The Vandals

Keeping a band together for 28 years - and retaining the same line-up for 18 of those years - is quite a task. Doing that, and still remaining friends is another thing entirely. The secret, according to The Vandals vocalist Dave Quackenbush, is to keep sight of why the band was started in the first place. In The Vandals' case, that would be simply to have a good time.

"We're enjoying ourselves," he says, "and pretty much have been the whole time. I don't know if anyone wants to hear that, but that's what's going on."

It's an odd comment, but delve further into the situation, and it begins to make a little more sense. The band hasn't released an album since 'Hollywood Potato Chip'. Quackenbush, in fact, admits that he can't remember the year the record came out, until reminded that it was 2004. And the touring has slowed down too: the group "only played 10 or 12 shows all last year".

You can only assume that it's a certain amount of guilt, then, that comes from the fact that the band are only playing shows now for their own enjoyment, and no longer relish the idea of being away from their homes for the majority of the year. The punk scene has always valued the idea of living for the music and from the music heavily, after all.

"We're not that active these days," Quackenbush admits - though he does so without a trace of shame.

"We're pretty selective with the shows we play, so we just pick ones that are fun or involve fun places to go. Last year was tough because our guitar player Warren [Fitzgerald] was out playing guitar for Gwen Stefani for 10 months out of the year, and our drummer Josh [Freese] was out with Nine Inch Nails for the same amount of time. In the '80s or '90s, we were doing maybe three or four months out of the year. Sometimes up to six months. As long as we play every couple of months, and have a gig here and there, that's all I really need. I don't have a real yearning to go out on the road. We've done enough of that. It's fun when you're in your twenties, but we're a little older now.

"Our booking agent doesn't like us very much," he adds with a laugh, "because we said, 'hey, we'd like to play some shows', so she booked three weeks worth of shows and then we just crossed out Monday through Thursday. I don't want to play Colorado Springs on a Tuesday just because it's on the way to Denver. At this point in our career, we just don't need to do those kinds of things. It's just kind of silly. We just like to go and have fun, and make it worth our while - pay our expenses to get there and back."

And as far as he's concerned, "That's the whole point of the thing." It's about having fun, these days, and nothing else. "The guys in the band are my friends, so even when we're not playing music together, we hang out. That's what we do. The same as some guys go out kayaking with their buddies, we just play music."

Besides, the band have other concerns - Fitzgerald and Freese with their studio and touring commitments with other groups, and bassist Joe Escalante with his morning show on L.A.'s Indie 103.1FM. As for Quackenbush, he's got his own company to worry about.

"I own a beverage distribution company," he says. "I sell alcohol. I started the business about 15 years ago, and this is my day job. I've always been told, 'keep your day job', and I took that to heart."

But don't worry about the future of the band, Quackenbush says. There are no plans to stop touring, even if the frequency has died down, and plans to record a new album are in the works. Just don't expect anything different.

"All of our stuff is pretty much exactly the same in my opinion. It's just me singing, or Warren singing, and the same guitar sound. In a good way," he chuckles. "I'm sure we'll record something and find a way to get it to people. But the thing with our genre is that fans of our stuff kind of just steal the shit anyway."

"That's why we're coming to Australia: to try and get some money back by selling 'em t-shirts. All those bastards who stole our shit," Quackenbush laughs, before pausing for effect. "We're gonna guilt them into it."

Alistair Wallis

The Vandals play 'Bowling For Soup' tour with Pennywise and Sum 41 at Thebbie on Mon 14 April