Part of a modern punk stable which includes Blink 182, Sprung Monkey and Pennywise, Unwritten Law toured Australia in May 1998, with Blink 182, and sure enough, Channel [V]'s Jabba got hold of them. Vocalist Scott Russo and recent addition (former Sprung Monkeyman) Pat were ready for the onslaught …

Jabba: Jabbatron here with Unwritten Law, two members Scott and Pat. Thanks for coming down to our lovely thing. What's the jewellery situation going on here? (Jabba's pointing to their laminated passes.) Scott: Do you like that? Jabba: Yeah, is that part of the band membership? Scott: It's a little something we put together, I like it. Jabba: What are they? Scott: They just come from laminates and we just build them up and put them on our necks. Pat: You might have seen these in toilets. Jabba: I think I have. So laminates, have you got a good collection now that you've been touring, this is your third or fourth time in Australia? Scott: This is our second time in Australia, our third tour though. We did two last summer here, one by ourselves and one with No Doubt. Jabba: Which one was the better one for you? Scott: The No Doubt one had people. The other one was really good too, we were just playing small venues. Scott: This is black (pointing to CD cover). Jabba: This is the new CD that's come out and it's self-titled. Why the self-titled option? Scott: When we were recording the record we were thinking of naming it 'Coffin Text' which is one of our favourite songs on the record but we didn't want people to get the wrong idea like 'Coffin Text' being the last record in the triolgy so we self-titled it so it would be almost like the first record that people really got a good listen to our band cos it's better than our first two records. Jabba: So in other words, if you've never heard of Unwritten Law before, don't go seeking out the first ... Scott: No, you can seek them out but this one here is good. Jabba: The one that you're ultra proud of. Why so proud? Scott: It's a solid record all round from the beginning to the end. We didn't really have like a lot of ethics involved when we were putting the record together, like punk ethics in our writing. We let this one kind of come out the way we wanted it to sound. Jabba: Did you experiment with any kind of new instruments? Scott: We used a didgeridoo which is one of your country's instruments. Jabba: Did you have an Australian didge player? Scott: No - have you heard of a band called Incubus before? Jabba: I think so. Scott: The singer from Incubus can play it and he played on it and he sang one of the verses on the very last song. We had a DJ in some of them, a whole bunch of stuff. Jabba: Was there kind of a pressure to go some kind of drum and bass release? Scott: No, we can't go there. Jabba: What style of music do you listen to? Scott: I listen to every kind. I'm a big hip hop fan and my favourite band in the whole world is Sublime and Pat listens to everything too. Pat: I'm into a lot of electronica. Jabba: Who's your favourite electronic act? Pat: Well right now the Prodigy even though how they are, they're fucking - sorry! Jabba: That's fine, lucky we're not live. Pat: I have a tendency to let those words slip. Jabba: That's fine. Scott: It's been a long night. Jabba: What amazing gifts have you received since you've been in Australia? Scott: Well actually Blink just kind of hand down their gifts that they don't want. No-one's really given us anything. I got a couple of stuffed koala bears and kangaroos. Jabba: Do people throw them on stage or do they turn up to the airport? Scott: Actually they're waiting in the hotel room for us and last time I was here someone gave me a case of VB as soon as we got here and that was pretty nice. Jabba: Is that a good move do you think to give a touring band a case of beer, a good sign that you're welcome in the country? Scott: It's a good way to start things off I think. Jabba: I'm thinking as your band gets bigger and bigger you have to go on these eccentric tangents like U2 or that kind of thing. Do you ever dream of the weird eccentricities of rock like Bubbles the chimp or an air-conditioned suit? Scott: That adjective before rock was really big, what was it? Jabba: Eccentric, like Hugh Heffner kind of thing. Pat: Green M&Ms. Jabba: I've just been watching a friends video of Local H touring with silverchair and silverchair organised some male strippers when local h were playing in San Francisco. So the last song and the male strippers come out and this guy is trying to be really earnest and there's these guys doing the strip thing … what's the best g-ups you've had? Scott: There's been a lot actually. When we were playing with Bad Religion in the US, the very last show right before they walked on stage I got a pack of five fart bombs and walked across the stage and smashed on them and you can't get rid of the smell no matter what you do so the whole show they had to play with fart going on. Do you like that one? Jabba: