RBF Stays at Center of Its Universe

Reel Big Fish doesn’t need to get a face lift on its musical concept, but it needs to get a life.

The Orange County band’s 1996 album, “Turn the Radio Off,” vaulted it to the front ranks of the much-maligned ska-rock movement. “Why Do They Rock So Hard?” is a strong follow-up, in which bright playing, exuberant spirits, keen melodic knack--plus a tentative willingness to explore colors not in the Crayola box of standard Third Wave ska--overcome the fact that front man Aaron Barrett and his mates don’t seem to be interested in anything except being in a band, and the guff that comes with it.

“Turn the Radio Off” was all about Reel Big Fish’s love/hate relationship with the idea of rock stardom. Well, 601,000 album sales later, according to SoundScan, it’s the morning after the guilty fling. Can they look themselves in the mirror?

Yes. No. Whatever. Going through the experience of rock stardom doesn’t seem to have helped Barrett resolve his conflicts about it. And it certainly hasn’t expanded his horizons. “Why Do They Rock So Hard?” is another album about being in “the scene,” as RBF encounters unkind reviewers (“You Don’t Know”), ex-girlfriends who become stars in their own right, much to the singer’s chagrin (“She’s Famous Now”), zealous ska purists who can’t stand them for being successful or fickle, trendy fans who can’t be trusted to stand by their band (“The Kids Don’t Like It,” “Down in Flames,” “We Care”).

The catchiness and zest of these songs is enough to make us care, at least a little. And the accumulation of songs on the subject does make a poignant point about the lot of today’s modern-rock radio hit makers. They are dogged by dismissive critics and purist scene-sters ready to cry “Sell Out” (the prescient title of RBF’s breakthrough hit from “Turn the Radio Off”) at the first sign of success. And when success arrives, they can’t rely on “the kids” to stick with them from album to album, the way fans used to in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

But RBF’s response, by and large, is a lukewarm shrug of “whatever.” Even on “Down in Flames,” a profane raspberry to an uncomprehending critic, Barrett can’t keep his dander up for the entire song; by the end he adopts a line of to-each-his-own. The songs about girlfriend woes express only vague ambivalence that can be tossed off with a laugh, not real passion.

The smooth-singing Barrett sounds most emotionally exercised on “Big Star,” as he hollers out his angry confusion over the unresolvable contradiction between dreaming of stardom and regarding it as suspect.

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Let’s hope that after three albums of this rock-star guilt-trip stuff, Reel Big Fish has gotten it out of its system and can move on to singing about something less narrow and insular. Local bands such as the Ziggens and Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys have proven on album after album that it’s possible to have fun, play with light-stepping energy and still have something insightful to say about the human parade.

Musically, “Why Do They Rock So Hard?” has some throwaways, but only enough to momentarily deflect the album’s catchy momentum. “I Want Your Girlfriend to Be My Girlfriend Too” is generic skip-along ska, “Thank You for Not Moshing” may be a worthwhile sentiment, but it’s handled in an obvious way. “Everything Is Cool” is a one-joke genre spoof on Korn’s revulsion-rock, but at least the sendup is funny.

It’s hard not to get caught up by infectious songs such as the soaring “The Set Up (You Need This),” and it’s impossible not to grin at the Beach Boys impression on “Scott’s a Dork”--the song’s bridge consists of the word brightly harmonized and chirped 36 times in succession. “The Kids Don’t Like It” barges ahead like the Ramones teaming up with the Bay City Rollers.

The guitars mainly buzz punk-pop style, and the horns almost always do the usual off-to-the-races unison ska riffing, though with unusual sharpness. There are signs that RBF wants to mix it up a bit--the slide guitar that brays briefly in “You Don’t Know,” or the acoustic ballad and elegiac-rock elements that crop up on “Big Star” and “We Care.”

“Victory Over Peter Bones,” the last song, apart from some hidden-track nonsense, is a fun departure that proves Reel Big Fish can paddle far away from ska-punk. It’s a breezy, mellow, Latin-inflected instrumental showcasing the horns playing actual solos; think of the Rascals meeting Burt Bacharach for some groovin’ on the way to San Jose. Barrett barges in on guitar with tasty stolen licks, including some regal double-tracked fuzz-tone harmony and a bald theft from Steve Cropper’s guitar line on the Otis Redding classic, “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.”

Maybe there’s life beyond the ska trend for Reel Big Fish--assuming the band can think of something to sing about other than being part of the ska trend.

* Reel Big Fish, Spring Heeled Jack, Goldfinger and the Pilfers play Friday at the Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. $16. (714) 740-2000.

Albums are rated on a scale of * (poor) to **** (excellent), with *** denoting a solid recommendation.