New Generation of Fans Finds X in Reunion Tour : After a two-year break, the punk band is lining up young adults who were pre-teens when it got started.

A funny thing happened in the two years since X--arguably the most important band in the ‘80s L.A. underground/alternative rock scene--went on a break: A whole new generation of fans has discovered the group.

X bassist-singer John Doe first encountered this earlier in the year while touring to support his solo debut album.

“It was interesting going to college radio stations and finding kids who were 9 and 10 when we started playing,” said Doe, 37, sitting with his three reunited band-mates in a small dressing room above the Ventura Theatre. It was just hours before X made its first concert appearance since a series of shows two years ago at the Whisky in West Hollywood.

At that time no real farewell announcement was made. But with Doe moving to a ranch in the Central Valley and co-writer and singer Exene Cervenka moving to one in rural northern Idaho, each to concentrate on family and individual film and music projects, the future of the band seemed questionable.

Ron DeBlasio, the band’s manager, cites calls from some young fans who are now booking clubs and concert halls around the country as the initial impetus for this four-show minitour that concludes Sunday at the Hollywood Palladium.

And the publicist for Slash Records, the L.A. based-label for which X recorded its earliest albums, said that she has recently gotten a spate of calls from teens and young adults eager to learn more about X’s history.

Could it be that the band that began as part of a youth culture surge now finds itself in the strange role of father/mother figure?

“We’re not really a mother or father figure,” said Cervenka, 34, who with Doe was filling the small room with cigarette smoke. “I think we’re just an example of someone who did something of our own and is still doing it . . . just integrity.”

A healthy number of X’s new young fans came out for the Ventura concert, children of MTV, drawn by a band that they’ve never seen on video and barely heard on the radio, a band they know merely from records and reputation.

Before X’s set, Heather McNally, 16, said she heard the band through her parents and friends, while her friend Amy Southerland said she was exposed to the band by her older sister. As they stood with several other Buena High School classmates, they said their generation has no comparable band to call its own.

And what were they expecting?

“They’re wild and crazy,” said Nels Rosengran, also 16, before the show. “X rocks!”

The band members weren’t exactly wild and crazy on stage Wednesday, but the songs from the band’s punk-era beginnings--songs about urban values and tensions--played as aggressively as ever. In fact, Doe and drummer D. J. Bonebrake appear to be reaching new heights as a powerful, tight rhythm section. Clearly, this was a band charged by working together again.

“The first thing we did (after getting back together) was a photo session,” Bonebrake said. “And I looked around and said to myself, ‘Yeah, I really like these people.’ ”

All agreed that there wasn’t much of a reacquaintance process needed to restart X.

“Maybe as a group of musicians, but not as people,” Cervenka said.

All four also spoke of satisfaction derived from their separate efforts over the past two years, but said that nothing compares to playing with X, though the other work has helped bring new dynamics to the group.

“What comes from doing the solo projects is a lack of fear,” Doe said of his experience leading his own band on the road. “You’re more willing to go out on a limb, even if you can’t get back to the tree. Your (so what) threshold has lowered.”

Neither of Cervenka’s two albums nor Doe’s “Meet John Doe” have sold well, though both artists have been active touring. Doe has also continued to pursue an acting career, having recently completed “Roadside Prophets,” in which he co-stars with Beastie Boy Adam Horwitz.

In the two years off from X, Bonebrake, 35, has also been active doing recording sessions and touring with Michael Penn, Syd Straw and Victoria Williams. And guitarist Tony Gilkyson, 38, who replaced original member Billy Zoom in 1986, produced both Exene albums and anchors her touring band.

But X remains the core of each of their musical identities.

“I think it would be difficult for any of us, excepting perhaps Tony, to exceed or supersede what we did with X,” Doe said. “It will always be ‘Exene from X’ or ‘John Doe, formerly of X.’ . . . For these shows that mantle is less of a burden than a liberating thing. We can play a song that we weren’t playing consistently before, or we can redefine a song and whether the audience gets it or not it’s cool.”

So for now, at least, they are in X again. As for the future, no one is making predictions.

“It’s not a test,” Cervenka said. “It’s just four shows. If we want to play more, we’ll talk about it and decide, and if a record company wants us to make a record, we’ll discuss that and decide then.”

As for suggestions that the band is getting together for the money or because the solo ventures have not been big successes, Cervenka pointed to her tattered jeans and said: “Sometimes when you go into a grocery store dressed like this, carrying a baby in a diaper bag, you get accused of shoplifting. We’ve been in a band long enough that we know some people are going to get the wrong idea.”