Millencolin made their comeback with the awesome album in February of this year after a long break. The Pennybridge Pioneers World Tour kicked off in Australia at the start of this year with sold out crowds attending each and every venue to the surprise of the band. The tour has moved through 16 countries showing that Millencolin are wanted in all corners of the globe. The year 2000 has been punk rock heaven in Australia with the local scenes booming and a truckload of successful international tours going down. Australia is deemed the 'lucky country' and this term can now definately be associated with the Australian punk rock scene. And lucky are the punk rockers of Australia, Millencolin are visiting us again this coming October and I assure you this tour will be as good as the last. I got the chance to catch up with Erik Olsson, the guitarist, of Millencolin and asked him a few questions for Punk Downunder. Enjoy.
Done on September 20, 2000.

ERIK: Yeah, we had a long break before Pennybridge Pioneers came out. That gave us lots of new energy to play live. I must say that the tour for this album has been the best so far. We've never enjoyed playing live as much as now.

MATT: How have the tours been so far? As you move from country to country is it like playing to an entirely different audience?

ERIK: The crowd look and act pretty much the same way all over the world. I prefer to tour where people understand English though. It's kind of hard to get contact with the crowd like in Italy on our last show for example.

MATT: Also I hear that Fat Mike of NOFX has came out on stage with you guys at times to sing with Nikola, also Steve Caballero played guitar on Fox whenever he could on the US Warped tour. Have you made good friends while touring? And while touring has it been a good time to catch up with old friends and bands?

ERIK: Of course you make a lot of friends everywhere. It's cool with all the bands you meet on tour, cause you never know which part of the world you're going to meet them the next time.

MATT: What do you guys do to relax on tour, if there is any time to relax? I read that you guys have been playing a lot of golf.

ERIK: Yeah, I just started to play. I pretty much suck at it, but it's so much more fun that I thought it would be.
That's something we've learned throughout the years, to take off and do something completely different. Earlier we just hung around the club all day, which is kind of boring in the long run.

MATT: Also I read Larzon's Warped Tour Diary and it says Mathais, Erik and Larzon have been representing Sweden in the Beer Bong Olympics. You've even got pics of your costumes that you competed in. Tell us Aussies more about the Beer Bong Olympics and the likes who you were up against and if you ever come out victors. Is a Beer Bong Olympics gold medal now a prized possesion on the Warped Tour?

ERIK: It was just this joke-thing we came up with on the Suicide Machines bus. They had these beer bongs which is a piece of a hose/pipe you stick on to the top of a beer bottle. The hose has got a smaller hose that runs down the bottom of the bottle and out through the side of the hose which makes the beer run down quick as hell.

Anyway, we were hanging out bonging some beer and we started to race each other, formed three teams and boom there we had it, the Beer Bong Olympics.

We later agreed that we should have it every fourth night since the real Olympics are every fourth year. The word got around the the tour and suddenly there were tons of teams. We (The Super Swedes) also made scary costumes that made the other teams shit their pants.
We never won the gold by some reason... don't ask me why. Silver though.

MATT: And while you guys were sucking down brews fast on the Warped Tour, I hear Nikola took time out with pro-skater Steve Caballero occasionally and they both played chess. Who comes out on top in that battle?

ERIK: They've been playing a lot during the years and they are both pretty good. I think Nikola won by one game this tour. 21 to 20 in games I think.

MATT: Has Steve visited your skate-park in your hometown Orebro?

ERIK: No, Steve hasn't been to Sweden since the eighties I think. The park's doing good though. We're planning to get rid of the mini-ramp to get some more space for some real street stuff.

MATT: Alright, let' talks about your last tour of Australia, I'm told the venues were sold out at every 15 shows you played at. Did you expect your first Australian tour to be so successful?

ERIK: That tour was our third Australian tour, but first on this album. No, we know that Australia is always good for us. but we never expected it to go that well! Australia rules!

MATT: What were some of Millencolin's higlights of the February Australian tour?

ERIK: Highlights... Lot's of vodka Redbull in the dressing rooms.

MATT: Do you get a lot of Swedes at your shows in Australia? Because there are heaps of Swedish people down here, I went down to Melbourne for the Australian Open tennis and there are literally thousands of Swedes present.

ERIK: I don't know, there are usually some Swedes wherever we play. Swedes love to travel and I guess a lot end up in Australia.

MATT: Also you played at the Livid Festival in 1997, any memories of that?

ERIK: Yeah, my right shoulder popped on the last song when I did a rock 'n roll pose. My shoulders are kind of sketchy after a couple of snowboard slams. Apart from my shoulder, which was fucked up for weeks after that show, the show was really fun and unexpected, cause we didn't know anything about the festival before.

MATT: I have a feeling that Livid 2000 will have more of a punk atmosphere because there are plenty of punk bands playing this year. You guys are lined up with No Fun At All, Guttermouth, Green Day, Unwritten law, Hippos, plus a few Aussie punk bands like Bodyjar and 28 Days. Are you looking forward to playing at the Brisbane Livid Festival this year?

ERIK: We're really looking forward to come back this year, plus we've played almost 50 outdoor festival shows this summer so we'll feel right at home on the stage.

MATT: You're good friends with No Fun At All, looking forward to catching up with them?

ERIK: Yeah, I guess, but we see them almost every day in Orebro! I haven't seen them live with their new set yet and am looking forward to that.

MATT: And can I ask why you guys are coming back here again? Normally we're lucky to get international artists here once every 2 years, but come the end of October you will have visited Australia twice this year.

ERIK: We had such a good time the last time and we all love Australia, it's as simple as that!

MATT: What would you like see Australian crowds do for you guys in October?

ERIK: Big circle-pits and be like Australians usually are, friendly and cool.

MATT: Did you know that there has been a huge television Millencolin competition here in Australia that finished about a month ago, run by Channel [V] where the winner picked up a scooter?

ERIK: Yeah, I heard something about that. That's a cool prize!

MATT: That competition was run because of the song 'Fox' in which the video has been played a fair bit, does the band know where your music is popular in the world?

ERIK: Since we're involved in pretty much everything concerning the band, doing our website and hanging out at Burning Heart all the time, we pretty much now what's up. You can really sense how things are going when you're touring a country too.

MATT: I read an old interview of you guys and it was after you played a set at a festival. I'll quotes Mathais here, "It's hard getting pumped up to play a half an hour, our usual set is much longer." Has that changed now that you have been on the Punk-o-Rama and Warped Tour's this year?

ERIK: Last 50 shows have been 30 minutes sets (Warped & European festivals), but before that, since February, our shows has been an hour long. The show is kinda intense, so I think more than an hour is too much for the crowd.

MATT: Because I'm a bit worried now because I'm going to see you guys at the Livid Festival in Brisbane while you are down here. But I'm sure you guys will play a great set seeing as it is your final show of the tour. Any chance of you guy's playing Kemp, I love that song.

ERIK: Thanks, I hope so, I like that song too. We have only played that song live once, at our release party. We have talked about adding it to the set for Australia, we'll see.

MATT: Anyway, I could ask you questions all day long, but I'm going to have to stop it there. Thanks for your time.
Cheers.