POP BEAT : PONTIAC BROTHERS SHIFT MUSICAL GEARS

Without the Southern California punk movement, the Pontiac Brothers probably wouldn’t exist. That’s because before the Fullerton-based band was formed, the members were entrenched in that scene as part of local punk and post-punk outfits Gun Club and Middle Class.

Yet the earthy spirit of the Pontiacs’ debut LP “Doll Hut” sounds more like a lost album by the Rolling Stones circa 1965 than anything Black Flag or Fear ever recorded.

“We’ve come full circle in a lot of ways,” said the band’s guitarist and co-founder, Ward Dotson, during an interview Wednesday at a recreation center in Anaheim where he was working temporarily. It was his last day on a job he took to earn extra money before Saturday, when the group embarks on a six-week U.S. tour.

“We just want to rock out, make a lot of noise and make people go crazy,” Dotson said, sitting in a folding chair in a small storage room as a seniors square dancing group was in session next door. “All that dressing up and goofy hair is behind us, and it’s now the object of a lot of our inside humor.”

The group is also scheduled to play its final local show before the tour tonight at Palacio Azteca in Santa Ana (220 East 3rd St.). But Dotson said that there were some problems with the promoter and that he didn’t know whether the show will take place.

The Pontiac Brothers, so named because drummer D. A. Valdez is a Pontiac Indian and because all members of the band are originally from Michigan, was formed in 1984 strictly for fun. They started out playing Rolling Stones songs in a Fullerton bar with no intention of becoming serious about the group.

“We called the band the Gall Stones,” Dotson said. “It was a huge joke. Matt’s not a singer, and he’ll tell you that. He just liked to . . . try to sound like Mick. He doesn’t worship the Stones. It’s not our favorite band, and it’s not even a major influence. But if you’ve got to sound like somebody, that’s not a bad one.”

The group, however, isn’t worried with being permanently labeled a Stones sound-alike band. “The next album will erase all of that,” Dotson said. “That should be out in September or October.”

Dotson, the former Gun Club member, prefers to downplay his membership in that well-known Los Angeles punk group, but he said it’s not easy to ignore his past. “That’s a band I’ve been out of longer than I was in it. But people are always bringing it up,” he said.

Nevertheless, the association has also had its rewards. Just a few months after deciding to make the Pontiac Brothers a serious endeavor, the group landed deals with a French record company and then with the independent Frontier Records label in the United States.

“I hate to say it, but it’s because I was in Gun Club,” Dotson said. “That’s why the label in France was interested in us and why Frontier signed us. I guess you do what you’ve got to do.”

And after the quartet--which also includes bassist Kurt Bauman--returns from its cross-country tour with two label mates, Naked Prey and Thin White Rope, ex-Gun Club drummer Terry Graham will join the band in a lineup change prompted by the recent departure of guitarist Jon Wahl.

The Pontiacs are hitting the road at a time when so-called American music is experiencing a renaissance through everyone from Bruce Springsteen and John Cougar Mellencamp to the Del-Lords and the Replacements. But Dotson said the Pontiac Brothers have no great messages about America or patriotism in their raw, guitar-dominated music.

“I’m from America, but I could be from anywhere,” he said. “I couldn’t care less about that stuff. Our view, if anything, is that it’s just music; it’s just rock ‘n’ roll. We think you should just enjoy life as much as you can.”

RADIO CITY ON THE LINE: The Anaheim City Council will vote at its meeting Tuesday at 1 p.m. whether to allow Radio City in Anaheim to reopen. Club owner Jerry Roach will be appearing before the council to appeal the Anaheim Planning Commission’s vote on Feb. 19 to revoke the club’s conditional use permit.

Roach said he hopes local musicians and fans attend the meeting to show support for the club, which has been closed since it was destroyed by fire in November. “If people show up it might help,” Roach said. The meeting will be in the City Council chambers at 200 S. Anaheim Blvd.

LIVE ACTION: Tickets go on sale Monday for Judas Priest at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on May 9. . . . Camper van Beethoven will appear at Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach on April 4. . . . Mink DeVille will be at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on April 12. Joe Ely comes to the Coach House on April 19. . . . Reba McEntire will play the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana on April 15.