Circle Jerks Finally Get Timing Right : Pop music: Interest in punk rock was low when the band started. But that’s changed now, and the group is cashing in on its past with a Mercury Records debut and a tour.

With an entrance that recalls Norm Peterson walking into Cheers, Circle Jerks singer Keith Morris enters the tiny, untidy diner around the corner from his home near downtown Los Angeles. He makes a few hello waves here and there, orders without looking at the menu and says “fire away” to his interviewer.

He’s obviously been here before.

“Sorry I’m late, I just got done with an interview with some guy from Philadelphia,” he says. “It’s a little crazy.”

It sure is. When Morris started the Circle Jerks back in 1980, mainstream mass media demand for punk-rock bands was pretty low, and it remained that way through the time the band went on hiatus in 1988.

Now it’s 1995, and Green Day and Offspring have collectively sold more than 10 million records. Punk rock is officially a hot-selling product. And the Circle Jerks have re-formed--with, for the first time, the backing of a major record company.

While plenty of new bands are jumping on the punk bandwagon, old groups like the Circle Jerks are of great interest to the music media since they’re the veterans, the Neil Youngs and the Bob Dylans of punk. So now, with the recent release of the group’s Mercury Records debut, “Oddities, Abnormalities and Curiosities,” a flood of interest in these “veteran punks”--if there is such a thing--has hit Morris.

And everybody wants to talk about the “good ol’ days.”

“It was great back [in the early ‘80s], it was kind of like one big, constant punk rock party,” he says. “Everybody knew each other and was friendly with each other, and there was a camaraderie that I don’t see as much today.”

Morris formed the Circle Jerks with current Bad Religion guitarist Greg Hetson. The band kicked and screamed around the L.A. scene with the likes of Black Flag, TSOL, Fear, the Minutemen, the Vandals, X and Agent Orange. Like most of those bands, they toured a lot, sold very little and eventually faded out with the era.

The group re-formed for a mini-tour and live album package in 1991, but it didn’t last. Morris moved out to the East Coast, messed around in other bands, and put the Circle Jerks behind him. But when the rejuvenation of punk started, he says getting the band back together was all too tempting.

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“I guess my real enlightening moment was when I got on stage with Mudhoney, who were opening for Pearl Jam at Boston Garden,” Morris says. “There was like 18,000 people there, and we did an old Black Flag song. It was a real kick in the butt. I came to realize that we could put the band back together and the worst-case scenario was we could do it and have at least the same popularity we had before. And we could have more.”

So the Circle Jerks re-formed. Along with longstanding members Zander Schloss (bass) and Keith Clark (drums), Hetson and Morris spent much of January recording a new album. The four will hit the road for at least eight weeks starting in August, and will probably continue touring beyond that, Morris says.

The Circle Jerks are in a rare position now. So many great bands will probably never cash in on the attention they deserve from punk’s re-emergence, either because of dead members (the Minutemen, MC5, the Sex Pistols), members that hate each other (Black Flag, Husker Du) or because they’d probably ruin any sort of legend they might already have (Iggy and the Stooges, the Dead Kennedys). Of the punk bands that are re-forming, some only have one or two key members (Fear), while many others are, frankly, on the bottom of the talent scale.

This band is an exception, and “Oddities” is proof. The Circle Jerks apparently had little trouble finding the same aggression and rage--appropriately mixed with wit and drollery--it had on such classics as “Golden Shower of Hits” and “Wild in the Streets.”

“It was real easy. There’s a lot more to be pissed about today, even than there was 15 years ago,” Morris says. “Everything’s declining, which kind of bums me out because I would try to write happier songs some day, but it just doesn’t work that way.”

While the anger may still be readily available for young punk bands, Morris admits that the feel of the early-’80s punk scene will probably never be re-created.

“Now, it’s a business thing,” he says. “Back then, we were carefree, happy-go-lucky punks, and it was a lot of fun because there wasn’t a lot of pressure. We could play parties, we could play in back yards, in garages--it didn’t matter. But then the money factor kicked in, and that’s when things weren’t as fun.

“There is still that sort of gung-ho, leap-before-you-look attitude in Southern California that comes from things like surfing and skating, and I think it still spawns a lot of bands today. That’s still great.”

To Morris, punk’s current heyday is just a part of the cyclical movements rock music makes. It won’t last, he says, but he hopes the band will, alongside each member’s other band projects, which include Hetson’s role in Bad Religion and Schloss’ stints with the Magnificent Bastards and the Sweet ‘n Low Orchestra.

And as for Green Day and Offspring . . .

“I’ve seen Green Day play like three times and I enjoyed myself, but I really don’t know much about them or the Offspring,” he says. “I’d probably have some nice things to say about both of them and some negative things, but it’ll probably just sound like jealous bull--you know, ‘Why them and not us?’ Everybody has their time and place.”

* The Circle Jerks perform Tuesday at the Ventura Theatre, 26 S. Chestnut St., Ventura, 8 p.m. $12.50. (805) 648-1888. Also Sunday at Viva Las Vegas, 612 N. Eckhoff in Orange, 8 p.m. $9. (714) 991-2055.