Honolulu Weekly

!!! / Nic Offer’s foray into the art world took place in 2007, with his performance art piece titled “What The World Needs Now Is A White Piano In The East River.” After shoddily playing a few lines of Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” Offer launched–surprise–a white piano into the East River. It was followed by drunken, raucous applause from a small audience that gathered in Williamsburg to see the splash.

“I really liked it because it was conceptual art that anyone could get and everyone did and it really held so much weight and had so much meaning,” Offer said in a phone interview from New York, where his band, !!! (most commonly pronounced “chk chk chk”), was recording its yet-to-be-titled fourth LP. “I kind of made a promise to myself not to do anything that couldn’t top it.”

He didn’t laugh.

“People should follow their dreams more and do something that seems completely radical, even if it’s crazy. The thing is, a friend of mine who saw that bought a plane ticket the next day to go to Portugal. He was inspired to do that. It was supposed to make each person respond differently and have people respond according to their own lives.”

Offer’s art piece, like !!!’s music, puts visceral impact before the cerebral. Over three LPs spanning six years, the disco-punk octet has created sprawling, experimental dance music high on fist-pumping fervor and low on rationale. It shouldn’t work, but it does.

For example, Offer, !!!’s lead singer, sounds most effective when he’s not singing–instead, his voice works best when it grunts, yelps and snarls like a percussive instrument, used for texture rather than melody. Nearly a decade ago, the band ushered in clangorous, disco-tinged drum patterns before it was fashionable–back when the genre was still associated with unsightly bell-bottoms and neon roller skates. Lyrics to songs like “Bend Over Beethoven” and “Hello? Is This Thing On?” make little sense–even border on the asinine–though grumbling would be missing the point. !!! just wants to make you dance.

Offer has been known to lead by example. His high-octane hip-thrusting and arm-flailing have earned !!! a reputation for being one of the best live acts on the scene, a distinction that has earned them spots at prestigious music festivals like Austin City Limits and Pitchfork. Some of Offer’s dance moves are so iconic, they’ve been unofficially trademarked.

“People have nicknamed one part of it ‘the penguin.’ Like when I start sticking my hands out to the sides, and kind of swing my hips back and forth you know that’s ‘the penguin.’ I kind of also really have pushed the jazz hands to the next level. There’s a lot of jazz hands.” Although Offer admitted that it’s easy to fall into a one-size-fits-all routine after playing so many shows, much of his dance moves still hinge on spontaneity, “especially if there’s something to climb while you’re on stage to jump off of.”

All the more incentive to come out this Tuesday to the Loft, where !!! plans on showcasing tracks from the upcoming LP, tentatively scheduled for a spring 2010 release. While Offer described the record as a logical step from the band’s last release, Myth Takes, which is the most cohesive and consistent album to date, he also noted that it’s a band that embraces change.

“We went to Berlin to make part of this record so we’re just pointing our fingers there,” said the 37-year-old Sacramento native. “It’s darker, but poppier, if those two things could happen, so I guess you could say it’s like Depeche Mode.”

Offer, who’s cited everyone from rap duo Clipse to Neil Young as influences, has been listening to a lot of Brazilian music lately, citing Baden Powell and Chico Buarque as favorites. “I don’t think there’ll be a song on the record where you go ‘Oh! There’s the Brazilian one,’ but little things creep into everything,” Offer said. “It’s kind of like you have this deep frame of reference, and at any point it might speak to this one Pat Benatar song that you liked when you were 11.”

And though Offer has never visited the Islands, he’s unwaiveringly confident that !!! will be well-received.

“Everyone always says that you’re really hungry for live music there, so you don’t want to miss this,” he said. “If you want live music, you’re going to get your minds blown.”

While here, he looks forward to lying out on the beach. “Maybe swim on a waterfall or something,” he continued. “Or ride a turtle on a waterfall.”

This time, he laughed.