The Vandals: Net Gain.

The Vandals play The Arena on January 5

    It is hard to believe, even unimaginable, that the Vandals are now about 20 years old. Not because it's historically unlikely but simply because they've never really grown up. In fact, their latest album, Internet Dating Superstuds, while based on their own dalliance with net dating - you can win a date with the members simply by beating a cyberpath to their web site and following the links - is loaded with the kind of profound stupidity people half their age indulge in.

    The song titles say some of it: I'm Becoming You, Disproportioned Head, Soccer Mom, We'll All Get Laid, My Brain Tells My Body and My Brother Is Gay. And, frankly, sonically, it's the Vandals you love - if you love the Vandals. And millions of kids do. Superstuds simply restates and refines everything they've done in the past.

    So how come they aren't all wrinkled peach stones? After all, the current line-up - David Quackenbush, Josh Freese, Warren Fitzgerald and Escalante - has been together 13 years but some have served an even longer time. Dave joined in 1985, Warren in 1987 and Josh in 1989 and Joe has been there for just about ever. Truth is, they are a bit, but California living, peroxide, soft focus photography and airbrushing treat them well.

    Freese is, of course, a near superstar. He's currently also the skinsman for Devo's live band and the platinum-awarded A Perfect Circle, and - for a while - for mad Axl's most recent incarnation of Guns N Roses. Joe makes movies on the side - he just finished directing Selwyn's Nuts starring Warren Fitzgerald for a early 2003 release date; it's about a frustrated baker who escapes his abusive girlfriend by becoming an abused roadie for No Use For A Name, then finds love in an electric wheelchair - and Vandals videos and DVDs, and Warren is all over the Tenacious D record as their guitarist. The Vandals even appeared on an episode of the X-Files and the films Suburbia and Dudes. Joe also owns and runs the label Kung Fu Records. And Keanu Reeves used to be in the band but he's now in Dogstar and spending most of his time hanging out in Sydney's cafes and restaurants. They also produce records with unbelievable regularity. Joe says this is because, these days, you can't put out a record and sit on it for three years; the kids are too demanding. Has anybody told the major record companies?

    "It's good it is so competitive," Escalante says. "It makes people put out better records. When it wasn't competitive our records were terrible and now they're not. They sell better and our shows are better."

    That said, the quartet have also taken their comic book and men-only world from Mrs Palmer (think about it) fantasy and placed it in reality by tying the record to an online dating site. Joe explains, "I think it all began with Warren who's addicted to Internet dating sites like hotornot.com. He blurted the title out once in the studio as a joke and we all thought it was the worst title in the world and then we went, hang on, maybe it's the best. Then we thought of this contest [to win a date with a band member], did it, and now we have a contest for the tour.”

    What were the 'winners' like?

    "Super fans, some of them were people who thought the dating contest was weird and just wanted to enter. Because the fans match people up with the band members it was interesting to see what the fans did and what they got up to. It was kind of like they were trying to play tricks on everybody. For instance, with Warren, they picked this girl who obviously couldn't speak English, Josh's date was a total mismatch and Dave got a super fan. I got a couple, as my wife and I presented ourselves as a couple. That worked out well."

    Where the Vandals do score on Superstuds is with songs like Lord Of The Dance, a poke at Flatley's Irish extravaganza, which - you will realise if you saw any part of the recent screening on the tube of a performance in Geneva - appears to indicate that quietly, and very effectively, the Irish have been genetically breeding dancers. Seriously, it is impossible that that many women could look the same.

    "Yeah, and they're robots," Joe says. It's astonishing. "I'm all for it though. The song makes a point." To quote the chorus, ‘I'm exploding in my pants, from the spirit of the Lord of Dance. The whirling dervish Son of Man, repent while you still can’.

    And it's preceded by My Brother Is Gay. "Written by a man who doesn't have a brother," Joe says. "I said to Dave, 'What are you trying to say?' He said, 'I'm talking about my band brother'…"