"That night, we got there at 7:30," explains guitarist Lüpüs Thünder from his hometown of Philadelphia. "Somebody grabbed us, gave us our passes, and said, 'You're on around 10.' Then they told us there was an open bar, so we figured that we had just enough time to where we could drink without getting too drunk. Well, they pushed us back to about 1:30. I don't even remember much of the performance. I was very afraid that it was going to be really bad."
Lest anyone think that the group's booty-flashing, hit-single-sampling antics were a drunken aberration, Thünder says that fans can expect all of the above, and more, from the average Bloodhound Gang show. "We always try to put in some pop culture stuff, whatever's going on at the time," he says. "That keeps us from having to play the same stupid songs all the time. It's more fun to do a little TLC instead. As for getting naked, we'll do that no matter where we are, as long as we think we can get away with it."
On the other end of the stage-show spectrum in terms of glitz and spectacle lies the Gang's tourmates, Nerf Herder. Singer-guitarist Parry Gripp describes the possible highlights of a Nerf Herder concert in his trademark self-deprecating fashion.
"We just kind of stand there and play the songs," he says. "We're pretty disorganized, so sometimes between songs we argue about what song to play next. Sometimes we stand around and tune our guitars, and occasionally somebody will break a string and we'll have to switch guitars. There's not too much excitement."
Still, if there's a band that can get by on music alone, it's Nerf Herder. On its 1996 self-titled debut and the recent follow-up, How to Meet Girls, this trio-turned-quartet blends Weezer-style pop with quirky, inventive lyrics and some of the best odes to rock stars this side of Wesley Willis. The group earned a hit on its first album with a tribute to Van Halen, which piled lavish praise on that group's early work before lambasting its Sammy Hagar-era material (Can't drive 55/ I'll never buy your lousy records again). In response, Hagar angrily dismissed the group's members as "faggots" and recently became incensed when a San Francisco newspaper dared to bring up Nerf Herder's song during an interview. However, the group's latest single, "Courtney Love," a revamping of The Rotters' "Sit on My Face, Stevie Nicks" that chronicles Love's ascent from riot grrrl icon to glamour queen, met with approval from its subject.
"Our label was really worried about putting out the song," Gripp says. "They thought it was going to cause a lot of trouble for them, so we sent her the song and she gave us her permission to put it out, which was pretty cool. That was very nice of her (especially given that the song contains such lines as Now I'm overweight and ugly/Just like you used to be)."
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