Playing a Faith Card : O.C. ska-rock band the Supertones is putting up enviable numbers on the U.S. Christian circuit.

The Orange County Supertones are the best of the local ska-rock bands to have emerged since No Doubt’s massive success took ska-related pop from the underground to the Top 10.

Still, Reel Big Fish and Save Ferris are the best-known O.C. beneficiaries of the new taste for ska. Both landed major recording contracts and have gotten lots of modern-rock radio play for their energetic but superficial fare.

Faith demands that the Supertones take a different approach. The band’s insistent Christian message has kept it from the mainstream radio and video exposure that would otherwise be a given for the extremely catchy, high-energy songs of its new album, “Supertones Strike Back.”

But if Christian rockers typically have trouble reaching the mainstream, they also benefit from access to a parallel universe in which a national circuit of Christian venues, promoters and sales outlets can nurture an emerging band. Most O.C. ska-rock fans may never have heard of them, but the Mission Viejo-based Supertones, who play Wednesday on the “Praise ‘98” Christian pop festival bill at Knott’s Berry Farm, are racking up numbers that would be the envy of any emerging band.

On Sept. 27, the Supertones headlined at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center for “Skamania ‘97,” a bill of Christian ska bands. The show at the 5,000-capacity basketball arena did turn-away business. Six months after its release, “Supertones Strike Back” is nearing 150,000 sales, 80% through Christian music retailers, according to David Bahnsen, the band’s manager. A 1996 release, “Adventures of the O.C. Supertones,” is approaching 100,000 sales.

“It’s pretty amazing for a band that has had very little radio or video airplay to have been able to sell that amount of CDs,” said Tazy Phyllipz, the veteran ska-scene chronicler who co-hosts “The Ska Parade,” a weekly program on KUCI-FM (88.9). “I would have to say the whole Christian values thing really works in their favor, big time. It’s a niche they’ve carved for themselves, but they’re also a good band, and I think they have great potential to cross over” to fans not primarily interested in a Christian message.

“Strike Back” is one of the best Christian rock albums ever to come out of Orange County, which has a strong tradition of Christian alternative music. It’s one of the best O.C. releases this year in any genre.

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The Supertones offer the liveliness of the now-familiar ska-hybrid approach, with its scratchy or punky guitar rhythms and bright, heraldic horns. But where much ska seems lightweight, the Supertones’ music has stature and heart. Matt Morginsky, the band’s shaven-headed front man and lyricist, sings in a forthright, chesty voice that gives his avowals of faith the honest, earthy conviction of a rock ‘n’ roll Everyman; the melodies he writes with bassist Tony Terusa have real staying power. While proclaiming love for Jesus in unmistakable terms, the songs are written from interesting points of view that avoid religious cheerleading and happy talk. Proudly defiant avowals of embattled faith, or, conversely, moments of doubt and self-criticism, give the album gumption and spiritual depth.

Morginsky, Terusa and drummer Jason Carson, the Supertones’ founding members, chatted over sandwiches and fries recently at a South County burger joint. Carson, 23, had the outgoing, confident air of a fellow who could do well in the business world if rock ever lost its shine for him; Morginsky, with his goatee and tattoos, had a quietly intense manner, and Terusa, 23, was the epitome of that familiar rock ‘n’ roll type, the soft-spoken, mild-mannered bass player.

For Morginsky, 21, writing spiritual songs that express doubt and struggle simply reflects the common experience of believers. “It’s a misconception that once you’re a Christian everything is great and you’re a happy-go-lucky person. Joy is definitely a part of it, but I feel a lot of Christians are like me: They don’t have it all together, and they don’t always do what they’re supposed to. I’m hoping people will see some of themselves in the lyrics.”

When the Supertones’ members began playing rock, their motives were not so lofty.

“I was 12, and hormones had just kicked in,” Morginsky recalled. “I started playing music so I could get girls. It didn’t work at all.”

