The currency of "rocking out," once a rock and roll staple, has been severely undervalued in recent years. There was a time when throwing yourself wildly around a stage, suffering endorphin-masked injury, and smearing your bloodied body with peanut butter wasn't a particularly noteworthy night. That was just Topeka, and those wounds would magically heal themselves to be reopened again by the time you got to Omaha. Somewhere along the line rock went and got itself some respectability, and before we knew it we were all doing the standing still. Scanner Freaks will have none of that.

Despite having only come together as the unit they are now less than a year ago, despite having less than a half dozen shows under their belt, Scanner Freaks have jumped up on the radar with surprising speed. Following a choice opening slot for The Horrors at the Rock and Roll Hotel last month, the band now has a highly sought after spot on the Fort Reno schedule next month. And their willingness to "let it all hang out" on stage is undoubtedly a big part of that success, making instant fans, and generating word of mouth that travels from show to show.

The band's faster and louder aesthetic, also largely atypical among higher profile local bands these days, is another thing that sets them apart. Their songs are short but sharp, instantly memorable melodic shout-alongs riding a razor's edge of buzzsaw guitars and rhythms bounding relentlessly forward. It's a sound that hearkens back to D.C.'s late 80's post-hardcore past, without suffering in the comparison. Gathered around a table at the Pharmacy Bar last week, they were a jovial but focused bunch, moving easily from serious discussions of the D.C. music community and their place in it to jokes and laughter. It's an easy chemistry that one expects translates to the stage as well.

Visit the band online: scannerfreaks.com

See them next: At Fort Reno on July 26, with Antelope and OmegaBand.

Questions for Scanner Freaks:

Tell us how you guys got together?

Kurt: I was in a band, a three piece, called Colossus, and our guitarist & singer worked with John, so we started playing together. That band dissolved, but he and I kept playing, and then over many Craigslist ads and auditions…first we met Derek, we played with him for a year, and then Jake joined, and then we got Zak that way too. All Craigslist.

Were you playing the same sort of material with the old band as you are now?

Kurt: The other stuff had a little more metal influence. We had a song ripped right out of the pages of an Iron Maiden album at one point. Which I’m still proud of. There was more jamming going on, maybe longer songs. I think now we’re a little more concise and solid. [Looks at John and laughs.] John just made a fist.

Are any of you actual Scanner Freaks?

Kurt: That was Derek raising hand.

Would you like to talk more about that?

Derrick: No. [The band laughs]

I understand you’re getting ready to record your first record over the next few months. Where are you going to be recording?

Derrick: We’re going to record in my studio, it’s called Pirate Station Studios and we’re going to record everything we’ve got to date. We’ve got some new things we’re going to hash out before we actually go into the studio to start recording, so we’ll add a few new songs to what we’ve been playing out so far. We’re looking forward to that. We should have a good selection of stuff to record.

How many do you have right now?

Derrick: Right now we play out with twelve songs, and we’ve got a few others in the works. And we’ve got tapes and tapes of ideas, too.

And once you’re finished with the recording, are you planning on shopping it around to labels, or just continuing with the D.I.Y. process?

Zack: My strong opinion is that we want to try to do everything as much D.I.Y. as we can. If we could get a purely distribution deal then we’d do something like that, but we don’t really want to sell our souls to anyone.

John: There are some labels that I agree with, but whether they would have any interest in putting our stuff out remains to be seen.

Derrick: The way I’ve always felt about it is, you might as well do everything as much yourself as you can. Somebody can come along and offer you something, and they’re not stealing from you, then that’s something to consider. But you still have to read through every word of that contract 90 times. If you do it yourself you have the freedom, you can do things your way, you have full control, you’re set.

You must be pretty excited about getting the Fort Reno show this summer…

Zak: Yeah, we had the Rock & Roll Hotel show, and we were all thinking “Yeah! That’s cool, we get to play in front of a big audience,” but then, at the same time, we found out about Fort Reno, and it’s like “WOOHOOO!!”

Kurt: Honestly, I’m trying not to think about it, because you know, I grew up around here, I’m from around here, so that’s been something in the back of my mind…

Are pretty much all of you from around here, did you all grow up with Fort Reno around?

Jake: Not really, I’m from Cincinnati originally, but I’ve been here for about 10 years.

John: I’m from Ohio as well, and I knew about Fort Reno before I came down here, so it’s meant something to me for a long time too, not even being from here.

So in having been together for a relatively short period of time, to be able to get a high profile show like the Rock and Roll Hotel with the Horrors, and then to get into Fort Reno, are you surprised at all that some of this is coming fairly quickly?

