Fishbone Practices High-Wire Balancing Act

For some bands, the thing is the music. For others it’s their hair.

But for Los Angeles’ frenetic Fishbone, the essentials come down to a matter of hang time.

“Yeah, hang time is key for us,” guitarist Kendall Jones said by phone from a concert tour stop in Portland, Ore. “In our show, we spend a lot of time in the air. It’s important that we combine our kinetic energy and get it to rub off on the audience. We do songs that try and instigate a party and yet try to get our message out without sounding heady or pretentious. We try to get people to learn without sounding like a college professor.”

As that statement illustrates, Fishbone--which plays the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on Saturday with Public Enemy, Living Colour and Stetsasonic--has always tried to balance its party-type, everyone’s-invited approach with social awareness. And it’s not just their presentation that mixes it up a bit: Since first emerging on the L.A. club scene in the early ‘80s, the band has attracted an audience that bridges surf, punk and funk cultures.

That eclectic blend had its roots in the band’s very beginning nearly 10 years ago when Jones--then a seventh grader at Hale Junior High--and classmate Chris Dowd found a common, wide-ranging interest in music. Within a year, the two had assembled a band with a decidedly schizophrenic musical outlook that continues intact to this day.

“Sure, we are influenced by reggae and Funkadelic and we like to incorporate that in our sound,” he said. “But, believe it or not, we are just as influenced by a group like Rush.

“It gets me that people are embarrassed to say they like certain groups, like, say, Abba. People are afraid to admit they like them because they think its uncool. Everyone’s concerned with looking cool. If you like it, what’s the big deal? I think Abba’s great. Who cares what anyone else thinks,” Jones said.

But it’s the social consciousness, though a strong element in their music from the beginning, that has come to the fore on the band’s recent second full album, “Truth and Soul.” Among the songs on the album are a witty, forceful swipe against racism in “Slow Bus Movin’ (Howard Beach Party)” and an anti-drug message in the form of Curtis Mayfield’s “Freddy’s Dead,” written originally for the movie “Superfly.”

The 23-year-old Jones explained that Fishbone has tried to make sure that maturity hasn’t come at the cost of their musical integrity, vocal braggadocio or confident swagger. And it seems to be working.

“We seem to be reaching a broader audience on this tour,” Jones said. “I see older people and a more racially mixed crowd, which is great. We finally seem to be over the ‘novelty act’ label. Everyone tries to label us as ska, funk, punk, rock, whatever; we are all those things, but at the same time we aren’t. We’re . . . us,” he said, laughing.

But for all the added maturity, there’s still an irreverence that underscores the band’s character. So much so that the intent of some of the more biting observations contained in many of their songs sometimes gets misinterpreted--not surprising in that they’re often couched in juvenile scatology.

“People don’t get what we’re saying with those songs,” he said. “We aren’t sexists, misogynists or homophobics. We shock, but then again, we don’t shock.

“We’re just good, clean filth.”