By John Lombardo

RIP YOUR JEANS and feather your hair, if you must, but don't forget your earplugs, smelling salts, and a healthy dose of painkillers – the Fucking Champs are playing out again.

For more than a decade, the Fucking Champs have been baffling indie rockers and metal purists alike. Critics have questioned the sincerity of their music, arguing whether or not it's an ironic attempt to parody an unlikely sound or cash in on the recent heavy metal revival.

A surface-level glimpse into the band's origins, their prolific output, and their die-hard determination will settle any debate for anyone on the fence. At times labeling their sound "total music," the Fucking Champs maintain a sense of humor along with their serious approach and dazzling execution, upping the ante with each release. In their more than a decade of aggression, the Fucking Champs have morphed names, sounds, and lineups – and somehow have survived it all, emerging victorious from a long hibernation.

Formed in 1992 in the vibrant Santa Cruz music scene, the Fucking Champs spent most of the '90s quietly making loud music. Armed with a modified nine-string guitar and a shared, nonironic love for heavy metal and noise, guitarist Josh Smith and drummer Tim Soete began developing a unique brand of fantasy-influenced math metal. Eschewing ties to traditional rock formats, the Champs settled on a lineup with no vocalist or bass player and at times only three guitarists playing together onstage. With their relocation to San Francisco in 1994 and the addition of Tim Green (the guitarist and engineer for the chaotic and revered Nation of Ulysses, the Fakes, and Young Ginns), the Fucking Champs found their guitar-focused compositions increasing in complexity while their lyrics, like a vestigial organ, withered away. Green and Soete's developing interest in electronic music and collaborations on their burgeoning electronic label, Louder Records, became a divergent complement to the heavier-than-hell instru-metal they'd been perfecting.

Parallel lines converge

Across the country, at the same time, another group was forming that was challenging the boundaries of the traditional rock format with a heavy focus on electronic instrumentation. On one of their first tours of the United States, Trans Am found a copy of an early self-released Champs cassette, 1994's Music for Films about Rock, before ever meeting the band or seeing them perform.

Meanwhile, the Champs were also being indirectly exposed to Trans Am's work. "We were almost all the way through recording our first record [1997's III, recorded under the name C4AM95] before I had ever heard Trans Am. I picked up a record at work, and I was like, 'Whoa, this is exactly like what we're doing ... the rock stuff and the more synthy stuff. I couldn't believe that I had never heard them before, especially since I was from D.C.," Green explains at a crowded Mission District bar, hanging out with the rest of the Champs after practice.

Although today it might not seem like an obvious match, the Fucking Champs immediately became huge fans of the Washington, D.C., synth-dirge heavyweights, mirroring Trans Am's admiration for their work. Through mutual friends at Kill Rock Stars, Trans Am vocalist Phil Manley contacted the Champs with an invitation to join them on a set of tours throughout the United States, the U.K., and Iceland. Green recalls that over the years, Trans Am's offers to join them on tour pulled the Fucking Champs out of two stagnant periods in the band's evolution.

After completing their third full-length LP, V (Drag City), in 2002, the Fucking Champs went on a long, frustrating hiatus. A strange nine-month period of intermittent communication and increasing isolation ended with Smith deciding to leave the band. In the midst of the recording sessions for this year's Gold (Drag City), the follow-up to 2001's Trans-Champs collaboration, Double Exposure (Thrill Jockey), the Champs experimented with various lineups in an attempt to decide whether to keep playing. Green and Soete tried moving forward, with Soete shifting to second guitar, but neither member fully embraced the change.

"I was out in D.C. recording with the Trans Am guys, and I was telling Phil that it just didn't feel right with Tim not behind the drums. And so I turned to Phil, and I said, 'Why don't you just join the band?' And he said, 'All right, I will.' I didn't really think he was serious," Green says.

Since Manley's relocation to San Francisco last year, it's become difficult to tell exactly where one band ends and the other begins. Manley likens the songs, music, and membership of the genre-bending outfits to a Venn diagram, with the new Champs lineup and sound at the central intersection of the overlapping circles. Gold may give fans the most accurate sneak preview of the new, evolving Fucking Champs sound. With John Theodore (Golden, the Mars Volta) on drums for most of the sessions, the LP masterfully combines the distinctive elements of both bands: the signature Fucking Champs dueling guitar attack and pummeling drums mesh with layers of strings, Trans Am synths, and a rotating cast of vocalists.

Altered beast

For more than two and a half years, the Fucking Champs as a band have been conspicuously absent from the Bay Area music scene. Shying away from conventional press and citing Smith's departure as the main reason for the retreat, the Fucking Champs have been gearing up for a series of shows with their newly solidified lineup.

It's been an adjustment for the band's newest member. "It's taken me about a year to learn. It's like I've been deprogrammed and reprogrammed," Manley explains. "It's a whole different way of thinking about music. Trans Am is insanely simple, harmonically and melodically, compared to the Champs. Champs are more like classical music in a lot of ways, and Trans Am is more like Neanderthal music. We'll be playing new things but mostly old stuff. We play one Trans Champs, one Fucking Am song, and one new Champs song."

Despite the Fucking Champs' inactivity, its members have been actively involved in the Bay Area music scene. Green and Soete have been writing songs outside of the Champs paradigm, which they hope might be purchased for use in TV commercials. Green has been creating electronic music under the moniker Concentrick, and he composed the original score and Foley sounds for Sadie Shaw's indie freak-out horror film, Charm. Green has also been recording bands at his Louder Studios, producing outfits such as the Melvins, Comets on Fire, and most recently, Lungfish. The Fucking Champs have also recently contributed some of their darker original material to films, notably the soundtrack to Italian horror flick La foresta della morte and songs for the featurette on the new Dawn of the Dead DVD.

Who would've thought an instrumental metal band would still be rocking out a dozen years after it began? Not even the members themselves. The years, physical distance, and other projects that normally divide musicians have only made this group stronger. Punk's not dead, neither is rock 'n' roll, and the return of the Fucking Champs is making a pretty strong case for the immortality of total music. Fucking Champs play Dec. 3, 9 p.m., Mile High Club, 3629 MLK Jr. Way, Oakl. $8. (510) 654-4549. They also perform Dec. 4, 10 p.m., Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., S.F. $8. (415) 621-4455.