Zak: It’s funny, because we just started shopping for shows early this year, and our first show was in March, so in three months we’ve played five shows, and we have Fort Reno coming, which was really surprising. I think it’s just been due to the strength of our live shows, and word of mouth.

Derrick: And the songwriting.

Zak: Sure, the songwriting, but I don’t think that comes through as much on the recordings that we have up there as our actual shows do. I don’t think all the 18-year-olds who saw us would like us if they just maybe clicked on us and didn’t see the show.

Derrick: I think our songs are pretty good…I don’t to talk about our songs being good or whatever, but at the same time I like to hope that we’re doing something purposefully with an intent of integrity and ability that I seem to feel that there’s a lack of in bands around us. So, in that respect, that’s why I disagree, I think that our songs do kind of stand out in that way.

Zak: I agree with the actual songs as they are. I think that once we get back in the studio and put all our material down and take the time to get it right, that will shine through. I think our songs are interesting, and the song structure, even though they’re just two minutes long. And our shows are good, I think we put on a pretty good show, and I think that’s what’s been helping us.

Kurt: The other thing is Myspace. Zak and Derek have been doing a lot of networking on there, and it’s just a great tool for meeting other bands, setting up shows, finding bands that do your kind of thing regionally. I was saying to John, about the band we were in before this, I wish Myspace had been around for that, just because inertia can set in, because you know who you know, and it’s hard to meet other people, but Myspace is just like a revolving door of new people, new bands to network with.

And you find that you can find bands that you can potentially play with that you might share a common audience with?

John: Yeah, and some bands will contact us, and will say “Hey, we’re coming through, do you want to play this show with us,” and how could that ever happen otherwise?

What are your touring plans?

Zak: Ideally, I’d like to do some small regional tours. Everyone works, so that’s something you’ve always got to keep in mind, but ideally we’d like to do Boston and New York and Philadelphia, Columbus, and, I don’t know where else out there, because I know nothing about the Midwest. Maybe take a weekend, or maybe next year or later on this year a full week, but small tours.

You can definitely hear a certain era of D.C. music in your sound. How much of that is conscious, and how much is just due to that being a big part of what you listen to?

Derrick: I think that it’s not conscious for me; everyone has to speak for themselves…I probably speak somewhat for the band, I know for me personally it’s not conscious. I’ve always explained to people that the bands that I like I’ve found because of the sound that I have inside of me. The D.C. bands are part of that, the San Diego bands are part of that; I think for everyone else it’s probably the same way, because none of us ever talk about, “Well, you know, we’re working off this, and that sounds like that," we never do anything like that. It’s always, “Hey, I’ve got this thing, I’ve got this idea," or, "You know what would be really cool?”

Jake: The other thing is that I think everyone brings their own point of view to the table, and one person might start out with a song idea, and by the end of the process it’s something totally different because everyone brings a different view to it. And I’ve written three or four songs for us so far, and it started out as an idea of my own, and I’d bring it to practice, and a week later it’s a totally different song. And for the most part it’s a lot better and it’s a lot stronger, but it’s not like a genre thing, it’s whatever comes to your mind.

What are your thoughts on the sense of community with D.C. music now?

Zak: The sense of community in D.C. is a lot different than it used to be. While you have people who are on certain indie labels in our community who don’t do this, as a whole the majority of the D.C. scene kind of goes with what the majority of the country listens to. So when Emo was huge, you had a thousand Emo bands in D.C. and now it’s that indie rock, kind of lo-fi sound. And that’s true everywhere. But D.C. was distinct in that it wasn’t always like that, and now it is. It’s funny, the most “D.C.” sounding bands I’ve found right now are off in Manassas and Woodbridge. So I think that’s kind of a statement about what the scene is like in D.C. I think at one point, the D.C. scene, especially the Dischord bands, wanted to be so different from the mainstream, they started their own kind of arty sound, very atypical. And then I think a lot of the country followed that and it’s almost like everyone else is like that now. So it’s kind of at a point now where I don’t think the identity is as clear as it once was.

Kurt: It’s interesting because from my perspective, growing up around here, being a teenager in the early 90s, all the D.C. bands that I was into were predominantly Dischord. And I don’t know if that’s a function of that’s all there was, or my limited perspective. Whereas now, it’s pretty interesting that you can see a band like Dead Meadow, you can see a band like the Apes, you can see a band like the Points (even though they’re not from D.C.), and that’s a lot more diverse.

John: And you know, a lot of those old Dischord guys aren’t doing music anymore, or are doing it in a different capacity, and there’s a lot of younger kids out there that grew up on this stuff, and their interpretation [the tape goes largely inaudible for a section here, but the point John was making was about decreased homogenization and unification of sound among D.C. bands]

Do you think that’s a benefit? Or…

John: I think it is, but I don’t know that everyone’s accepting of it. You can only see what certain clubs book and what certain labels put out, so I don’t know if that’s a fair representation of what D.C. sounds like.

