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311 Gets Its Energy From the Heartland

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Steve Appleford writes regularly about music for The Times

The band 311 had already been living in Los Angeles for a couple of months. But when a big-time record label expressed serious interest in signing the neo-funk-rock-rap-reggae act last year, 311 chose not to showcase in some prestigious Hollywood rock venue.

Instead, the quintet insisted on playing back home in Omaha, Neb. The reason, says singer Nicholas Hexum, “is because it’s so much more a moving experience there, with 500 or 1,000 teen-agers who know all the words.”

The members of 311 have lived together in a quiet Van Nuys neighborhood for almost a year now, but have yet to play more than a handful of gigs in local clubs. In Omaha and nearby Lincoln, they were used to performing weekly to excited crowds of various ages, unlike the shows in Los Angeles clubs, many of which don’t admit those under 21.

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“We weren’t really trying to duplicate what we did in Omaha. We didn’t move out here and say ‘OK, we’re going to get a big following in L. A., and then get signed,’ ” Hexum says.

Besides, he adds, it just wasn’t the same here. “When you see any band around Hollywood, there’s usually a distance between the band and the crowd, with people standing around, sipping their drinks, looking around at the booty. It’s a totally different thing from a real concert with all ages.”

Now that the band has just released its “Music” album on Capricorn Records, distributed by Warner Bros., 311 will soon embark on its first national tour, returning in a few months. And if audiences are surprised by the pounding funk energy of this Nebraska act, it’s only due to ignorance of the “small, but very cool scene” that exists in Omaha, Hexum says.

“Surprisingly, a lot of bands play funk there,” he adds. The state’s roster of famous citizens includes the likes of Marlon Brando and William Jennings Bryan, but “there hasn’t been anybody that’s been really successful from there to put Omaha on the map,” he says. (Matthew Sweet, however, is emerging as a favorite among the critics.)

“There’s a total diversity of music there,” Hexum says. Much of what is played in the Omaha clubs, says co-vocalist SA, offers some of the same throbbing modern urban influence reflected in 311. “It’s good party jams, man. The bands that do play it tend to attract a bigger audience. A couple of other bands are starting to come up,” he says.

The hard rhythmic pulse of the “Music” album actually comes after a few years of the band’s perfecting its technique through three independently released records. Produced by Eddie Offord (whose resume includes working with the band Yes), the newest recording is a cleaner, tighter version of the same eclectic mix that the band has played since forming in 1990.

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“It’s just everything we like to play,” Hexum says. “We listen to a wide variety of things, so it just naturally comes out. Each song can be a different groove, tempo, arrangement, everything, and we try to know no limits.”

Hexum first arrived in Los Angeles when he was 17, after playing with future 311 guitarist Timothy J. Mahoney in a high school rock band that leaned more toward the sounds of R.E.M., the Smiths and the Cure. He was later joined by drummer Chad Sexton, before they both returned to Nebraska to form the band Unity with Mahoney.

That act ultimately developed into 311, with SA and bassist P-Nut, who was then just in the ninth grade. The bassist is still the youngest member, at 18, while the other members are all 22.

“We’re sort of a self-contained group,” Hexum says. “We don’t have a lot of friends who are outside the band. We have our girlfriends and us. So we really didn’t come out here and try to make L. A. friends. We sort of did our own thing.”

Even so, the members of 311 say they never doubted the band would continue the success begun back home, and weren’t really so surprised when a record deal came quickly.

“We have really high expectations,” Hexum says. “In a way, we should have expected to slug it out and pay more dues and have to make ends meet. But we didn’t have to.”

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LYRICAL LESSONS: Songwriter Pamela Phillips-Oland has spent a career creating material for Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, the Jacksons, Gladys Knight, the Four Tops and other big names. She’s now offering to share her experiences and writing techniques in crafting pop and rhythm-and-blues material through “Writing Lyrics for Hit Songs,” an advanced workshop at UCLA Extension beginning April 13.

The six-week course will focus on every stage of the songwriting process. Admission is limited and will be based on student submissions of lyrics. Tuition is $195. For more information, call (310) 825-9064.

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