Trivial Pursuit With Noodles

They're no.1 popsters all over the world with the infectiously brilliant 'Pretty Fly' and have far outgrown their lowly punk roots. The Offspring are super big, mega league, multi million selling rock stars who deserve our respect and adoration. So, Rock Sound, in typical fashion said "Bollocks to that" and sat geek god Noodles down for the most trivial chat we could think of. We just gave him a word and saw where it took him...

Sex Pistols: Ahh... that was the first punk record I ever got. Before that, I listened to my dad's rock 'n' roll records and I listened to my cousin's records but the Sex Pistols was the first time I had something that was mind. Most of my friends were like, "Hey! Punk rock. What are you doing? What are you listening to?!" They were into Van Halen or whatever at that time.

Pretty Fly: Fuck, what do you want me to say? (laughs) It's just a fun song.

Sex: I can't wait to get home and have sex with my wife.

Death: God... I just read this book called 'Better To Burn Out' and its all about the death cult of rock 'n' roll and they talk about everybody from Buddy Holly to Christian Death. I don't know why I read it. Death is not something I think about a lot. I'm not worried about dying.

So. Cal: Southern California? Southern California fucking rules cos you can get up in the morning, go surfing then drive to the mountains and go snowboarding then go down to Hollywood or clubs in Orange County. Best Mexican food in the world too!

Love: Beer!! (laughs). No, I don't even drink much anymore.

Drugs: I never cared too much for drugs, except beer. Beer takes up a lot of the Offspring's time and devotion, haha. But beyond that we don't really do a lot of drugs. We've kinda been through that.

War: Rather depressing subject. War sucks, war's not good... what can I say?

Books: They make a lot of the waiting around time bearable. When you're on tour there's a lot of hurry up and wait. You bring books with you and you're not waiting, you're actually sitting and reading. It's a lot nicer.

Band: We get along and relate to each other; we're more like brothers than friends. It's almost 14 years now that I've been in this band. I can't believe it. I mean I know these guys more than I know my own brother!

Paintings: I'm colour blind so...

Ego: George Michael.

Orgasm: George Michael (laughs) Public orgasm!

Fame: David Bowie.

Cinema: Quentin Tarantino.

Telephone: That's one of the most expensive bills I have cos I'm always calling home. I have a wife and daughter back home, we all kinda do, and we spend a lot of time on the telephone.

Single: I don't miss being single. I'm pretty newly married, not even a year yet, so talk to me in another year and I'll change, ha ha! No, I like having somebody at home, it's nice.

Children: They can teach you so much about who you are. It's a lot of work and takes a lot of dedication. My daughter, Chelsea, is nine and I miss her when I'm on tour.

Television: Television sucks! But it can be good too. It's like a drug. A lot of people I know who spend time in bars drinking, they just do it front of the TV. They turn their brain off.

Kiss: It can mean so much and it can mean so little. It depends on the time, the place and who's involved. (laughs)

Gig: That's what its all about for us, man. There's no way in hell you can get me to travel as much as we do and be away from my wife and kid if we weren't playing every night.

Culture: We've titled the album Americana because when people talk about America they usually refer to really pretty and quaint, idyllic examples of American culture. What we were doing with this record was painting examples of the opposite side of American culture. Things are no so nice, so pretty. We were giving a little more of a balanced view than what a lot of people would want you to believe about America.

Songwriting: Dexter (laughs)

Vans: It's easy to be nostalgic about the times we used to tour in a van. We used to stay drunk the whole time when we were in the van. But, hey kids, don't drink while you're driving, haha.

Sexist: Fuck! Er... I think everybody is sexist. I'm not using that as an excuse, I'm saying that as a warning, I guess...

Magazines: I've been reading guitar magazines like crazy recently just trying to learn tablatures.

Poetry: For me it's just a word that has connotations with just... flattery, pretty sappy stuff, I like a lot of poetry though.

Cynicism: Er... it's not something we play too much in Offspring. We are pretty much an optimistic band. There are things that piss us off but I don't think we are really cynics. I guess, Americana is a pretty cynical song, so you have that, but we're not a cynical band.

From Rock Sound - April 1999