enemy and Whose Side Are You On? questioned the long-held distinctions of race, religion and nationality. Fuck Authority pointed the finger at all corrupt institutions whether they be local governments and police forces, national institutions, and bodies fuelled by obsessive and dangerously-misused and abused religious beliefs.

After the events of September 11 that put Pennywise in a slightly uncomfortable position: being obviously anti-American or anti-government is currently not a wise position to hold. Again, to fine-tune this explanation, Pennywise don't see dissent and questioning the rulebook as unpatriotic.

"It's not really much harder for us to do what we do," say Fletcher Dragge, Pennywise founder and guitarist. "There was a small period of time when it was pretty tough but I think that was mostly due to the album title, particularly the question mark on the end. There were songs like Fuck Authority, The World Is A Smoking Gun That Is Loaded, Whose Side Are You On? We had an album out there that was pretty anti-American. We had people on the website chat board saying 'I don't like Pennywise any more.' It's like, okay, moron. The point of what happened was taken very hard by a lot of people, including us, and we had our songs pulled off the radio and we agreed with that. It was like 'We don't want a song like Fuck Authority out there when a lot of good cops and fire-fighters have died; men and women who were doing a good job and were good people.’”

"At the same time our policy is also 'What happened on September 11 doesn't mean all the problems in America went away and America is like some beautiful country that can do no wrong now.' We had tragic loss, we all feel for everybody, we donated some money to the cause, I'm sure we're going to be on some charity events coming up. That said, homelessness didn't go away, drug abuse didn't go away, guns didn't go away, there are still people getting murdered on the streets. It's like it was a temporary thing where America came together as one and a lot of the daily problems got put aside but our message isn't going to change.”

"We haven't started writing a new album yet but I'm sure it's going to be a difficult process. However, in reality, it gives you more ammunition because there is a reason for everything happening. We don't know the exact reason. We know that Osama Bin Laden is insane but everyone has to be provoked. A lot of things are going on with our government that we don't know about. There's a lot of crazy stuff. Half the people in this country don't know that we hired Osama Bin Laden to fight Russia. We funded him and gave him weapons," Dragge alleges. "So what is the real motivation for this war? Is it going to spread to Iraq now? Is it going to spread to Iran? Well, yeah, you know it's going there."

Bush's ‘Axis Of Evil’ notion and statement was frightening not only in intent but as an indicator of how far that administration government is trying to run with something that has nothing directly to do with North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

"I think that what needs to be done, needs to be done with the United Nations not by America and any of its supporters," Dragge says. "I agree we had to go over there and do something about Osama Bin Laden because he could have possibly killed a lot more Americans and people of all races worldwide. He wasn't just a threat to America; he was a madman who was a threat to the world. He needed to be taken down and his network broken down. But when you start talking about Iran, Iraq and North Korea... well, I can understand that if Iraq won't let the UN do their chemical weapons search then there's a problem.”

“Let's make it a UN thing, let's not make it a US thing, and keep it going the same way it was going before. We have to be careful otherwise it's basically going to turn into a Third World War. It's a really scary thought to think that it's almost going to be back to America going around bullying people again. Whatever action is taken from now on, it has to be done in a very careful manner, and not by America but by the global community."