Derrick: You know what, though, I’d say that where the benefit lies is in the fact that with a lot of the Dischord bands, a lot of the bands who were doing something that seemed to really matter, they’re thinning out. So that opens up a lot of room for something else good to come in. So if you put some effort into it, you could do pretty well. I think that in a way we’re lucky with having a space to be able to do something. It sounds weird to say, it’s like there’s less competition. You can just kind of do your thing, throw down, and it is what it is, instead of everybody saying, “You know, you sound like these three bands that played last night.” It’s just nice to be able to do your thing, and it’s just that.

Zak: I think that as a result of the way the music scene is fractured in D.C., and possibly the country, you know, people who go to clubs, we’re actually gaining a lot of people who are appreciating what we’re doing, even though they might not have done the same things ten years ago.

John: We’re not a dance band.

Zak: Right, we’re not a dance band, but we rock out when we play, and I think a lot of people are not used to seeing that anymore. And I think that’s a little bit to our benefit. But at the same time, everyone always wants to have that band that they’re best friends with that they can play with all the time, and that band who’s their arch-enemy who they can play with all the time, and we don’t have that right now.

With regard to “rocking out”, playing to a town that has a reputation for being reserved at shows, how have you found the crowd reaction to you?

Derrick: This is what I’ve always liked about D.C.: places where it’s reserved, if you go out and let everything all hang out, you either see the people walk, or they go “Whoa.” And that to me is the most exciting part about it, the reaction of it.

Zak: I remember, I think it was our second show at the Velvet Lounge, with two pretty much indie bands. One sounded kind of like the Cure or the Smiths, and the other one was just kind of like drone-y, produced, like Radiohead or whatever. We started playing and I looked up and I saw people leaving, and I was like, “Aw, man, that sucks.” But then I was like, “Fuck it, we’re just going to play, we’re just going to do our best show.” And then maybe three songs later I looked up and the place was packed almost all the way back, and people were cheering and it was loud in there, and I think that just by the mere fact that we do put on a good show and move around and rock out, people kind of latch onto that and like it. I think because there is that kind of vacuum, you get a lot of bands who are shoegazers, who play and look at their shoes, something different really grabs people sometimes.

John: I don’t think we’re going up there with the intent of, “Let’s move around, let’s be energized.” I think it’s just that we’re into the music, we like what we play, it’s that pure reaction.

Politics has always been a big part of certain parts of the D.C. music scene, do you find that making its way into your music?

Zak: Actually, there’s a new thing going on in the city, and we’ve seen shadows of it here and there. There’s the whole old guard, the Velvet Lounge and the Black Cat, versus the Rock and Roll Hotel, all their clubs, going on. And we’re trying to stay outside of it. We’re trying to play as many shows as we can play everywhere. We don’t want to be part of either clique. I think we’re semi succeeding at it right now, but I think that that kind of a political situation could definitely be a detriment to the D.C. scene, because you’ve got people who won’t give you shows because you played at another club, and that’s happened to a lot of bands, that’s definitely something that’s going on. So far as all the other politics, the social scene, we’re not scenesters, and we just try to stay outside of it. You play your music the best that you can, you appreciate people that talk to you afterwards, and that’s all you’ve got to do.

John: Did you mean like American politics, as in do we write political songs? I mean, we don’t portray ourselves as a liberal- I mean, I don’t think we’d shy away from a cause that we believe in, but it hasn’t really come up.

Kurt: I’m sure benefit shows and lots of things like that we’d be willing to get behind, but we’re young enough as a band that it hasn’t presented itself yet. The lyrical content, “Executive Decision” for example, that stuff’s there, but it’s not overt, it’s not a guiding principle, as far as I’m aware.

Zak: Any message that’s portrayed in the songs is up for interpretation. I have a song, and I’m not going to name songs, but I have a song about materialism, I have a song about how interesting it would be if the current administration stood up and apologized for what they’ve done. But these are just musings in my head, and they’re not overt, “Hey, President, why don’t you stand up and say what you’ve done.” It doesn’t work like that.

Derrick: Well, that’s the chorus. [Everyone laughs]

Lastly, why should everyone come out and see you at Fort Reno next month?

Derrick: Because they’ll get their money’s worth! [More laughter]

Zak: I think we have good songs, and we put on a good show, and I think a lot of people who listen to a lot of diverse types of music can key into what we’re doing. There’s a lot of energy behind what we do, from the writing to the performing of it, and I think that it’ll be a good time. If we’re not sweating when we’re done, then we haven’t done a good job. Every single one of us.