There are certain albums that stop being just records somewhere along the way. They become attached to a place, a period of your life, an old skateboard video, a beaten-up cassette, a festival memory or that one song you and your mates absolutely flogged until everyone knew every word.
For a hell of a lot of Australian punk fans, Millencolin’s Pennybridge Pioneers is one of those albums. Released back in 2000, the record marked a significant turning point for the Swedish punk legends. It pushed beyond some of the ska-punk elements of their earlier material, leaned into bigger rock sounds and massive melodies, and gave us tracks like “No Cigar,” “Fox,” “Penguins & Polarbears” and “The Ballad.”
More than 25 years later, Millencolin are bringing the whole bloody thing back to Australia. The band return this December for Good Things Festival, along with headline sideshows in Melbourne and Brisbane, where Pennybridge Pioneers will be performed from beginning to end.
I caught up with guitarist and founding member Mathias Färm ahead of the tour to talk about an album that changed Millencolin, rediscovering songs they haven’t touched in years, the band’s long-running love affair with Australia and the very different way we used to discover punk rock before everything was only a click away.
For Mathias, bringing this particular record back down under really does feel like things coming full circle.
The Album That Changed Millencolin
Before Pennybridge Pioneers, Millencolin had already established themselves through albums including Life on a Plate and For Monkeys, but by the end of the 1990s the band had reached something of a crossroads.
“We finished touring on the albums before that, For Monkeys, late ’90s, ’97 or ’98, I don’t remember actually,” Mathias recalls. “Then we had a break from the band and didn’t really know what to do.”
What came next proved pretty bloody important, with Millencolin receiving the opportunity to head to Los Angeles and work with Bad Religion guitarist and Epitaph Records founder Brett Gurewitz.
“We actually got the opportunity to record with Brett Gurewitz from Bad Religion in Los Angeles,” Mathias says. “So we jumped on that. We had a great, great time in LA.”
The resulting record wasn’t simply another step in the Millencolin catalogue. It represented a noticeable change in how the band sounded and where they wanted to take things.
“I guess this album was kind of a big change in our sound and the way we did stuff,” Mathias explains. “So it’s a very important album for me and the band.”
Now, more than two decades later, they’re returning to a country that embraced that change from the beginning.
“It’s going to be almost full circle to get back to Australia and do it in full. I’m looking forward to this.”
Relearning Pennybridge Pioneers
There’s something different about playing an album from start to finish. You’re not building a set around singles, fan favourites and whatever feels right that night. The running order was decided decades ago and everybody standing in front of you already knows exactly what comes next.
Millencolin previously revisited Pennybridge Pioneers in full around 15 years ago, but Mathias says some of these songs genuinely feel new again as rehearsals begin for Australia.
“We played the album in full 15 years ago and we haven’t done it since,” he explains. “We just started rehearsing this, and it’s interesting how much you forget over time. Some songs feel like new songs in a way.”
There’s also one particularly weird adjustment waiting for Millencolin. For decades, “No Cigar” has been the kind of track you hold back until the end, that huge release at the encore when everybody in the room knows exactly what is coming. This time, however, everything gets flipped.
“We’re going to start the show with ‘No Cigar’, of course, because it’s the first song on the album,” Mathias laughs. “But we usually end up with that song at the encore, last song, you know. It’s going to be interesting.”
Once those first notes ring out, the entire audience will know exactly what follows, and Mathias sees something pretty cool in that too.
“It’s also fun for the audience because they know what song we’re going to play next, and next. It’s obvious, but it’s cool.”
“Penguins & Polarbears” And Finding A New Millencolin
One track I’ve personally kept coming back to over the years is “Penguins & Polarbears.” Beyond being one of those instantly recognisable Millencolin songs, it also sits right in the middle of that shift happening across Pennybridge Pioneers.
Mathias sees the record as a natural development in the band’s songwriting, but there’s no denying how different it was from what had come before.
“A lot of stuff happened back then with the musical influences and what we wanted to do,” he says. “Before this album, we had ska songs on our albums. This album has no ska songs because it felt right at the time for us to do it this way.”
The guitars got heavier, the rock influence became more pronounced and the band started moving into a different space, but for Mathias the centre of Millencolin never really changed.
“I guess it’s a little bit rockier and heavier in a way too. It was a natural development of our songwriting, but also kind of different from our first three albums. And it’s good that people liked what we did back then because it’s quite a big change in a way, if you look at it.”
What tied old Millencolin to this evolving version of the band was something much simpler: melody.
“It’s still good melodies, and that’s the most important part of Millencolin,” Mathias says. “To have catchy melodies and good lyrics, and good songs of course. So yeah, it’s a milestone in our career.”