Morginsky was so eager to play his bass that, at 14, he accepted an acquaintance’s invitation to join his band. “He didn’t tell me that it was a worship band at the Catholic church.” Born Jewish, but raised with the idea that religion “was a waste of time,” Morginsky found to his surprise that, in between musical numbers, he was paying attention to the prayers and sermons. Gradually he became a Bible reader and a Christian believer, though he also has looked to his Jewish roots; tattooed into his right arm are a Star of David and Hebrew letters spelling out Jesus’ Hebrew name.

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Carson and Terusa were buddies at Mission Viejo High School, playing together in a heavy metal band whose repertoire revolved around Ozzy Osbourne, Guns ‘N Roses and Motley Crue.

“We were singing about sex and all kinds of destructive things,” Carson said--not that it bothered him until one Sunday when he put in his routine appearance in church and had a sudden spiritual awakening. He quit the heavy metal party band and started playing Christian rock. Rather than hold it against Carson, Terusa checked out shows by his friend’s new band, and Christianity gradually became central in his life as well.

By 1991, Carson, Morginsky and Terusa were together in Saved, a band with a focused message but a scattered musical agenda that included punk, funk, ska, metal, grunge-alternative, and hip-hop. Christian bands such as D.C. Talk have been criticized for trend-jumping and style shifting rather than forging a distinctive sound of their own. In early 1995, the Supertones decided to pare down their approach to emphasize ska-punk.

“Everybody was telling us the ska [songs] were the ones they liked best,” Terusa said. “We realized: ‘Let’s just do this.’ ”

“We didn’t jump on some bandwagon because it was selling good,” Carson interjected, noting that the Supertones threw in with ska before No Doubt’s “Tragic Kingdom” album (which carried the ska label into the pop mainstream) became a hit. “It’s fun, and it’s what we do best.”

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Horn players David Chevalier and Darren Mettler were contacts from school or church. In 1996, after the band’s first album, Dan Spencer, a fan from Dallas, called unsolicited to volunteer his services as trombonist and passed a subsequent tryout. Early on, the Supertones were the only Christian ska-punk band with a record deal (with the Seattle-based Christian alternative label Tooth & Nail) and a national profile. Guitarist Kevin Chen left the band last summer after “Strike Back” was recorded. Brian Johnson took his place.

The Supertones toured on a circuit of churches and Christian colleges and built a following. At the end of January, the band will return to the road for its fifth national tour, a 62-date trek opening shows in 3,000-seat halls for the better-established Christian alternative band Audio Adrenaline. Meanwhile, manager Bahnsen said, the Supertones’ handlers will try to persuade mainstream modern-rock stations and MTV that the band’s music can be a hit with a general rock audience.

If such a crossover occurs, the three founders say, it will not be because the Supertones have toned down their message or couched it in symbolic or oblique terms as the Christian alternative band Jars of Clay did on its breakthrough hit, “Flood.”

In their handful of gigs in secular venues, including Music City in Fountain Valley and the Showcase Theatre in Corona, the Supertones members said they didn’t go over well enough to be invited back. The fact that the band always takes a couple of pauses in its shows for Morginsky and Carson to promote Christian faith probably had something to do with that.

“We got a few fingers here and there,” Terusa said.

“There’s a lot of heckling, but it breaks no bones, and we go on,” Morginsky said. His defiant song, “Shut Up and Play,” stemmed not only from nonbelievers’ verbal brickbats, but also from some Christian fans’ complaints that the band should knock off the talk and just play music.

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Won’t this religiously emphatic approach turn off fans who might otherwise warm to the band on purely musical terms?

“A lot of bands start out as Christian bands and go, ‘If we want to be respected, we have to make it in the secular industry,’ ” Morginsky noted. “We could care less. If secular promoters call us, great.”

“We have nothing to hide,” Carson said. “Our whole band can be summed up in that we put God first in everything we do.”

“Praise ‘98,” with the Orange County Supertones, Crystal Lewis, Bryan Duncan and others, takes place Wednesday at Knott’s Berry Farm, 8039 Beach Blvd., Buena Park. 7 p.m. $23-$25. (714) 220-5200.