T.S.O.L. Vets to Come Out and Play Again : Music: Fronting a new band called the Joykillers, O.C.-based Jack Grisham and Ron Emory will appear tonight in Hollywood.

“Hey, hey, hey, come out and play,” goes the refrain of the Offspring hit that is the most widely heard punk rock song ever to come out of Orange County.

Jack Grisham and Ron Emory, whose old band, T.S.O.L., is cited as an influence by the Offspring, have decided to heed that catchy piece of advice.

Singer Grisham and guitarist Emory will come out and play their first concert in more than 1 1/2 years tonight at Dragonfly in Hollywood, fronting a new band, the Joykillers.

The two got their toes wet with a cameo appearance at the Offspring’s concert July 27 at the Hollywood Palladium. At that show, Grisham and Emory joined the Offspring for a rendition of a 1982-vintage T.S.O.L. song, “Code Blue.”

“I was a little nervous, but the minute I hit the stage it was like an old friend. It felt like it’s where I should be,” Grisham said last week. Until the Palladium appearance, he had not performed live since New Year’s Eve, 1992, when his former band, Tender Fury, opened a show for Social Distortion at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

Emory had dropped out of rock ‘n’ roll about 18 months ago after stints with the bands Lunch Box, the D.I.’s and Suicide Door. He last played with Grisham in a 1989-91 series of periodic reunion shows by the original T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty). During the past 1 1/2 years, he said, he worked odd jobs and devoted most of his time to his son, who is now 3. Then Grisham called two months ago with an invitation to join the Joykillers. The band also includes piano player Ronnie King, who was in Tender Fury, bassist Billy Persons, formerly of the Weirdos and Gun Club, and drummer Chris Lagerborg, an ex-member of the Cadillac Tramps.

“This is probably the best thing I’ve had going, without a doubt,” said Emory, who lives near Grisham in Huntington Beach. “I’m just into playing. It’s a good release of energy and feelings, and I can’t wait to get in and record.”

Grisham, 33, is one of the most charismatic performers to have emerged from the Orange County punk boom of the early 1980s. During the late ‘80s and early ‘90s he was a fixture on the local club scene with Tender Fury. But he decided 18 months ago to take a different tack: he would concentrate on writing and recording new songs, in hopes of landing his first major label deal after nine releases on small independent labels such as Posh Boy, Frontier and Triple X.

Grisham says he cranked out at least 200 songs during his self-imposed exile from the stage, and wound up completely disgusted by the business gamesmanship involved in chasing a big-label contract.

“After two years working on that stuff, I couldn’t write a word without thinking, ‘Who’s going to judge what I’m writing?’ ” Grisham said. The problem, he said, was that the label scouts who showed interest wanted him to stick to one kind of music, while he wanted to play a wide-ranging mixture of styles, from “stuff Garth Brooks could cover to stuff that couldn’t be played at 2 a.m. on KPFK” because it was too extreme.

Grisham recalled one private audition for a scout: “We played a whole spectrum of stuff, from ballads to kill-or-be-killed, and the guy said, ‘I love it, I was totally interested through the whole set.’ The same guy, a month later, picked one of the songs and said, ‘I need 10 more just like this.’ The thing he liked about us first is the thing he wanted to destroy in the end.”

Grisham said he even consulted a fortune teller a month ago, who advised him, “You’re fighting for your life, cut all these people loose, they’re sucking you dry.” “So we told all the labels to go to hell,” Grisham said. “We’re just going to have a good time. I told my manager, ‘I don’t want to talk to businessmen any more. I’ve got nothing in common with them.’ I can’t deal with those people because I get too emotionally involved in what’s going on.”

Grisham said that his plans now call for extensive touring, something he has been famously loathe to do in the past. His last tour was in 1983, the year he left T.S.O.L.

“People say, ‘Jack won’t leave the house,’ ” he acknowledged, but he says his aim now is to play his way across the country and perform in Europe too. Grisham says he has had preliminary talks with the Offspring’s record company, the red-hot punk label Epitaph, about a possible new recording. “If it’s easy and no hassle, we’ll make a record. But we’re going to tour anyway.”

As yet, no dates have been booked. Grisham’s manager, Mike Renault, hopes that touring by the Joykillers will prove to record labels that there is a sizable audience for his music.

“It’s tougher in the marketplace for somebody to go out on tour and survive without the support of a record company,” Renault said. “But there’s been a resurgence of the music he was first creating (with T.S.O.L.). So it makes sense for Jack to go out and do it now. This sort of thing with the Offspring, and this whole resurgence of a style Jack was into, brings the attention so we can get the guy going again. The fan base is likely to be looking for the punk roots of Jack Grisham. I think they may find something different. I don’t think they’ll see the punk he was, but hopefully they’ll see what he’s grown into and take a shot at that.”

Grisham says he is putting his ballads aside for now, and plans a live set that will include a handful of T.S.O.L. songs along with hard-edged new material.

“It’s just for fun, like when T.S.O.L. started,” he said. “It was, ‘Let’s just cause trouble and have fun.’ That’s what it’s back to now, although some of the causing trouble is out of it.”

The Joykillers play tonight at 10 at Dragonfly, 6510 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. $6. (213) 466-6111.