Rocket From the Crypt Still Punk but More Grown-Up

That’s not Elvis with the mutton-chop sideburns eating a chicken sandwich with his bandmates in a Sunset Strip hotel room. John Reis (a.k.a. Speedo) of Rocket From the Crypt just likes Presley’s style, the greased hair and ringed fingers, and has even adopted the King’s motto: “TCB,” or “Taking Care of Business.”

Rocket From the Crypt has put that credo to work during a year of near-constant touring since the release of its “Scream, Dracula, Scream” album. Now the San Diego-based unit is bringing its working-class punk to larger audiences via the road show being called Warped Tour ‘96, which lands Saturday at the Cal State Dominguez Hills Velodrome.

Reis, 27, knows that the 29-date tour--and all the new critical attention--means his band’s mix of West Coast hard-core, pop and red-blooded soul will reach a broader audience. But he has no illusions about Rocket From the Crypt’s place in the current pop landscape.

“I think a lot more people are interested in what we’re doing because of what is popular,” Reis says. “Whatever. We’ll take your scraps.”

He’s not counting on some of the younger Warped fans to be immediate Rocket From the Crypt converts, any more than Reis would have been when he was a teenager first discovering the blunt roar of Black Flag and other early punk acts. While “Scream, Dracula, Scream” includes several tracks of anthemic punk, the band also wanders into surprisingly bright, Beatles-esque harmonies on the song “Misbeaten.”

“We are a punk rock band,” Reis says. “But the reason why we’re a punk band is that it changed my life more than anything else that has ever happened to me, which it’s continuing to do to people to this day. But musically there is only so long you can live on just coconuts.”

Among the elements broadening the Crypt wall of sound is a horn section that adds a raw R&B; flair without drifting into ska, and an appreciation for pop history that sent the band during the “Scream” sessions into Hollywood studios once used by producer Phil Spector and the Beach Boys.

“There’s no need in abandoning all these things which were once state of the art,” says Reis of the old equipment found in such studios as the now-defunct Gold Star. “In a lot of cases they haven’t been surpassed.”

On stage, the sextet may perform in matching black bowling shirts while singing defiant tunes of blue-collar values, but Reis disclaims any true working-class credentials.

“We practice long and hard, we play really hard, and we put a lot of ourselves in what we do, just like every band should do,” he explains. “But you can’t really be working class and be in a rock ‘n’ roll band. You’re having so much fun. I don’t look at it as work. We’re not the musical equivalent of a secretarial job.”

Reis grew up in San Diego listening to his parents’ record collection, which included the likes of the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Chuck Mangione and Crystal Gayle, before discovering the punk euphoria of the Ramones and other acts. “And everything else sucked except for punk rock for the next six years,” he says.

By high school, Reis had met up with some of the musicians who would later join him in a series of bands, including Rocket From the Crypt and Reis’ side project, Drive Like Jehu. “There was not that much importance put on the music because we just wanted to be a band, to be something, go out and play and have a good time.

“Once we became comfortable, it was like: ‘OK, this is getting too easy. Let’s do something else, expand the sound naturally, and see how things go.’ ”

The band soon began moving away from the simplest brand of hard-core, which seemed then to be edging dangerously close to heavy metal. Meanwhile, live hard-core shows in San Diego were growing increasingly violent as a new generation of punk fans emerged.

“I wouldn’t even call them punks. They were more like convicts,” Reis says now. “They were like convicts on speed. Punk shows were like their playground, and they seemed to completely outnumber everybody else, and they were way bigger. You were like 15, and this guy was like 30.”

After that, Reis says, it was easy finding inspiration to branch out beyond basic punk. “You get a little older, you know. Either the music got a little bit dumber or I got a little bit smarter.”

* The Warped Tour ‘96, with Rocket From the Crypt, Fishbone, Pennywise, NOFX, Dick Dale and others, Saturday at the Olympic Velodrome, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Carson, 12:30 p.m. $15. (310) 516-4000.