#71: Pennywise

God Save the U.S.A., blame the president, and say your prayers tonight

Number 72 are contemporary punk legends, Pennywise.

Wiki Says: Pennywise is an American punk rock band from Hermosa Beach, California, formed in 1988. The name is derived from the monster, It from the Stephen King novel, of the same title.

Between their 1991 self-titled debut and 2005's The Fuse, Pennywise had released an album every two years on Epitaph Records, a label owned by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz. To date, Pennywise has released nine full-length studio albums (a tenth one is due in 2010), one live album, two EPs and one DVD. Their most recent studio album is 2008's Reason to Believe, which was released for free through a partnership between MySpace and Textango, a mobile music distributor. The album was also sold in stores through MySpace Records in the United States and Epitaph in Europe.

Pennywise's line-up, which remained constant from 1996 to 2009, consisted of Jim Lindberg (vocals), Fletcher Dragge (guitars), Randy Bradbury (bass) and Byron McMackin (drums). They kept their original line-up until original bassist Jason Thirsk committed suicide in 1996, due to issues with his alcoholism, after which Bradbury joined as

Discovery: Pennywise (1991)
Unknown Road (1993)
About Time (1995)
Full Circle (1997)
Straight Ahead (1999)
Land of the Free? (2001)
From the Ashes (2003)
The Fuse (2005)
Reason to Believe (2008)

Notable Other Contributions: Look at all the Love we Found: A Tribute to Sublime (2005)

Seen Live: One time (Warped Tour 2008)

Favorite Songs: Bro Hymn
God Save the USA
Same in the End (Sublime Cover)
Yesterdays
Fuck Authority

Years Active: 1988-Present

Pennywise (along with, in my mind, NOFX and Bad Religion) changed pop punk in the 90's. They established that you can play punk and still make it easy to listen to and not suck. I'm not really sure why I never got into them too much, but what I do listen to I love.

Up Next: a band that is basically going to show up again about 60 slots higher