Drunk Horse: "a hard time differentiating between humor and irony.".

LISTENING TO OAKLAND'S DRUNK HORSE is a lot like an evening spent with a fine bottle o' hooch and yet favorite dirty magazine ... Sleazy for sure, but mainly a damn good time. The Drunk Horse sound was born after singer/guitarist Eli Eckert and his roommate came into a free box of ol' rock albums including classics by ZZ Top and Scottish shit-kickers Nazareth. At the same time, Eckert's ears were also tuned in to the art-damaged punk and wise-ass rift-rock of Chicago's Jesus Lizard and Urge Overkill. Eventually, these influences would congeal into the smart but sleazy stew that is the Drunk Horse sound: One part Easy Rider, one part National Lampoon. And with song titles like "Lube Job" and "National Lust" from their most recent release Adult Situations, you can rule out these Bay Area boogie boys getting written up in People anytime soon. Recently armed with Hessian fret-shredder . Josh Smith of The Fucking Champs, Drunk Horse may be on the brink of rock and roll glory ... Hell, we can only hope, in this retarded era of corporate emo and bubble gum punk stinkin' up the airwaves like a bad batch of plastic diarrhea.

So, where'd ya get the inspiration for Adult Situations?.

Eli: The subject of a lot of the songs on the album are adult oriented and I always liked the vaguely sleazy warning for the late night HBO movies: "Contains: Nudity, Strong Language, Violence, and Adult Situations."

Most of the tunes you've written deal with sleazy subjects and comical characters. Is it simply a rock thing that feels fight with the rift or are the words and ideas more calculated? It would seem you tend to write more from the head as opposed to your heart.

I read a lot. and lots of times I'll just get an idea in my head and expand on it. A line will pop in my head and a story will start to revolve around it. Like "Lube Job" is written from the perspective of a male prostitute who has these fantasies of being an upscale American gigolo type, but ends up cruising the low rent district and doing the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. "National Lust" is about walking down the street and seeing something fine, it's sort of an ode to that.

Did you grow up listening to both classic rock and punk?

In high school I listened to Zeppelin and Hendrix and then went through a phase of really digging Bad Brains and Born Against, and then bands like Mudhoney and Dinosaur Jr. Then I started listening to bands like the Jesus Lizard, Laughing Hyenas, The Digits, and Urge Overkill. Bands that weren't strictly rock, but like a transition thing. When we started around '97 there weren't too many bands doing the rift rock thing; there was Fu Manchu. We were originally called The Pants and we were doing' pretty much the same style as we are now but we were sued by a band from Vermont with the same name. So when we got our new bass player we changed our name. One of the main things for me was when my friend and I who lived together got this huge box of free records, with kinda more obscure rock stuff in there.

Like?

Nazareth, which I guess isn't that obscure--stuff you just don't hear all the time.

Hair of the Dog?

Yeah; Hair of the Dog, and a lot of early ZZ Top who were definitely a major influence who just opened up the doors of perception.

Do you mind the classic rock tag?

That's definitely what we're based in, but the main thing that gets misinterpreted is that people think that we're making fun of that music, which is totally wrong. We have lots of respect for that music. It's hard for people who don't have broader tastes to get it. A lot of people just hear the surface. People use the term "ironic" a lot, because lots of people have a hard time differentiating between humor and irony. Just because the lyrics to a song are humorous doesn't make them insincere or an invalid expression.

Some people can't take comedy in their music. Speaking of comedy, what the hell is "Wild Life" all about anyway?

Are you familiar with Bears?

My ex-girlfriend's' roommate belonged to the Al from Home Improvement fan club, who is huge in the Bear community. He can live off the fan mail alone.

This friend of mine who plays cello on Adult Situations is involved in the Bear community. Anyway, he was talkin' about how Steely Dan guitarist Denny Dias was hot. So I asked him if he would write some lyrics, like a Bear love song. But he said no. So I just did it myself. And then when he heard it he said he was really proud, so I felt like I did a good job. You guys also seem to throw in some jazz and prog influences here and there ...

Yeah, that's a big part of trying to do different things. I love progressive rock and some jazz fusion.

What are you into as far as that goes?

The really heavy stuff like Mahavishnu Orchestra and King Crimson, also some Miles Davis, Return To Forever, and Steely Dan. We just try to make it more interesting than your average blues-rock.

Who plays most of the leads in the group?

I play a lot of them; our old guitar player quit and we just got a new guitar player. He was in the Fucking Champs.

The long-haired guy?.

Yeah, Josh ...

That guy totally shreds. It can't hurt to have him in your band.

Not at all.

So are you gonna have the full-on Thin Lizzy dueling lead guitars?

It's definitely an encouraging development.