Success Keeps ‘Em Humble

Wank has tooled out of the driveway onto the entrance ramp of potential success, but the unassuming Orange County alterna-rock band didn’t bring any fast-lane flash or braggadocio to its homecoming show Thursday night at Club 369 in Fullerton.

Wank got a break last winter when king-making KROQ-FM (106.7) began playing “Forgiven,” a catchy, Clash-like punk-ska number; that led to a major-label deal with Maverick Records, which put out a modified reissue of Wank’s homemade, winkingly titled 1997 debut album, “Get a Grip on Yourself.”

Back briefly from two months of touring--with a stint on the high-profile Warped Tour up next--Wank came off as a humble, appreciative, no-nonsense band, stifling any impulse to tell war stories from the road or otherwise trumpet its success.

After all, it still has a long way to go before it can claim a grip on stardom: The album has sold 7,900 copies, according to SoundScan--a promising start for an unknown band, but also an indicator of how much hard work it takes for an act to break through, even with an initial push from radio.

Wank’s humility ran counter to the dominant persona of its songs--a blustery tough guy confronting life with fists at the ready and enough lip to talk his way into a fight. That could be a formula for tedium, or for off-putting celebration of a gangster-ish mentality, but Wank does a fine job of hinting at the softer humanity under that tough skin.

Danny Walker, the lead guitarist and main songwriter, puts an elegiac note into Wank’s melodies and a touch of self-awareness of moral consequences into the lyrics. Bobby Amodeo, the husky-voiced singer, has a knack for registering the vulnerability being shielded by that hard veneer of threats and boasts.

Wank is a solid representative of the most musically mature wing of the over-saturated, anyone-can-do-it-so-everyone-does local punk-pop movement. It’s not as cerebral or intense as Maverick label-mate Rule 62 (which so far hasn’t had that crucial radio break), nor as breathtakingly driven and fiery as the magical One Hit Wonder, nor as big-sounding as the Offspring. But nobody is ever going to leave a Wank show without a tuneful buzz.

The Club 369 set--a brisk 14 songs in 43 minutes--underscored that, of all the O.C. punk-pop bands, Wank is the most comfortable with the pop side of its heritage. Most punk-related bands on the O.C. club scene shrink from playing ballads in concert (assuming they have any in their recorded repertoire) the way Dracula shrinks from daylight.

But Wank stepped up with “Super Normal,” a Valentine-like love song that dares to be schmaltzy. Amodeo colored his delivery with a pop balladeer’s vibrato, registering sincerity while relying on his chesty tone to prevent things from getting saccharine. Walker provided some razory, Mick Ronson-like guitar lines to give it an edge.

Wank also showed that, while tires get dull with mileage, rock bands can get sharper. Drummer Spider (Amodeo’s younger brother) was a precise, powerful engine for the band. Walker and rhythm guitarist Billie Stevens were the showmen, going through an assortment of Strummer-Jones kinetic-punker poses and scissors-kick leaps, without throwing off their musicianship.

All three joined in soaring backing vocals that helped the band achieve anthem-like lift while adding a nice sense of communal engagement and effort. Amodeo did nothing fancy, keeping the bass lines moving and singing with commitment as the sweat glistened on his Lex Luthor dome.

One of the oddities of Wank’s transition from a do-it-yourself band to a major-label act is that Maverick left a couple of the catchiest songs from the indie version of “Get a Grip” off of the reissued version.

One of them, “Rollin’ On,” was an ideal show opener, full of pride and affirmation in the face of adversity. The other, “Charity,” is a pummeling, unshakably catchy love/lust song that Wank didn’t play--and it would have helped enliven a somewhat samey middle section.

But there were enough highlights to keep the show afloat. “Paranoid” brought out the vulnerable side of that tough-guy character without sacrificing rocking drive. Ska flavoring without ska pandering leavened the sprightly, hangdog love song “Never” and the now-taut, now-jaunty “Forgiven.”

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Several anthems reached back before punk to the pub-rock tradition, with echoes of Thin Lizzy and even Bruce Springsteen: Add a saxophone and glockenspiel, and “Fearless,” with its pealing arena-rock riffing and chugging beat, could be an outtake from “Born to Run.”

There was reasonable variation within the anthem-punk style that is Wank’s staple; still, the band needs a few charged, hurtling numbers to fire up its set. And, instead of just words of appreciation between songs, it wouldn’t hurt to underscore the thematically cohesive, character-driven nature of the material with introductions pointing up the themes or giving some background on what inspired a given song.

Not every band has a story to tell in its music, and Wank’s good prospects will get even better if it can make that story come alive on stage with every means it has.

The second-billed set by female-fronted Anti-All was an unimaginative tale retold from 1978 or so, full of the outraged yelling and bashing and buzzing of hard-core punk. The band went against type and showed a more promising dimension on one moody, more melodic and coherent number, apparently titled “Darkness Falling.”