Sky’s Limit for Supernova

There are two things, at most, that the spacesuited members of the rock trio Supernova will admit to taking seriously.

The first, in some dispute from their own record company, is that they see a bright future selling their infectiously silly, puerile but very catchy and well-played punk-pop to the kiddie market.

“We’re hoping this [aptly named debut album, ‘Ages 3 and Up’] will make it to Toys R Us. We’re serious about it,” says Art, a gangly, rubber-faced bassist who isn’t serious about much.

Except for the one thing that Supernova seems to be truly in earnest about--that it would be a cosmic error for this band ever to take itself the least bit seriously.

“The whole philosophy of the band was [to be] totally a joke,” Art, 30, declared in a recent interview at “Earth Outpost,” as Supernova-speak designates the band’s headquarters, an ordinary-looking gray stucco apartment house and adjacent garage stocked with musical gear, astronaut costumery and junk-shop paraphernalia.

“We backed into this whole thing,” Art said. “We enjoy it better that way. We never put any pressure on ourselves, because we never started out to be a rock band.”

“This whole thing” finds Art, drummer Dave, 28, and guitarist Jo, 27--with Supernova, last names are “top secret”--maintaining an elaborate pose as refugees from Cynot 3, a galactic garbage dump that exploded, leaving our heroes to find a new life playing earthling rock ‘n’ roll.

In Supernova’s cosmology, space is the silliest frontier. One pounding, shout-along number, on the soundtrack of the movie “Clerks,” consists entirely of the lyric “Chewbacca! Chewy! Oooh, what a Wookie!”

The album includes such highlights as the immortal sing-along “I’m a fool and I like to drool.” There’s an ode to eating Oreo cookies and a public-service punk song that goes, “You gotta take your vitamins, they’re good for you, they’re good for you.”

Various anthems detail Supernova’s self-manufactured legend, and some of the band’s lyrics sum up its own aesthetic: “We write scary guitar parts, but we sing like birds in a tree,” goes one; and, “We don’t even have to think. We don’t even use our brains. Supernova’s what we do!”

All of these notions, along with the catchy tunes, come from a quickie creative process that drummer Dave likens to kids collaborating on a sandcastle.

The potential appeal to today’s punk-weaned preteens seems obvious. As for the older audiences that Supernova has mainly played to in a half-dozen national tours since 1992, the dimpled, smiling Dave says the attraction is that “it’s an escape. An escape from the seriousness of reality.”

Supernova isn’t adamant about maintaining the loony unreality of the members’ alter egos, although they make an effort to stay in uniform in public.

“It’s too tiring to be in character 24 hours a day for months on end. We’re flexible,” says Art.

While the ‘Nova men will acknowledge that they in fact hail from Costa Mesa and Irvine, not Cynot 3, it is interesting to note the lengths they’ve gone to and the fun they’ve had in service of their myth.

Earth Outpost includes such garage sale bric-a-brac as a yellow hairdresser’s chair with attached dome dryer rigged to emit sparkling colored-light effects--”an official brain-scrambling machine, the kind you find anywhere,” Art explains.

Supernova has several outfits, including helmets made from aluminum air-conditioning duct parts that, with their green visors and attached antennae, make the wearers look like giant grasshoppers. “They barely are breathable,” notes Jo.

This is why the band typically doffs its headgear after a single song, revealing changing scalp-embroidery that would be the envy of Dennis Rodman.

Art’s expansive skull currently sports heart-shaped tufts for Valentine’s Day, Dave’s is a checkerboard pattern, and Jo has a circular patch on the back of his otherwise shaved head that makes him look like a rider in the Mongol Horde. In fact, he says, “It’s my hairmulke--my hair yarmulke, because I’m part Jewish. A tribute to my ancestors.”

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Dave is in charge of stitching together the band’s shiny spacesuits, although he turns to professional tailoring help for special jobs like the Astroturf-covered jumpsuits the band plans to debut on an upcoming tour. “It’s going to be the Garden Warrior outfit, for our Spring Garden Tour,” Dave enthuses.

