Return of the Atomic Age

The Hek-Atomic Cherries return after years of abscence for one night only.

At the time, they were just three Episcopal School of Acadiana students seemingly obsessed with singing odes to cows and killer tea cups and sofas. A generation of young and impressionable Lafayette music fans, however, saw the Hek-Atomic Cherries as an inspiration that helped spawn bands still making waves seven years after they split.

Among certain music circles, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone young enough to have worn flannel shirts in the 1990s and hung out at The Wall or Metropolis who hasn't heard a tape of Hey You Wild Animals, Put Down That Meat. Now, some of those underage kids who pogoed at the Cherries' all-ages shows are leading bands of their own. On Tuesday, Dec. 23, nostalgic fans will likely be in front of Root Hogs' stage, hopping as the Cherries play their first gig in three years. One local rocker even cites a Cherries' show as the starting point of his career.

"Garrett (Cherries member Wes Raine's brother) took me to see them at Main Street when we were freshmen in high school, and I really loved the show - it was soooo fun," reminisces Jason Bienvenu, drummer for Down In The Park. "Needless to say, I went home and learned how to play my dad's old drum set, and I have been playing ever since."

Bienvenu's assertion that what made a Hek-Atomic show a Hek-Atomic show was just the fun, rings true with the band, originally composed of four lads named Steve Miller, Charles Barousse, Wes Raine and Jay Burton.

"We were the silliest band and one of the, if not the, loudest bands in town. We played in crazy costumes and wrote absurd lyrics," says Barousse, who now plays with Thunderpants. "Although some of our earlier songs were certainly dead ringers for Dead Milkmen, Misfits or Descendents songs, we evolved to have a fairly unique sound. We were thicker, heavier and, at times, more dissonant than a lot of other punk rock stuff out there. Some people even quit considering us punk rock anymore, but rather some other heavy, fast brand of rock. We were also personable at shows." In the Hek-Atomic dictionary, personable is defined as taking a walk on the odd side.

"We used to do things at our shows for the crowd other than just the music," says Wes Raine. "Sometimes it was as simple as us all wearing our matching Red Roof Inn T-shirts. Other times we got really elaborate like when Steve and I wore cow costumes and Charles wore a Pope costume. Or the time that Steve dressed like a pimp, Charles wore a gorilla suit and I was wearing a very small bumblebee costume. It was a lot of fun for us, and it always kept the crowd guessing." At another show, the band flung Kraft Singles into the crowd, after promising free cheese on their flyers.

"Many bands took the Cherries' passion for the music, having fun and generally not thinking of themselves as rock stars. (They) helped set a good example for other bands," says Bienvenu.

The beginning of the Hek-Atomic Cherries story mirrors that of many garage bands - four high school kids emulating the songs that weren't getting radio play. Within the first few weeks of the '91 school year, they became friends. For their name, they choose something they said fit in with everything they stood for - nothing. It was a reference to a drawing Raine made of the Hekatoncherries, a creature from Greek mythology that had 150 arms and 50 heads. Raine sketched out a cherry with 100 arms and an exploding nuclear head, and the Hek-Atomic Cherries were born.

"Everybody wanted to be in a band because of the whole alternative and grunge thing that was going on in music at the time. I don't know if we ever thought that we would develop any kind of following, because none of us could even play the instruments that we said we were going to play in the band," remembers Raine. "But I think that is what really made us work so well together. We all learned our respective instruments at the same time and at about the same pace. And what we couldn't teach ourselves, we just made up. We threw in some silly three-chord punk rock song writing and that about did it."

When they came together, Burton, Raine and Barousse were hesitant about letting Miller join. At the time, he was already playing with The Meat Dingys, another ESA band.

"We wouldn't let him at first, because we knew him to be more talented than we were," says Barouse. "However, Steve had just started playing the drums and wanted to play the drums in the band. Reasoning that a real drummer was better than a drum machine, Steve was close to equal footing with the rest of the band, talent-wise, on the drums."

Once the band started writing material, they formed a habit that helped build their future following. According to Raine, virtually all their songs were recorded on tapes. Soon, they released copies of their debut, Hey You Wild Animals, Put Down That Meat. Before they could say algebra homework, the tape made the KRVS 88.7 airwaves, another band covered a song and Hek-Atomic Cherries stickers were popping up in telephone poles - put there without the band's knowledge - all before their first gig. By the time they played The Wall, an all-ages club at 207 Jefferson St., a young following knew who they were and their material. (Fittingly enough, their reunion show at Root Hogs is just across the street from The Wall location.)

"We got lucky that we started at a time when the Lafayette scene was just starting to pick up a head of steam again," says Barousse. "It coincided with the rekindled interest all things local, DIY (do it yourself) and punk rock that was happening nationally."

Through the years, the band remained a force, despite Burton's departure after two years and having to juggle their music with the day-to-day troubles of being a teen. One show was scrapped because they needed to finish term papers, another lost out to a bout of mono. When they were healthy and the homework was done, they could be found on stage at all-ages shows, bars like the Metropolis, parties and even on a road trip to Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss. But with graduation upon them, the band had to make a choice: further their education or take a risk on furthering the band. Barousse and Raine both opted to head for higher ed, but Miller remained in Lafayette, to play with the Urbosleeks. They kept in touch and eventually all three ended up living in Georgia, where they planned a reunion show that drew a meager turnout at the Rinky-Dink Dancehall in 2000. Undeterred, the band, knowing they would be in Lafayette for the 2003 holidays and that they still had local fans, set up a Root Hogs show.

"I didn't really grasp that entirely until I was a few years removed from the whole thing. When I have been back in Lafayette on occasion and run into some of the people who we used to come to our shows, they always ask me when the Cherries will be playing again," says Raine. "I'm not sure if it is nostalgia for their youth, but I get asked that a lot when I am out and about in Lafayette. But the real kicker came when my mother was at a doctor's office recently and there was a young woman in the waiting room wearing one of our T-shirts. My mom told her that I was her son, and it turned out that this woman was in sixth grade at ESA when I was a senior."

It's now been seven years since The Hek-Atomic Cherries were actively performing. In preparation for their first show in three years, the trio has pulled out old tapes with names like Clamato Bloc Party ... A Tribute To Cap'n Lou.

There's likely a little bit of rust on the band as a unit, but Barousse says he isn't concerned, as they weren't exactly a well-polished machine in the first place.

"We've all developed as musicians with the years gone by, and the material seems pretty easy now," Barousse says. "I expect us to be tighter and better than ever."