From Bad Religion On A Skate Video To Recording With Brett Gurewitz
Having Brett Gurewitz produce Pennybridge Pioneers already makes for a pretty incredible full-circle story, and having Bad Religion sharing the Good Things Festival lineup while Millencolin celebrate that record adds another layer again.
For Mathias, Bad Religion’s influence stretches all the way back to before Millencolin even existed.
“Bad Religion is a super important band for us,” he says. “When we started Millencolin, that’s what we listened to.”
His first encounter with them wasn’t through Spotify, YouTube or some algorithm conveniently dropping a recommendation in front of him. It was through skateboarding.
“I actually heard Bad Religion for the first time ever at a skateboard competition in Sweden back in 1989, I think. I’d never heard anything like it because it was such good melodies, but it was also so different from Swedish punk rock at the time. So it got me interested and checking out more.”
Then our conversation disappeared down a rabbit hole that anyone who discovered underground music before the internet will understand immediately. Back then, finding a record from an American punk band in Sweden could take actual detective work.
“It was so hard to find music,” Mathias remembers. “I couldn’t just get into a record store and buy a Bad Religion album easily.”
For a lot of us around the same age, skate videos, copied VHS tapes and whatever a mate happened to have were gateways to entire musical worlds. Mathias was doing exactly the same thing in Sweden.
“The way I got it was usually skateboard videos. They had music and then I put my tape recorder next to the TV set and recorded the music onto tape and listened to it with my Walkman. So it was kind of ghetto.”
And if somebody somewhere in town actually owned the record, the process could become even more involved.
“You could hear about a guy in the city who had a Bad Religion album. You could try to call him up or take a bicycle to go to him and ask if you could tape the album.”
It sounds completely insane compared with having almost the entire history of recorded music sitting inside the phone in your pocket, but Mathias reckons something was gained through that struggle too.
“You valued the music more back then because it was so hard to get. Even if you bought a shitty album, you listened to it a lot because it cost money. You had to be thorough in what you chose.”
Maybe that helps explain why records like Pennybridge Pioneers still mean so much to people. We didn’t hear one song and swipe to the next thing; we lived with albums, learned their running orders and let them become attached to moments in our lives.
Australia And Millencolin: Almost 30 Years Together
Calling Millencolin honorary Australians might be taking the piss slightly, but honestly, not by much. Their relationship with this country now stretches back almost 30 years, and for Mathias, Australia remains significant because it was one of the first places Millencolin experienced life as an international touring band on a serious scale.
“The first time we visited Australia, it’s going to be 30 years ago,” he says. “Australia was the first country we actually visited outside of the Scandinavian countries back in ’96. So it’s special for us, and it’s always so good to go back.”
Trying to explain exactly why Australians latched onto a Swedish punk band so strongly is harder.
“It’s a mystery in a way,” Mathias admits. “I guess the culture in Australia is kind of like Southern Californian culture and punk rock in a way, with surfing and good weather and skateboarding. It goes hand in hand.”
Whatever the exact reason, Australia embraced Millencolin early and never really let go. Pennybridge Pioneers became the band’s first Gold album in Australia and would ultimately go platinum here. Through Big Day Out, Soundwave, Good Things, headline tours and countless returns, Millencolin have become part of multiple generations of Australian punk fans.
The one thing Mathias could probably live without is the distance.
“It’s too long a flight,” he laughs.
Fair call.
Good Things And Another Full Circle Moment
That long relationship with Australia also reaches into Good Things itself, and before we wrapped up Mathias revealed another connection that stretches back far beyond the modern festival.
“It’s just such a cool festival, Good Things,” he says.
One of the people behind the festival, Chris, goes all the way back with Millencolin to the band’s earlier Australian visits.
“He used to sell merchandise for us when we visited Australia back in the days,” Mathias says. “So he’s a cool guy and we’re so happy for him that he’s doing this. It’s a great team, so it’s going to be awesome.”
There’s that full-circle idea again. A band discovers punk through skateboarding in Sweden, Mathias tapes Bad Religion songs from skate videos onto cassette, and years later Brett Gurewitz produces one of the most important albums Millencolin ever make. Australia embraces that album, and nearly three decades after Millencolin first travelled down here, they return alongside Bad Religion to play Pennybridge Pioneers exactly as we first heard it.
“No Cigar” first, “The Ballad” last, and everything in between.
Some albums disappear into the endless pile of releases behind us, while others stick around and become part of who we were at a certain point in time. Pennybridge Pioneers is very clearly one of the latter, and this December Australian fans get to live through the whole bloody thing again.
Millencolin perform Pennybridge Pioneers in full at Good Things Festival 2026, appearing in Melbourne on December 4, Sydney on December 5 and Brisbane on December 6.
The band will also perform headline sideshows at Melbourne’s Northcote Theatre on December 2 and The Tivoli in Brisbane on December 8.
For more information head to www.goodthingsfestival.com.au