“The spacesuits always change, so we’re keeping up with the times,” says Art. “We’re a progressive band.”

The one atom of truth in Supernova’s space mythology is the part about hailing from a planet of trash. When Supernova debuted in 1991 at a Costa Mesa sports bar, the three members (Art, Dave and original guitarist Hank) wore the blue uniforms of city of Newport Beach sanitation workers. Art, at the time, was still serving his seven-year hitch as a garbage man.

“If I wasn’t a trash man, we might never have stumbled into this Supernova thing,” he observes.

The three dubbed themselves Supernova because, Art recounts, they intended to “play once and explode. We tried, but we were called out of retirement. The masses insisted.”

Actually, it was months before the band regrouped for its second concert--a benefit to raise bail for a buddy.

Jo, a childhood friend of Dave’s, was present as a fan at the birth of Supernova.

“They weren’t that great, actually,” he recalled. “It was just a goof-around get-together. But they started sounding really good after the first year, and that’s when their [local] following started to take off.”

Supernova’s do-it-yourself tour came late in ‘92, and the band issued 7-inch vinyl singles that helped it find an underground following. The space mythology grew.

“The more we toured, and people emphasized where you were from, the more we realized you shouldn’t be from anywhere,” recalled Dave.

“It was fun to keep people guessing,” Art said. “All the stuff we do makes us have fun, whether there’s anybody at the show or not”--including, he said, a recent gig in Louisville, Ky., that the band played to exactly two fans.

Hank departed in 1994, the victim, depending on whether you prefer fantasy or reality, of a leaky spacesuit or of a desire to explore more complicated musical possibilities while Dave and Art were adamant about keeping it simple.

Jo, who hadn’t played in a band before, says he was recruited because “I was Art’s roommate, and I fit in the suit.”

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Supernova got its break in 1994 when, after much cajoling by the band’s booking agent, the head of the Minneapolis independent label Amphetamine Reptile caught its live act.

“They’re definitely not the norm for what our label does. Most of it is far more abrasive type stuff,” recalled label owner Tom Hazelmyer. “But I cracked up. I’m pretty much a sourpuss, and for something to make me crack up . . . well, I’m a little too jaded for that to happen often these days. It was a mighty plus” for the band.

Now Supernova is the first band being sold via a new distribution and marketing alliance between Amphetamine Reptile and Atlantic Records.

Money is not pouring in, but two months ago the members were able to quit their day jobs (Dave did computer work, Jo was pumping gas and Art had moved from his trash route to a limo driver’s gig).

Hazelmyer says he does not take seriously the notion of Supernova as the next kiddie-pop craze. At the same time, Amphetamine Reptile has just put the finishing touches on a 22-minute video that the band members describe as a pilot for a “Monkees Meets Pee-wee Herman” TV series.

The show, Art says, finds Supernova “driving around in Pal 4000 [the band’s astro-fitted van], searching for tinfoil [a precious metal to denizens of Cynot 3] and correcting the youth of America on rock ‘n’ roll etiquette. We’re also running from the Smarmies, who want to catch us and love us to death. They’re monsters with smiley-faces. You have to have somebody chasing you, or it wouldn’t be a show.”

Hazelmyer thinks the video will more likely end up a promotional item than Supernova’s entree to broadcast fame. Nor is the label very serious about placing Supernova CDs and paraphernalia on the shelves of Toys R Us.

“I think there’s a big old grain of salt with that intent,” Hazelmyer said. “It’s a humorous side note: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if these guys were the Generation X Monkees?’ ”

Whatever the future may hold, the men of Supernova promise that they will continue to follow a goofy script. Supernova will always come wrapped in the tinfoil of its space-foolery.

“Most bands think of themselves as musicians,” says Art. “We look at it like we’re entertainers. We’ve totally made our bed, and we’re willing to lie in it. It’s fun for us. I would be proud of this band when we end if we were like this the whole way.”