Moonlighting Gives Rockers a Chance to Shine

If even the losers get lucky sometimes, Golden Smog may yet turn into a proper rock supergroup, like the Traveling Wilburys.

This collection of buddies from twangy Midwestern bands with ‘80s college-rock roots used to have at least one thing in common with the Wilburys: the use of cute pseudonyms. But even that passing similarity has vanished. In a small victory for musicians who know what it means to go hitless on the pop charts, the six Smoggers--who play the House of Blues tonight and the Galaxy Theatre on Sunday--won the right on their new album, “Weird Tales,” to finally stop calling themselves silly things like Jarrett Decatur, Scott Summitt and Raymond Virginia, and start using their real names.

“We used those names before because we had to,” says Gary Louris, the Jayhawks frontman who is one of four singer-songwriters sharing the spotlight in Golden Smog. “It was the way our [main bands’] labels wanted it at the time. [Eventually] they realized Golden Smog wasn’t preventing any world domination [by those other bands] anyway.”

The only Golden Smog member who has reaped gold or platinum returns is Dan Murphy, the guitarist and second-chair singer-songwriter in Soul Asylum behind Dave Pirner. (Pirner took part in Golden Smog’s first incarnation as a consortium of drinking buddies playing cover songs in Minneapolis bars, resulting in a 1992 debut EP.)

Louris and bassist Marc Perlman hail from the long-struggling Jayhawks, Kraig Johnson plays in the even lower-profile Run Westy Run (he’s also now an adjunct Jayhawks member), and the star of the bunch is Jeff Tweedy of the creatively high-achieving but commercially under-rewarded band Wilco.

When Golden Smog needed a new drummer to record “Weird Tales,” it was only fitting that the job went to Jody Stephens, who played in Big Star, the Memphis-based band from the early ‘70s that ranks high on rock’s all-time list of buried treasures.

Classic-rock sources such as the Byrds, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, vintage Rod Stewart and Neil Young & Crazy Horse feed Golden Smog’s sound. Its first album of originals, 1996’s “Down by the Old Mainstream,” was a charming, offhanded patchwork. “Weird Tales” is much more cohesive, with stately tempos and a unifying mood of elegiac longing.

“There was absolutely no discussion of [a unified] concept, but I’m happy this record holds together as well as it does,” Louris, 43, says. “It’s no small feat considering you have six chefs and a lot of different lead singers. We spent a month on it, and we had more time to . . . become more of a band. It’s hard when you don’t all hang out together all the time.”

That lack of hang time helps Golden Smog avoid the problem of too many creative egos, which historically has undone bands with three or four talented singer-songwriters--witness the Beatles, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and Blind Faith.

“I don’t think the Golden Smog could ever work as our only band. There would be too many people fighting for space,” Louris says. But as an occasional side project, what would otherwise be unwieldy functions nicely as a rock artists’ cooperative.

“The biggest egos might be me and Jeff, but we have our own bands to get a lot of that out. It’s almost fun to step back a little. Everybody’s pulling for Kraig and Dan, because Kraig doesn’t get many of his songs out [elsewhere], and he’s a brilliant, natural musician, and Dan only gets to do one or two songs a record on Soul Asylum’s albums. . . .

“The biggest difference is everybody knows we’re touring for just 10 days and we won’t see each other for six months, and it may be two years before we make another record.”

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* Golden Smog and Hazeldine play tonight at 9 at the House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. $16.50. (213) 848-5100. Also Sunday at the Galaxy Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana, 8 p.m. $17.50. (714) 957-0600.