Such is the case with Melbourne ska-punk revivalists The Bennies.

“We toured with The Dead Kennedys last year and the tour manager, who was a really nice guy, came up to as at the start and said, ‘The Bennies – we’ve been warned about you guys!”,” frontman Anty Horgan laughed.

“Maybe we have a little bit (of a reputation). But it only takes 15 minutes with us to realise we’re just taking the piss and having a bit of fun.”

Their reputation for loving a good time won’t be tempered by their new single Party Machine, which is the first taste of their third album (due in March) and was premiered on triple j last week.

It’s another slice of fun-lovin’ ska-punk but this time with a dancefloor doof breakdown to go with the upstroke guitars and shouty choruses.

“It’s sort of a shame there aren’t more bands doing it, but ‘ska-punk’ is a dirty word these days,” Horgan said.

“We have a lot of people come up to us saying ‘I used to like (ska-punk) in high school’. It’s hard booking shows because you want to book similar-sounding support bands. But we end up booking gigs with bands with a similar mindset or work ethic. Maybe the ska revival is coming … but I’ve been making that joke for five years.”

During those five years, The Bennies have been doing their best to kick off the ska revival single-handedly – this year alone they’ve played festivals such Soundwave, Golden Plains, and Psyfari, performed a killer version of TISM’s (He’ll Never Be An) Ol’ Man River for triple j’s Like A Version segment, and toured with ska-punk legends Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake.

“There’s definitely been a few things where you think ‘wow this is pretty huge’ – there’s been a few milestones,” Horgan said.

“Doing Like A Version was a big thing to do because it was something we’d always wanted to do, and it was the first video of us on YouTube that got s***loads of views.

“It was at the same time we were doing Soundwave and we killed that. As we went around the country it got bigger and bigger – there were people singing along. It definitely felt like something was happening.

“It couldn’t have been better for us. We made a lot of friends and we were playing early in the day so it was easy – you rock up, play, then watch heaps of bands and get smashed. It was awesome fun.”

The Bennies kicked off a huge tour on Wednesday that will hit every corner of the country over the next four weeks, then it’s on to Falls for New Year’s Eve in Lorne.

They play at The Loft in Warrnambool on November 18 with support from The Hard Aches, Wet Pensioner and Spooked.