Someone’s Looking Out for Primitive Radio Gods

If you want something done right, the adage advises, do it yourself.

Chris O’Connor, founder of Primitive Love Gods, took that adage as a motto following years of unsuccessfully plying the Southern California rock scene as a member of Ventura’s I-Rails.

That band had recorded four albums but disbanded after having started a fifth.

“It just seemed like we were spinning our wheels in the band,” said former I-Rails member Jeff Sparks. “No one seemed to be very interested in us. I got married, moved to Humboldt and went back to school.”

For O’Connor, a long fallow period followed.

“I wrote something like one song in three years. I didn’t have a TV. I didn’t have the energy to do it with someone else. I didn’t want to play live, just finish the record,” O’Connor said.

So he decided to keep working on the album on his own. Starting with two tracks of what was to be the fifth I-Rails release, O’Connor wound up five years later with Primitive Love Gods’ hit debut album, “Rocket.” It includes a hit song featuring a scratchy B.B. King sample and a long title: “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand.” The Gods play tonight at Club 369 in Fullerton.

“I didn’t have a band around, so I didn’t have to worry about what they thought. I pressed up about 500 copies of ‘Rocket’ and got all the lists and started to send them out to assistants of A&R; guys--people who might listen. But I was still working at the time. You have to get on the phone to follow up these things, and I just didn’t have the time. I hoped something would happen, but nothing did. A year went by.”

O’Connor’s music found the right guy at the right time--Jonathon Daniel, at London-based Fiction Records, which had opened an office in New York.

“The song got played at a listening meeting, and Kip Kronos of Sony UK calls me up and tells me he wants to release it as a single,” O’Connor said. “Later, here I am in London working on this very low-budget video, which still cost more than the album that I made for a thousand bucks. I still had my job [as an air-traffic controller], so I called in sick three times from London.”

With the keen interest in “Rocket,” O’Connor contacted Sparks and drummer Tim Lauterio and essentially regrouped the I-Rails. The Gods’ lineup also includes lead guitarist Luke McAuliffe, formerly of the Mudheads, another defunct Ventura band. Lauterio has given notice to quit driving a beer truck, and McAuliffe is quitting his gardening gig. A tour will begin later this month, most likely a number of club dates, according to O’Connor.

“It worked itself out. I made ‘Rocket,’ but as for the live stuff and merchandising and the next record, we split the money,” he said. “I guess we’re about as good as we’re gonna get. We have about 19 songs so far. The band sounds a lot like, well, like ‘Rocket.’ ”

And “Rocket” sounds a lot like a hit, thanks to heavy radio airplay and exposure on the soundtrack from “The Cable Guy.” It’s No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Radio Charts this week, and the album is No. 60 on the Top 200 album chart.

“Is that good?” a Sony Music publicist said. “Well, let me put it this way, Hole debuted outside the Top 200, and for a band that no one has heard of outside a small area, and wasn’t married to anyone in Nirvana, Primitive Radio Gods are doing really well.”

O’Connor did quit his day job, but there are no rock-star trappings in evidence yet. He still drives to practice in a Falcon older than he is. And the band is drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, on sale for $8 a case at Vons. The check isn’t in the mail--yet.

Said O’Connor: “Even after I got signed, I kept getting rejection letters: ‘Thank you for submitting blah-blah, but we really don’t get it . . . .’ ”

* Primitive Radio Gods, Mr. Mirainga and Lidsville play tonight at Club 369, 1641 N. Placentia Ave., Fullerton. 9 p.m. $6. (714) 572-1816.