More punk than you - the four members of Pennywise have spent the last nine years doing, pretty much, whatever the hell they wanted to.

Formed in 1988 with Hermosa Beach, Calif. (also the birthplace of pioneers such as the Descendents, Black Flag and The Circle Jerks) skate punks Byron McMackin on drums, Fletcher Dragge on guitar, Jim Lindberg on vocals and Jason Thirsk on bass - Pennywise has taken the slow, but steady, route on their way to becoming one of punk's biggest, if least flashiest, success stories.

"What a lot of people don't seem to realize," begins Lindberg with a mixture of pride and defiance, "is that we've been around for eight years now and our latest record sold more than the last - which sold more than the one before that, which sold more than the one before that. If you're playing music, that's all, really, you can hope for, you know? That you're constantly moving forward."

"We've always made a concerted effort to not become overexposed," he adds, "to the point of actually turning down things that would've increased our standing and made money for us. I really think it's every band's responsibility to do what their fans want them to - and," Lindberg laughs, "I think our fans have made it very clear that they don't want us on the radio or MTV and they don't want to see us in big, glossy magazines doing the whole 'sell out' thing. They feel that it cheapens the message of a band like Pennywise and, in many ways, I agree with them. Our fans are the most important thing [to us] and, as long as they're happy, we're happy."

"At the other end of the spectrum," he says hesitantly, as if ashamed to be harboring such thoughts, "you sometimes kind'a find yourself thinking, 'well, why don't we get the respect we deserve?' You know, when you see other bands that don't sell as many records as you do, that don't play to crowds as big as yours - getting all types of press coverage."

"At the same time, if we went back two, or three, or four years and looked at the Billboard Top 200," Lindberg adds, "I bet you wouldn't recognize many of the names. I think that longevity is more important for a band than having one big hit and your ugly mug splashed across magazines and newspapers everywhere - only to become a 'has been' the very next month."

While peer (sort'a) groups such as Green Day, Rancid and the Offspring have struggled, and failed miserably, to achieve anything remotely resembling the success of their respective mega-hit efforts; Pennywise has continued to build on their fanatical following thanks to four solid albums for Epitaph Records (including the recently released Full Circle), thousands of intense live performances on stages across the globe (including the last two Warped Tours), some serious band integrity (the group turned down a slot on the 1995 Lollapalooza main stage because ticket prices were too high while Fletcher once threw up all over a KROQ FM radio host during a broadcast), a tragedy (the 1996 death of Thirsk) and an unrelenting, "blinders on" conviction that Pennywise music is Pennywise music and you just don't fuck with what ain't broken.

"I think a lot of our success has to do not only with us playing the music that our fans expect from us," Lindberg offers. "But, at the same time, by us trying to grow as musicians and become better with each new album. While the fans notice the change in the band, they're still, like, 'Okay, but they haven't strayed so far that they've totally alienated me.' The fans kind'a wanna know what they're gonna get when they shell out the money for your album."

"With Pennywise, they wanna know that they're gonna get 14 really fast songs," he laughs, "with a lot of screaming and a positive message in there. If we were to, all of a sudden, just bust out and play some techno music, you know, or 'let's boogie down tonight', something not consistent with what we're doing," Lindberg explains. "If we were to just write some song for the radio so we could pad our wallets, well, you know, I think that's really talking down to your audience - and there's been a lot of bands who've done that recently."

Featuring 14 blasts of their, by now, standard louder-harder-faster-straighter-edge skate punk roar with Jim's "get off yer ass and fix it yourself!" slogan/lyrics driving a positive message home; certain parts of Full Circle, such as the hyper-pop hook in "What If I," the bouncy tempo of "Every Time," the churning riff of "Did You Really" or the beautiful piano piece that closes the disc, are new additions to the Pennywise sound and show a band willing to open up and experiment even as they mourn the untimely death of a founding member and close friend.

More or less replaced by bassist Randy Bradbury on most of 1993s Unknown Road, parts of '95s About Time and all of Full Circle, while his musical contribution to Pennywise had greatly diminished over the years since the group's 1991 self-titled debut, Jason Thirsk was still a brother for life - so his 1996 suicide after years of escalating drug use hit his friends especially hard.

"This was a really tough year for us," reflects Lindberg. "You learn a lot about mortality and life and death when something like this happens to you. A lot of the songs on this record reflect our state of mind in the aftermath of everything that's happened this year. You know, sometimes, death isn't a reality until it really knocks you down, steps on your neck and pisses down your throat - these songs are our way of trying to appreciate life by understanding that, well, it's gonna end some day."

' "Destiny", "Final Day", "Did You Really" and "Every Time" were all written after Jason's death," he adds, "and are about what we were going through as we tried to deal with it. You know, I wouldn't ever want anyone to think that we were trying to capitalize on a tragedy, but, I really don't think you can be honest as an artist or a musician if you don't speak about what's going on in your life. Besides, the situation was definitely something that had to be addressed."

"This was an incredibly difficult album, mostly on an emotional level, for us to make," Lindberg says of the studio sessions for Full Circle. "I think we reached a new level of intensity in that we only did one or two takes of every song and we totally put our hearts into everything. We played the songs on pure emotion, instead of trying to get a certain guitar part or a vocal to sound totally precise."

"We really wanted to capture the energy, intensity and emotion that was there when we wrote them," he says as he recalls songs written in tribute to his late bassist and friend. "We worked really hard to make Full Circle sound exactly like we wanted it to sound, and I think we actually came pretty close to recreating what we heard in our heads."

"As for the lyrics," Lindberg offers, "I like for there to be a point to the song as opposed to a song made just for the sake of the music. Now, when something like that's done well, it sounds cool. But, half the time, you can tell that the band was just trying to write something for people to sing along to when it came on the radio."

"Pennywise lyrics are, sort of, like two friends talking to each other about various situations," Lindberg says as he explains the band's occasionally didactic messages. "They're also interpersonal in the sense that, on a lot of these songs, we're also talking to ourselves."

"Singing 'You do this and you do that,' " he concludes, "well that's also how you talk to yourself. You know, that's you telling yourself not to waste time, not to take for granted or miss out on the opportunities waiting out there for you."

"Those are the sort of things I have to constantly keep reminding myself not to do," Lindberg says sadly, "and, like anything worth doing, they're the sort of things that take practice and need repeating."