Van Halen Rocked by Social Conscience : Pop Music: Band noted for party image turns to defense of fans’ rights.

Will Van Halen give up the rock ‘n’ roll party for a political party?

It hasn’t quite reached that point, but the perennially popular Los Angeles hard-rock band is suddenly caught up with the ACLU and citizen petition drives in the wake of two recent incidents involving Van Halen fans.

In Fort Smith, Ark., a 19-year-old man was arrested April 9 for wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of Van Halen’s current album, “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.” The initial letters of the phrase--a criminal charge in old England that was displayed on the pillory of the person being punished--were highlighted on the shirt, and Sean Pierce was charged with violating a 1990 local ordinance banning the public display of obscene material.

The same week, as Van Halen was approaching the Five Seasons Center outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, they noticed police pulling over concert-goers at a series of roadblocks to check for alcohol use.

“It’s weird that in America there’s places like that still today,” said singer Sammy Hagar this week as he and bandmates Michael Anthony and Alex and Edward Van Halen gathered just before catching a flight to more Midwest tour stops.

“We’re always aware of those things,” continued Hagar, one of rock’s more outspoken figures. “But really, you get jaded being in a rock ‘n’ roll band like this, because you have more freedom than probably anyone in the world . . . and you kind of forget that this actually still comes down.”

In Cedar Rapids, Hagar immediately went on the radio from the arena to advise incoming fans of the roadblocks. When the band subsequently learned that only rock concerts earn that kind of attention, it enlisted the help of the ACLU to investigate. In the Arkansas T-shirt case, the band will pay any fine Pierce receives and is involved in a petition drive to have the ordinance put up for a vote.

Of course, campaigning to keep the cops out of the Camaro and for the right to wear naughty words isn’t too far out of character for a hard-rock band whose new album originally bore a far more blunt title, intended as a provocation to conservative retailers and to rock-censorship advocates, and modified only after the obscenity-in-rock issue became overexposed.

What does seem a little out of character for Van Halen is the video--conceived by ad man Mark Fenske--for the new single “Right Now.” The mid-tempo motivational anthem is accompanied by a series of visual images and printed aphorisms such as “Right now, justice is being perverted in a court of law”. . . . “Right now, our government is doing things we think only other countries do.”

While this emphasis might seem like a new wrinkle for the quintessential live-it-up rock band, the members insist that’s more a matter of public perception.

Said Hagar: “You know, if U2 had done ‘Right Now,’ people would be going, ‘Wow, that’s so great, that’s so meaningful.’ Nothing against U2--they’re a great band--but it just shows how people lock you into something. The public, the critics, the media, they look at us and go, ‘That’s a party band. U2, that’s a social-consciousness band.’

“We mostly got bad reviews on this album, and no one even mentioned the song ‘Right Now.’ And then all of a sudden, ‘Oh, these guys have something to say.’ It’s like, ‘Well, didn’t you . . . listen to it when it came out?’ ”

But at the same time, they want fans to know that the party isn’t over.

“If we have something to say, we will say it,” Hagar said. “If we don’t, and in between, it’ll just be as much fun as we can possibly muster up.”