There’s very little that hasn’t already been said and written about the rise and rise of The Offspring, those relentless manufacturers of smash-hit anthems and flagship to a fleet of privatised punk bands.

Despite the quartet’s widescreen profile and impressive portfolio that includes a pair of 10 million-sellers - Smash and 1998’s Americana - soft-spoken bassist Greg Kriesel would appear to have more pressing matters on his mind – golf!

“I like to play golf,” he says on the phone from his home in California. “I remember playing a really nice course in Sydney about three years ago, and one in Perth too. I’m hoping the Sony people will set me up for a round in Japan after Australia but it sounds liketough ticket.”

Both countries are regular stopovers on the band’s Pacific touring leg, a route Kriesel says may be expanded next time around.

“There are pockets of Asia we’ve never hit before, like the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia where we sell really well. It’s always hard to judge your sales in places like China because of the piracy but No Doubt just did Bangkok so we’re gonna try to squeeze that one in next time.”

More familiar territory for the veteran punksters is Europe where the band recently lugged its arena-size shows around in support of their latest album Conspiracy of One, much to the delight of manic French fans.

“This European tour was some of the best shows we’ve ever had,” enthuses Kriesel who formed the band with singer Dexter Holland in 1984. “We played Wembley Arena twice but Paris was by far the best response with 17,000 people. But it goes in cycles, last time Italy was big for us, especially Milan. This time it’s France.”

Kriesel, who formed the Offspring with singer Dexter Holland in 1984, says the band also found time to introduce themselves to new European audiences.

“We also went to Slovenia for the first time which was great,” he says. “We’ve played Poland the Czech Republic before but not Slovenia, although its pretty much the same.. The only time we saw some difference in Europe was when we played the former East Germany a few years ago and the audience just stood there and didn’t know what to do. I think it was all too new to them and they didn’t want to react. It was real strange.”

Back home, the group recently amused themselves with a cameo appearance as the house band in the horror film Idle Hands, belting out renditions of their early track Beheaded as well as The Ramones I Wanna Be Sedated, for the soundtrack.

“The people at Columbia said they needed a band that could play a Halloween party in the movie and we said ‘sure’ after Blink 182 couldn’t do it. The whole movie is about some guy whose hand gets cut off and it runs around killing people. In the end, Dexter gets killed by the hand!”