Redux Redo, Nerf Herder Style

It could be a trivia question in the category of successful Santa Barbara rock band lore: Which band filched its name from an obscure reference in Star Wars, and which from Monty Python’s Flying Circus? Anyone in these parts with ears on ’90s rock knows the answer. Nerf Herder, the witty “geek rock” pranksters we know and love, exercised its serious Star Wars fixation by lifting its moniker from a random scene, whereas the more serious-toned Toad the Wet Sprocket lifted its name out of a Monty Python skit. Go figure.

Both bands, signed to major labels in the 1990s, continue to perform around the world and stoke the flames of fandom. And both have considered the passing of time and legacies with new acoustic albums stocked with freshly baked versions of old hits and favorites. In Nerf Herder’s case, the fearsome and funny foursome — charter members singer-songwriter Parry Gripp and drummer Steve Sherlock, longtime bassist Ben Pringle and the lead guitarist known as Linus of Hollywood — are delivering NERF HERDER (redux) on Fat Wreck Records, a mostly unplugged recasting of breakout debut album of 30 years hence, released on Arista Records. The new single “Golfshirt (redux)” is online here.

In a timely booking, the band is headed for a high-profile show at the Lobero Theatre on Saturday, April 18, their first local theater gig in years, after packing the joints of Velvet Jones and SOhO in recent years. The Lobero show sold out quickly, luring in both locals and rabid fans from afar.

The new album rustles up old memories of niche hits such as the satirical gem “Van Halen” and the unforgettable “Sorry,” an actual love song itemizing sins — “Sorry I had sex with your sister…. Sorry I crashed through your window on acid.” Other tasty morsels include “Nose Ring Girl” and the hometown ode “Down on Haley.” The debut Arista album came out of an early buzz created by their locally made record produced — on Haley — by Joey Cape for his My Records label, leading to an invitation to create TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer  theme song (listen here).

These cheeky rockers are more than one-dimensional, with diverse alter egos and day-job doppelgängers. Gripp, heir to a legendary orchid-growing lineage, has become something of a kids’ culture icon whose short and catchy YouTube tunes/animations — including the major hit “It’s Raining Tacos” (link), also covered by Norah Jones (link) — have launched him into a thriving new career lined with Disney work and an Emmy. For insider Independent intel, Gripp covered the local rock scene under the pseudonym Andrew Broomhead, for the “Positively State Street” column in the early ’90s, before his rockstar life. In that way, Gripp’s arc resembles that of reformed rock critic and Pretenders mastermind Chrissie Hynde.

Pringle is a classical music scholar and singer, with Quire of Voices and more, with gainful employment in the banking industry. For his part, Sherlock works in the graphics department of the famed Peralta Skateboards, a connection he’s had for decades.

But rock and wink they must. NERF HERDER (redux) bumps up their discography to number eight, and various global gigging continues this year.

The Santa Barbara–based threesome, the core of this unit for nearly a quarter-century, convened last week to talk about the adventure in progress, over nonalcoholic beers at Mosaic.

Isn’t this the first theater show you’ve done in a while in Santa Barbara?

Gripp: The last time we played at the Lobero, it was just a few songs. I think one time was for KJEE, one of those Christmas shows. We also played a benefit for the Rape Crisis Center that Kirsten Candy put on. I think Blazing Haley played that, and Toad. But that would’ve been like ’99 or something like that.

[To Pringle.] It was your idea. Ben’s like, “Hey, we should play the Lobero for our 30th anniversary of our record.” And I was like, “Oh man, that’s a terrible idea. No one’s gonna come.” I thought no one would come, but it’s sold out. Ben is a genius.

Now we just have to convince our fans not to like, tear the seats off cushions and Frisbee them at us. It’s the kind of thing you would’ve seen at a metal show at the Arlington back in the day or something. [Laughs.] It should be good. There’s beer and full alcohol and stuff like that. All the ingredients for a rock show.

Sherlock: For the VIP reception before the show, we’re having a museum in the back patio. We’re gonna be getting together old artifacts and clothes that we wore on the album cover, old set lists and random things.

Where did the concept for the new album come from?

Gripp: Steve absolutely masterminded the whole thing.

Sherlock: Over the years, our fans have been demanding that we repress that first record on vinyl. We still have a handful of copies left of the original pressing on my records from before we were on the major. We would sell ’em at shows, but people were paying more and more and more for them. I’m like, we’ve gotta figure out a way to repress this thing. But since it’s owned by Arista, getting the rights and finagling that, that deal just seems like a far reach.

