Orange County Band on a Trip, a Creative One

A band that would name itself Imagining Yellow Suns and then slap a multicolored forest of flowers and mushrooms on the cover of its debut album must either be very calculating or unusually innocent.

The trappings of spacey, ‘60s-style flower power and psychedelia extend to the music inside that Bilbo-goes-to-Oz album cover and to the colored beads that most of the members wear around their wrists and necks. The evidence seems to point toward a conscious, considered scheme to position the band as psychedelic ‘60s revivalists.

The four members of Imagining Yellow Suns plead innocent. The name, the album art, the music--none of it, the Orange County rockers say, should be taken as circumstantial evidence of a latter-day psychedelic conspiracy. As they tell the story, the band’s development has been far too accidental and unplanned to amount to anything so calculating.

First came the name. Bassist Tim Bugge says he found it by accident in 1987, when the band was starting out. Bugge was slogging through a particularly obscure passage in a science fiction/fantasy collection when his moment of illumination dawned.

“At the end of this long paragraph, that I’d been having a hard time making sense of, were the words ‘Imagining Yellow Suns.’ It just hit me.”

At the time, Bugge said, the music he was writing with guitarist Steve Cross hardly provoked the visions of strange worlds and mysterious mental journeys that crop up now in the Suns’ music. “It’s very ironic that (the name fits the music), because when we first started, our music wasn’t out there,” Bugge said. “It was pretty straight ahead and rockish. We just got bored with it, and instead of doing what we knew, we started doing things we didn’t know. The more it progressed in the band, the more the name really fit the whole trip.”

The “trip” takes Imagining Yellow Suns from the playful pop-pyschedelia of early Pink Floyd (a band the members acknowledge as a source) to progressive-rock shadings that often closely recall vintage Yes (a band about which they profess a near-complete ignorance).

Much of Imagining Yellow Suns is marked by a floating, crystalline prettiness, highlighted by strong, three-way harmony singing. But there are moments when the music becomes harder, darker and more driving.

The members, who range in age from 22 to 28, are fond of complex song structures, and moods and tempos can shift back and forth within a single tune. While the debut album lacks a good deal of the crunch and focused chaos that Imagining Yellow Suns is capable of generating live, it speaks well for the band’s versatility and willingness to experiment.

Gathered at the Costa Mesa apartment shared by guitarist Ed Bernard and drummer Rob Fadtke, the members of Imagining Yellow Suns were an earnest but not humorless lot who were simultaneously self-effacing about their playing ability and self-confident about their ability to come up with creative ideas.

At one moment, they would laugh at what they say is a lack of technical playing skill within the band (an assessment that seems largely unwarranted, especially when it comes to Cross’ sharp, varied lead guitar work). But they quickly would point out that lack of technique has forced them to be more experimental.

“There are cerebral tricks, things you do in your head” that lead to interesting music, Bernard said. “As far as your hands, they have nothing to do with it. We’re musicians from the shoulders up, and hanging in there from the elbows down. Sometimes if your mind can lead the way, you’ll find a way for your fingers to catch up.”

Cerebral tricks figure in Bernard’s lyrics, which tend to dwell on such arcane ideas as the nature of perception and reality. Songs like “Alone and in the Dark” propose that reality is just a blank slate, filled in by the perceptions of each isolated mind.

“It’s my big trip,” said Bernard, 27. “I’m just fascinated with the concept of what people think. We’re on little rails, just going through these little motions. It’s part of what I like about being in a band: These guys get to pull me off my rail every now and again,” breaking through the solipsism that Bernard focuses upon lyrically.

“That’s why I’m in a band. If I’d followed my natural impulse, I’d be in college. I’m creating a life because I saw that it’s all creatable.”

The wavy-haired singer paused and put the heavy philosophizing in perspective. “You can only go so far with this until it’s time for a beer.”

Imagining Yellow Suns began to take shape after Bugge, 22, and Cross, 23, moved from Lake Tahoe, Nev., to Orange County shortly after graduating from high school in 1985.

Both had just begun to play their instruments and decided that they wanted to form a band together. Cross had relatives in Orange County, and it became the base for their Southern California rock dream.

Fadtke, 28, a native Canadian who had moved to Orange County in his teens, was recruited through a musician-wanted ad. He opened the door to Bernard, a former New Yorker who had been playing with Fadtke in a cover band while also pursuing biology studies (since abandoned) at UC Irvine.

Last year, local rock entrepreneur Jim Palmer began boosting the band. Good press notices followed, and Imagining Yellow Suns developed a strong following in local clubs. Dr. Dream Records, the Orange-based label built around local talent, signed the group this year.

The members say their first crack at recording turned out to be a chastening, frustrating experience. “It was just naivete, walking in green without knowing what we were doing,” Bernard said. “We were trying to make a great record, and reality just hit us in the face” in the form of limited time and money for recording, and the need, born of inexperience, to cede some control to their label and producer. The plan now, Fadtke says, is to “just get the name out, just lay a nice foundation,” with an eye toward moving up eventually to a major label.

“The only real goal we have is to support ourselves with this and not have to work at jobs,” said Bugge, who is leaving his job at a car dealership as the band gets set for its first national tour in November.

The first thing most of the world will see of Imagining Yellow Suns is that psychedelic-looking, lushly mushroomed album cover.

Cross, who graduated from UC Irvine this year with a degree in biology, says it was based on a drawing by his girlfriend.

“I just like a cover you can look at and trip out to while you’re listening to music,” he said (not exactly an anti-psychedelic statement), adding that “we definitely don’t do mushrooms.”

“My sister saw it and said, ‘Heh, heh, why the mushrooms?” Bernard admitted. “Let it suffice to say we’re not a drug band.”

According to Bugge, the last thing Imagining Yellow Suns wants is to project an image that will saddle it with a quick-tag psychedelic label.

“If you’re thinking about how it’s going to be perceived, that’s going to send you down a narrow road,” he said. “You’re closing off a lot of doors musically.”

Imagining Yellow Suns, Eggplant, Swamp Zombies and Too Many Joes play tonight at 9 in a showcase for Dr. Dream Records acts at Bogart’s in the Marina Pacifica Mall, 6288 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach. Tickets: $6. Information: (213) 594-8975.