I do like that one. Scott: Another one. We were out with Face To Face and I went and bought a whole bunch of gay pride stickers and I stuck them all over their van. Jabba: Were you in a particularly gay area or were you in Texas? Scott: Actually we were in Texas, weird that you say that. Jabba: I don't know America that well but I'm thinking rednecks that beat up gays, it would probably be Texas. Can Texans sue me for that? Scott: No way. Jabba: Have people g'd you up particularly well? Scott: That guy, oh my god. That guy in Florida stole our tour van and jumped it off a four foot jump through a fence and through a tree … with all of us in it. Jabba: What's going on with that? Scott: We were having fun after the show one night and we stopped at 7-11 and Fletch [from Pennywise] is really big. Have you seen him? He's a ... Pat: Giant. Scott: He's a giant, a big hairy guy. And he was drunk and he … told everyone to put on their seatbelts and jumped if off a four foot jump through a fence, through a tree, into someone's front yard … it [the tree] didn't break it kind of stretched until it snapped and it smashed out our back window. And then he called up the rental place and told them that our van had been stolen for a joy ride and they had a new one delivered by 6am. Jabba: The last time we heard he was out here he was snorting wasabi, the green horseradish stuff you put with your sushi. Scott: He's an electrician so he makes these things and we were in Alaska once with Blink and Pennywise. Have you ever seen the Pennywise home video where they break into hotel rooms? Well they broke into Blink's room and Fletch was an electrician or he was by trade before Pennywise, so he made this thing with an electrical cord where he would plug it into the wall and he has two open ends at the end and he sat there and put it around Scott's legs and shocked him. Every time he would reach down to grab it he would shock him. Then he has this stuff called his own pepper spray and it's mixed with peppers and vinegar and he sprays it in your eyes so you can't see. That's when he gets you, he kicks in your door and sprays you then he locks these things on and starts electrocuting you. Jabba: What's going on with that guy, I've got to know. Scott: See the reason is cos we thought we would be punk, me and Tom from Blink 182 and the first night we were in Alaska we got a whole bunch of snow, we brought it up to his door which we were going to try to kick in and pour it on his bed. The door never opened and we were too weak to kick it open so he found out it was us so he treated both of our camps. So after he electrocuted Blink he came into our room, he let off a fire extinguisher while we were asleep. Jabba: Look out for him, he's big, he's got long hair, he's got "Fuck Off" tattooed on his back. Scott: Like this big. Jabba: He told us his mum paid for that …. what else should we say, you've come so far and we're talking about all these other bands. Is there a message in your CD, is there a Rage Against the Machine type ... ? Scott: No, each song has its own vibe and we're not trying to push any issues on anybody, we're just trying to make good music. Pat: This album to me is more like stories. You can get a total visual while you're listening, each song has it's own little story … like a book. Jabba: Did you put lyrics with the final copy? Scott: Yeah. Jabba: Love that. I hate buying CDs and you don't get the lyrics. Look at that, it is black! I thought he was kidding! Scott: It's blacker than AC/DC's black record. Jabba: Blacker than Metallica's black record too and there's no CD in it, that's why I never listened to it … Now tell us about Avalon and the skate factor that is involved in Unwritten Law and Avalon the surf suburb of Sydney. Scott: We're doing a benefit for a skate park down there in Avalon [in Sydney] tomorrow. It's all-ages and I think we played there last time we were here and it went crazy so they asked us if we wanted to help raise money to build a skate park and I've been skating for 14 years so I'm really into it. We never had a skate park in San Diego cos it's outlawed in San Diego. Jabba: It's outlawed? Scott: Completely outlawed. I went to jail for skateboarding. Jabba: How does that work? How can they outlaw something like that? Scott: Cos you can't skateboard or else you get tickets and if you don't pay your tickets you go to jail and I didn't pay my tickets so they threw me in jail for skateboarding. Jabba: Did that just come in the 80s or something? Scott: It's like in the 90s. You know when the kids go and grind the curbs or whatever, it's like they have to repaint them. Jabba: What about the trucks driving around destroying the road, fouling up the air? Skateboarding, what's going on with San Diego? Do you still skate in San Diego? Scott: Yeah, I skate in my backyard. Jabba: Well just make sure you go out and buy the Unwritten Law CD. It's a very slick CD full of stories. Thanks for talking to us.