So, we thought, some bands re-record their records, like, what’s her face? Taylor Swift. But that would be kinda weird. There’s a certain amount of magic from that record. About six months ago, I thought, “Let’s try rerecording it acoustically just a little bit. We’re reimagining.” And, uh, it works out pretty well.

Gripp: It sounds good. And Steve kind of produced it, he was overseeing everything.

And where was it recorded?

Gripp: We recorded it at Alan Parson’s studio. He didn’t show up. He wasn’t around. It’s way up in the Goleta Hills up there, way back there. It’s scary. It’s kind of windy. And, and we had to come back at night. We were like, “Oh my God, we’re gonna die.”

Sherlock: Didn’t you see Bigfoot on the side of the road on the way back?

Gripp: But it was, it was interesting. And the studio’s really, really nice. It’s way out there, but it’s a really nice studio, and then we finished it with Thom Flowers at his studio in Goleta, across from Hamburger Habit in Old Town Goleta.

As I was listening to redux, in that acoustic format, or maybe just ’cause I’m older now, these songs sound a bit closer to being sentimental songs like “Nose Ring Girl” and even “Sorry,” which are pretty wicked and satirical, somehow sound sweeter somehow.

Gripp: That’s nice to know. I’m glad they don’t sound meaner or more satirical. My wife heard it, and I asked her, “Do I sound like I’m not connecting with the lyrics?” She’s like, “No, you sound like you’re still trying to get laid.” [Laughs.]

Sherlock: Amazing. That should be a slogan on the back of the T-shirt — “Still Trying to Get Laid.”

That’s a central theme of rock music.

Gripp: All music.

Sherlock: That’s why we got into the business. [Laughs.]

Pringle: On this new record, there are a few songs that we haven’t played live in a really long time. Decades. And getting to re-record those was super fun. And now we’re playing them in our set for our anniversary. That’ll be fun. Release those songs back into the wild. [Laughs.]

Did this band start out with the idea of poking fun at the prevailing pop punk or rock world?

Gripp: I think it was sort of natural, poking fun at punk rock. I thought we were kind of satirizing that stuff, but then also people took it seriously too.

So, they thought you were actually rock stars trashing hotel rooms and that kind of thing?

Sherlock: I think I threw a pizza box at Parry once.

Gripp: We were always pretty tame. We didn’t really fit in with the real punk bands. It’s hard for us to call ourselves a punk band when we have friends that are up there playing, with people spinning in circles and flailing their arms and punching each other. We don’t really get that sort of thing. We rarely get crowd surfer-type punks at our shows, but when it happens, we think, “What?” It’s like we get a stripe on our arm or something. Yeah.

Your music is in the punk universe — pop punk or something related. But you guys are the brainy hooligans in the wings.

Pringle: Sometimes I actually think, as someone who started as a fan, there’s a lot of Pixies in the music. I’ll put it on a Pixies record and think, “Hey, that sounds familiar.”

Gripp: They were so influential on us. And we were kind of influenced by Weezer.

Sherlock: But I don’t think the Pixies would ever let us open for them.

Gripp: No. That’d be great, though.

Ben, you joined the team in 2003, according to Wikipedia, anyway. How did you connect with these guys?

Pringle: I was in Santa Barbara, playing in another band. I was playing in the Mades, with Duncan [Wright, also former arts editor of the Independent]. Steve would always come to our shows, and we said, “We just gotta clone you. You know, you could come play with Nerf Herder.”

I was still in school at the time, working on a master’s at UCSB. When that was over, I thought Santa Barbara was a small town and I moved to L.A. Pretty much as soon as I was down there, Steve calls me and says, “Hey, would you want to come out with Nerf Herder or on a tour?” So I went back to Santa Barbara, just like all of us. We always come back.

Gripp: And the rest is history. We just kept rocking.

Was there a gap or hiatus in the band’s chronology along the way?

Gripp: There have been a lot of gaps. We stopped in 2003 and thought we weren’t gonna play. The type of music we played, pop punk, had become less popular. It was clear that it wasn’t a great way to make a living. I had just gotten married and thought, “I’m gonna just work at this orchid nursery.” We just weren’t making as much money and there were all kinds of other problems.

Is that when you started making the music-fueled animations that became your “day job”?

Gripp: Yeah. That was about 2004. I started going to those just to keep from going crazy. [Laughs.] Yes, it’s my day job. It’s not Nerf Herder, playing with these guys, but it’s really fun.

Steve, I don’t know your story, or your backstory. Your side story.

