Interview with Danny O'Connor - backstage at their Wembley Gig

Noodles and our Danny O'Connor had a backstage chat, which you can hear in full exclusively on this site.

We last spoke to you about three months ago, before the album came out, what has happened since?
We've done an North American tour, we went to Canada. It's been good.

So tell me about 'Hucket'?
It's coming out in March and it's a DVD/VHS release that's got the band, some live performances, some surfing, sky diving and some snow-boarding. We've also got some guys doing crazy things on bikes and skateboards - like jumping 17 cars on bikes - it's pretty impressive to watch.

Did you get in any danger doing this stuff?
I jumped one truck and wiped out when I was practising and lost some skin. I did alright on the snowmobile and didn't hurt myself snow-boarding.

So are extreme sports at the heart of what The Offspring are about?
It's something that we all enjoy doing. I've surfed since I was 12, skateboarded before that, and got into snowboarding about 6 years ago. We had some of the songs off our first two albums on skating and surfing videos - it did really well for us.

Why do you think there is this relationship between punk rock and extreme sports?
I can remember skateboarding in Southern California, and there was surf punks. You know there's always been that connection. Huntington Beach was a big area for Punk Rock and that's where I grew up surfing, so there's always been a connection I think it's just spread out from there. Part of what it is is they are high energy sports and it's high energy music so they compliment each other really well.

We are sitting here backstage at an arena gig, are you surprised that the whole Californian Punk thing seems to be universal now?
Yeah, I'm always blown away. Just on a personal level I'm playing guitar in a band that fills this size - it's crazy, I never in a million years dreamt that this would be the case. But to also see friends bands do really well, like Pennywise, NOFX, Rancid, Green Day and to finally hear good music on the radio. I felt that way about Nirvana, I never knew any of those guys, but I felt their music, so to hear them on the radio and blow up so hugely was like vindication. Finally this music I love is getting the notice it should have got 20 years ago.

Is it a danger that as it gets more successful you'll get more copy-cat bands put together by record companies?
You can tell when people are doing it as a money making venture and who is doing it because they really love the music.

Are you going to do the festivals?
I hope so. The European festivals are great. We don't have anything like that in the US, there's some good ones in Australia, but the European ones have is such a great vibe - everyone seems to be taking care of each other, you have a lot of different bands, really varied musical styles coming together. It's just awesome. A great place to hang out, drink some beer and listen to some great music.

Reading?
I don't know what we've got lined up this year. But hopefully yeah. We did Reading and Leeds two years ago and they were great - with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers headlining.

You've obviously had an argument with your record company about internet availability, what's your take on things now?
We still feel that the internet can be used to promote your band and I don't think all the downloading of music really hurts CD sales as much as it helps CD sales. It works the same way as radio does, getting your music out there so people can make a viable decision on whether they want to go out and buy a CD. CDs aren't cheap, I think people should be able to base whether they are going to buy a CD on more than just one or two things they've heard off the radio.

So you did eventuality give away $1million?
Yeah, we came to an agreement with our record label. What we wanted to do is bypass the Napsters and just put it up on our own website and let our site be a direct link between our music and our fans. The record label felt otherwise, as did the whole recording issue of America. And that was who put the pressure on the label, the RIAA said we've got a law suit against Napster, so if you let your band do this it hurts our whole position. So we came to an agreement where we put our first single up, and if you downloaded it you were entered into pool with the chance to win $1million of our own money. It ended up going to 14 year old Ashley from just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, and we haven't heard from her since.

So what else is going to be going on this year, another couple of singles from this record?
I hope so, yeah. You get on the road and you become encapsulated, so it's hard to really get a feedback, so we really don't know what will be next.

What is your take on playing arenas?
Well, fortunately we've been slowly building. When 'Smash' came out we were offered a few arena shows as a support act and we just went 'we are a club band, let's just slowly work our way up'....So as we've progressed we've learned how to keep the energy there, how to keep the audience involved and make sure there is some give and take.

By Danny O'Connor, from BBC UK Online