How I found Pennywise... for life

I first heard Pennywise sometime in 2001.

I didn’t find them on the internet. I didn’t even have internet at home.

I found them in a video game.

The game was Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX.

I absolutely loved that game. Not just the game itself, but the soundtrack - Pennywise, Social Distortion, Deftones and so. I would sometimes leave the game running even when I wasn’t playing, just so the music could play in the background while I was in my room.

That probably sounds completely ridiculous today.

But back then, music often came to me through games, friends, whatever happened to be going around.

I didn’t have internet on my PC at the time, so there was no easy way for me to immediately look up a band I liked. If I heard something I liked, I had to somehow find it.

And then there was Pennywise.

The first song that really got me was Greed.

I absolutely loved it.

For a while, I listened to Greed over and over again. Eventually I managed to get Bro Hymn too, which felt like a pretty big deal at the time.

Then, as sometimes happens, I moved on to other things for a while.

Maybe three months or five. I don’t really remember.

Then one summer in 2002maybe, I started listening to Pennywise again.

When I have internet finally, I was using an instant messenger back then of course, and I put Pennywise as my status. Basically my “now playing” status.

A little while later, a friend from my neighborhood messaged me. He had noticed my status.

He had just received a Pennywise CD - Land of the Free? - and asked if I wanted to come over and listen to it.

I don’t think I even shut down my computer.

I just ran a few houses down to his place.

We listened to that CD several times that day.

Of course, as two angry teenagers, Fuck Authority was probably the one that hit us the hardest. But there was My God, Enemy, WTO, Divine Intervention… the whole thing just kept playing.

And I wanted more.

Luckily, there was more.

Pennywise have been with me ever since.

Since 2001, I’ve probably listened to them hundreds of thousands of times. I’ve seen them live several times. I’ve bought so much of their merch that I could probably qualify as some kind of unofficial sponsor.

I’ve even had the chance to talk to Jim for a little while, and Fletcher too.

They were both incredibly cool, which somehow makes me respect them even more.

Their lyrics can be angry and rebellious, but there is something surprisingly positive underneath all of it. It’s not just about being pissed off at everything. There is also friendship, sticking together, figuring out life, doing your own thing, and trying to make sense of the world around you.

And I think that’s probably why it stuck with me.

It’s skate punk.

I’ve been listening to Pennywise for about twenty-five years now.

That’s a ridiculously long time to have the same band somewhere in your life.