Serving Up Another Helping

How could a rock band land one of its songs in a hit comedy starring Eddie Murphy and get prominent on-camera exposure in the same movie and still not become a national sensation?

Ask the Bus Boys.

The fun-loving group had L.A. abuzz for a while in the early ‘80s with its exuberant club shows and blues-based rock ‘n’ roll songs about working-class joys and struggles. As one of the very few African American groups playing straight-ahead rock, the Bus Boys were an anomaly on the predominantly white punk-new wave scene of the time.

But despite appearing in and contributing the theme song, “The Boys Are Back in Town,” to Murphy’s 1982 screen debut in “48HRS.,” big-time success never arrived.

One key reason was that a soundtrack album was never released, so the Bus Boys lost any chance of charting a hit single from a hit movie.

“I think ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ must be the most famous song in the world that has never been released,” group founder and lead singer Brian O’Neal said recently in a phone interview from his home in West Hollywood. “People always say, ‘Oh yeah, that was on the soundtrack album.’ But there was no soundtrack album.”

That’s not to say O’Neal reaped nothing from “48HRS.” “That movie plays 10 times a day somewhere in America,” he said with glee. It generates both continued exposure for the band and, more tangibly, royalties on the song “that allows me to have a fruitful career to come back to now.”

What he’s coming back to is a Bus Boys revival built around their first new album since 1988’s “Money Don’t Make the Man,” which failed to follow the band’s first two, “Minimum Wage Rock & Roll” and “American Worker,” onto Billboard’s top 200 albums chart.

The new album, “The Boys Are Back in Town,” includes re-recorded versions of the never-released “48HRS.” theme and “New Shoes” from “American Worker” plus 10 new songs O’Neal has written since becoming the father of twin boys three years ago.

‘Unfinished Business’ Brought Them Back

With William and Trevor cavorting boisterously in the background--prompting Dad to pause occasionally during the interview to patiently divert them from mangling the master tape of one of his new songs--O’Neal said he resuscitated the Bus Boys because “we had unfinished business. . . .”

“I felt we had to make a great recording and release [‘The Boys Are Back in Town’],” he said, “because I would not like that to be the footnote in the Rolling Stone entry on our rock and roll career: that the Bus Boys were completely unable to release their most popular song.”

He’s putting finishing touches on a couple of songs being added to an early version of the album available as an advance promotional copy through the band’s Web site (https://www.busboys.com). The completed album is slated for release in March.

The re-formed Bus Boys--original members O’Neal, drummer Steve Felix and vocalist-songwriter-dancer Gus Loundermon, plus new guitarist Jorge Evans and bassist Kenny Tomlin--have been playing sporadically over the past year while working on the new album. They’ll be at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Saturday.

The group’s music always had more in common with ZZ Top than Dr. Dre, and, with the exception of a new hip-hop oriented track titled “Rock and Roll,” propulsive three- and four-chord blues rock remains characteristic of the Bus Boys of 2000.

A More Diverse Pop Landscape

“I’m more influenced by the musical parts of [rap and hip-hop],” said O’Neal, who grew up in the middle-class neighborhoods of greater Los Angeles. “I like some of the bravado, but that’s not new. I can get as much bravado out of Muddy Waters as I can get out of Ol’ Dirty Bastard any day of the week.”

Resorting to bravado about the Bus Boys only fleetingly--”I think a lot of things about the Bus Boys remain wholly and totally unique”--O’Neal generally is modestly optimistic about the group’s prospects.

He thinks the Bus Boys music can benefit from a pop music climate in which hits by artists as disparate as Britney Spears, Rage Against the Machine and Dr. Dre often coexist peacefully at the top of the charts.

And he said he’s learned enough in the last 20 years to guarantee one thing: There won’t be any missed opportunities this time around.

At the very least, O’Neal said, fans can still count on a lively stage show.

“The Bus Boys were always a good-time band,” he said, “and there are still good times to be had.”

BE THERE

The Bus Boys play Saturday at the Coach House, San Juan Capistrano. With Overland, the Nomads. 8 p.m. $10 to $12. (949) 496-8930.