Local Sensation

It’s a joke as old as vaudeville.

Q: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

A: Practice.

But in Nick Hernandez’s experience, there are two ways to get to Irvine Meadows, a prestigious Carnegie equivalent on the Southern California pop-rock scene.

One is to sneak in the back way. That’s what Hernandez did years ago as a teenager, when he and his friends traipsed through farmers’ fields and tangles of briar and underbrush to crash a Tom Petty concert. They got in, but their arms and legs were covered with prickers and ribboned with scrapes.

The other way, Hernandez has found, is to practice.

This evening, the lifelong Laguna Beach resident returns to Irvine Meadows for the first time since he braved the wilderness beyond its fence. This time Hernandez will go in through the performers’ entrance. He and his band, Common Sense, are on the bill for the Sunsplash World Tour ’96 reggae festival. They have gotten there through practice--if “practice” can sum up the 10 years of night-by-night sweat, energy and enjoyment that the friendly, enthusiastic singer has put into the band.

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In one sense, all that effort already has paid off. For about five years, Hernandez, 31, and his bandmates have been able to earn a full-time living from music alone, as Common Sense has emerged as one of the most popular club attractions plying the coastline from San Diego to San Francisco.

The band typically plays four or five nights a week, drawing crowds of 250 to 1,000 with a pop-inflected brand of reggae highlighted by expert musicianship, catchy original songs, reggae-fied versions of well-known pop and rock hits and a fine group-harmony vocal blend.

Now Common Sense is looking to take the next step, from regional success to national contender. Its slot on the five-concert Southern California leg of the Sunsplash tour--two shows last weekend at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, today’s Irvine Meadows stop and dates Saturday in Santa Barbara and Sunday in San Diego--certifies the seven-piece band as a strong regional act. (Band members say they got the gigs after being vouched for by Big Mountain, the established pop-reggae band from San Diego that is one of the tour’s headliners.) National aspirations ride on a new album, “Psychedelic Surf Groove,” the first studio-produced CD of the band’s career.

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As Common Sense’s three longest-tenured members--Hernandez, guitarist Billy Sherman and keyboards/guitar player Jai Vatuk--gathered for an interview this week at the band’s headquarters in Laguna Niguel, one couldn’t help thinking that they already have a tasty slice of the rock ‘n’ roll pie.

The band’s airy rehearsal room is upstairs in a large, hilltop house rented by Vatuk and two musician roommates. It commands a lovely view that takes in a wide expanse of blue sky and a verdant swath of suburbia in which slopes from terraced ridges funnel into a valley below. If Common Sense needs a break, the band can adjourn to an outdoor pool and hot tub, or to the adjoining concrete basketball court and flower garden. If success along the California coastline can bring perks like these, who needs to conquer the world?

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While acknowledging that they have a good thing going regionally--including do-it-yourself sales of about 10,000 for a 1994 CD that captures a live performance at one of their regular haunts, the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach--the Common Sense members want more.

“The bummer is, if you don’t go forward, it will drive you crazy,” said Sherman who, like Hernandez, still lives in their hometown of Laguna Beach. “Doing the same thing, that stagnates a band.”

Hanging in Common Sense’s music room are three gold and platinum records that belong to Vatuk’s old friend and housemate, Wally Ingram, who earned them as tour drummer for Sheryl Crow.

“It makes nice decoration,” said Vatuk, a slightly built man of 33 who wears a muzzle of dark, trim beard. “Hopefully, we’ll have some of our own soon.”

The flint that struck the first spark for Common Sense was a Bob Marley album that Hernandez’s father brought home when Hernandez was a small boy. He says songs like “No Woman, No Cry” made him want to be a singer. He says he also picked up some of the soulful quality that marks his singing by listening to a bluesy covers band fronted by his dad, Nicholas Hernandez, now a sculptor in Laguna Beach. Later, singing in the gospel choir at UC Santa Barbara helped young Hernandez delve further into soulful expression.

He launched Common Sense--dubbed the Ska Pigs in its first year--in 1986 while studying music at UCSB. Lineup shifts came often; the band’s alumni association includes a psychiatrist, a surgeon, a saxophonist who tours with Lenny Kravitz and a casualty of the fast-lane lifestyle.

The band had moved back to Laguna Beach by 1990 when its original guitarist, Drew Quadros, died in a car wreck. Hernandez said Quadros’ intake of crack cocaine had become a problem, and his death “got myself into seeing the light and not wanting to do those things anymore. I was partying a lot, smoking base and stupid things like that. I don’t want to do it now. I have no desire.”

Sherman, a boyhood friend of Hernandez’s, took over on guitar, then Vatuk arrived. The transplanted Chicagoan had recorded and toured for three years as a member of the Bonedaddys, a world beat band based in Los Angeles. Larry Young, a dreadlocked Texan, was a crucial addition on bass when he joined four years ago.

“That was when things started to take shape,” Vatuk said. “[With Young] we had a third person to sing harmonies. The background vocal style of Common Sense started to happen.”

Chuck Morris, whose credentials as a drummer included stints with the funk band Cameo and in the “Arsenio Hall Show” band, arrived two years ago. Augmenting the five core members are horn players Johnny Ervin and Danny LeMelle, former members of Rick James’ band.

Hernandez points proudly to the fact that, without planning, Common Sense wound up with a diverse ethnic mix. His father is a Chicano; Vatuk’s dad is from India; Young and Morris are African American and, Sherman, with his lithe, muscled torso, long flowing hair and easygoing manner, is the California surf-dude personified.

Diversity marks the band’s sound as well, with wailing psychedelic guitar, sweet Motown-ish melodies and, on the lovely “Time Is Winding Down,” strong gospel harmonies. All take their place atop the band’s sturdy foundation of reggae rhythms.

Lyrically, Common Sense typically ranges from simply-stated warnings about social ills to reflections on romantic ups and downs. The mellow, romantically moody “Summer” departs from form as Hernandez recalls an episode from his teens when he tried psychedelic mushrooms in a quest for philosophic illumination. Vatuk’s “Things Ain’t Gettin’ Any Easier” is a plaintive expression of disillusionment, stemming from a period two years ago when he had grown temporarily frustrated by Common Sense’s inability to land a record deal.

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The band members credit Roy Thomas Baker, a veteran English record producer whose album credits include massive hits in the ‘70s by Queen and the Cars, with helping them find a coherent focus for their diverse sound. The chance to work with Baker was part of the attraction in signing with Surfdog Records, an emerging independent label whose owner, Dave Kaplan, is Baker’s manager.

“Some producers of that stature would come in and change your whole sound and [substitute] their own opinion,” Vatuk said. Instead, he said, Baker helped Common Sense better define its own concept of how the band should sound.

“We have maybe too many ideas,” Vatuk said. “He’d filter out the ones that we needed. It’s more stripped down and enhanced sonically” beyond what the band could have achieved without Baker’s help.

Common Sense recorded the album early this year. True to its working-band creed, it kept up a regular schedule of weekend gigs along the California coast, then road-tripped to Baker’s home studio in Lake Havasu, Ariz., for recording sessions.

“It was a seven day a week [routine] for 2 1/2 months. We deserve to make it, now that I look back,” Hernandez said with a laugh. “We paid our dues.”

* The Sunsplash World Tour ’96 festival with Common Sense, Big Mountain, Dennis Brown, Capleton, Sugar Minott, Judy Mowatt and the Skool Band starts at 5 p.m. today at Irvine Meadows, 8800 Irvine Center Drive. $21-$29. (714) 855-6111 (recorded information) or (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster).

Common Sense plays Aug. 22 at 8 p.m. at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $8-$10. (714) 496-8930.