Mockstar Hooter Mova

It's funny when words get all twisted around to mean what they totally, totally don't mean-you know, like “friendly fire” or “liberator” or “supergroup.”

It was probably Damn Yankees that first hijacked the supergroup term (since when are the combined forces of Night Ranger, Styx and Ted Nugent considered “super”?). But Rockstar Supernova perfected the term's bastardization.

Supernova was a shit idea on paper-take a superfluous guy from Guns N' Roses (third guitarist Gilby Clarke) and another one from The Black Crowes (bassist Johnny Colt, in for the injured Jason Newsted). Toss in a long-past-his-prime Tommy Lee, and top it off with uncharismatic reality-television star Lukas Rossi.

But the band is so much shittier in the flesh.

While the band has played a few sold-out gigs (mostly in Canada, which doesn't count because Rossi is a native and, well, it's Canada), many venues have been half or two-thirds empty. At a few shows, not-quite fans even fled before the encore (Spoiler Alert: It's often a C-minus cover of the Stones' “Let's Spend the Night Together”).

But like any good rock star, Rossi doesn't focus on negativity.

“You've gotta just get your bearings, man,” he says. “You aren't going to get things right on your first crack. The first couple of shows were great, but, obviously, we all know that things can get better.”

Nor will he allow for any speculation that he wasn't the right man for the reality-TV-spawned job.

“Man, the weirdest thing is that from the moment I played those first few songs with them on the show, it felt like it was meant to be,” he says. “There's no odd man out in this band.... They picked me for a reason-they picked me to be their leader, not to coach me or haze me.”

So, sure, maybe the former Hooters fry cook is only a rock star in the most fabricated sense (like the Monkees or Milli Vanilli or Ronnie James Dio), but his band still gets more ink than most real rockers. And he's still pounding Jagermeister with Tommy Lee.

“Me and Tommy are a lot alike, man. We're good friends, and I don't think I really need his help in the rocking shit category. I know what I'm doing,” he says in his best I'm-really-hung-over-but-I-just-banged-a-stripper voice.

And maybe (read: definitely) this is what Supernova is about: Tommy Lee's prolonged adolescence of booze and strippers. Which is all good and fine, but do they have to play music to prolong Lee's hard on? Do they have to forge a new musical genre from the worst parts of metal, punk and grunge (imagine Creed with less hooks) and ruin decent music by covering “The Boys of Summer,” “Bitter Sweet Symphony” and the Stones?

The answer is yes. Rossi is super psyched for the future. And super psyched to be asked about it.

“You know, brother, you're the first to ask about the next record.”

Oops.

“I've done a thousand interviews and no one has asked about the next record. No one seems to get it-we're going to be around a long time, we're going to be a force to be reckoned with. And I'll tell you this: There's going to be a lot more of me on the next record.”

Double oops.

Rockstar Supernova plays at Pala Events Center on Feb. 25. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. $65-up. 877-946-7252.