Sherlock: My side story. I’ve worked at Peralta Skateboards for about 20 years, in the art department, working on graphic design. There are a lot of locals I’ve known over the years and bands have worked there in some capacity.

Gripp: He was in the Lost Kittenz, which had Chris Shiflett [from Foo Fighters], Marko DeSantis (from Sugarcult) and Luke Tierney — all these super rockstar guys, including Steve.

Sherlock: It was back in ’88 through ’90. When I think back to those days, it was only like two, two and a half years being in that band, but it felt like a lifetime.

Santa Barbara has produced some pretty great rock talent, which ventured out into the large world.

Gripp: Yes, and a lot of bands got caught up in this change in the way the music industry worked. I think this happened to Summercamp [also performing at the Lobero show] and Luke Tierney’s bands a little bit. The air got pulled out of the alternative push for bands. It was almost a financial decision, and a lot of bands just didn’t get any promotion.

There was a really ugly term during that period, where people are saying, “Ah, they were just a tax write-off. That’s why they got signed.” Something changed about the industry, and you had all these great musicians and songs that just didn’t get a chance.

I think we got signed because they’re like, “Oh, these guys are like the President of the United States of America and Weezer. We gotta sign a Weezer-like band.” And then by the time our record came out, people were like, “Oh, Weezer’s over, because their record Pinkerton came out, which didn’t do very well.” There was more executive say in what was going to make it and what wasn’t.

But you’re funnier than Weezer.

Sherlock: That’s another T-shirt. I always thought we’re more like Weird Al than like Weezer.

The band had actual hits, right?

Gripp: Our song “Van Halen” was on the Modern Rock charts. They tried to have “Sorry” be a hit, and they spent a lot of money on a video. They had Mark Hamill and Miguel Ferrer in it, which was awesome just to have them in there. But they couldn’t make that song happen. It was maybe too dark. But the video was awesome. That was fun to make.

I’m trying to imagine the video. Does it illustrate the acts in the song’s story, such as the story with her sister?

Gripp: Kind of. We’re under arrest, in a police department. Her sister’s in the video, but she just looks ashamed. Mark Hamill and Miguel Ferrer both played cops who were interrogating us. It was actually filmed on the set of CSI and Cagney & Lacey, which is interesting. It was really fun to do that. But it was kind of just like money getting dumped into a blender. And it didn’t take off.

Circling back to Weird Al, we actually did a song with him on accordion, called “Born Weird.” Dr. Demento introduces it on the record. And then on the B-side, we did a cover of Weird Al’s song “My Bologna.”

So, you’re friendly with Al?

Gripp: Kind of. He sang on a song I did when I worked on this Disney show. I got to hang out with him for that. He knows who we are. He’s a super nice guy.

I listened to the Dr. Demento show when I was a teenager. It was something I could relate to, being like a super uncool nerd. I would look at the Rolling Stones and think, “I can’t really do that.” But you could look at Dr. Demento and I thought I could maybe do that.

Did making this new album whet your appetite to make another new record?

Gripp: Oh yeah. It was a fun process to do this album this way because we didn’t have to worry about the songs. If you’re doing a new album, you’ve got all these new songs and you’re like, “Oh, do we need another verse?” These songs are perfect the way they are. You’re really just focused on the performance because the songs are great already.

What’s next?

Gripp: Man. We got a lot of touring this year. I think we’re gonna play 17 shows. It’s funny. We did all this touring and at the end of the year, the accountant guy’s like, “Well, how many shows did you play?” And we’re like “12 shows.” [Laughs.] I thought we had played like hundreds of shows.

And are your crowds now multi-generational?

Gripp: There are some young people that show up. There might be young people at this show. I don’t know. We’ll see

They might consider you like the “hip uncle” kind of band.

Sherlock: Cool uncle.

Pringle: Weird uncle.

Sherlock: We do have a lot of kids coming into the shows again. I try to block out, but when I was in high school, I would be going to Deep Purple or something like that. It was like a classic rock band. Now, it’s similar to that. They’re super into it. “Pervert” [from Nerf Herder’s second album] is one of the top songs right now and it’s just like, and all these kids are into it. It’s as if the whole PC movement and music has gone away. They really like our second record.

I remember the Velvet Jones show you did several years ago, where you came out and said, “Hello, Santa Barbara, the booty capital of the world!”

Gripp: That was great. I’m gonna bring that out for this one. Might have to change that “booty.” Something else. Something more highbrow.

See Nerf Herder alongside Summercamp and Ridel High on Saturday, April 18, at 7 p.m. See lobero.org/events/nerf-herder.