That nerd with the bow tie, the most boring teacher in the Western Hemisphere, he was right, you know. You can't get away from math, even if you drop out and lay on the couch until dad yells so much your ears fall off and you can no longer hear MTV.

"4-3-2-1" is how to count backward and still the best route to Zeros, which also happens to be the name of a musical group. And not the group that used to be "the greatest unsigned band in L.A."--not since the band's long-awaited recent debut on Restless Records.

The Zeros seem to be the soundtrack for "The Color Purple," only louder. Much louder and much faster. The quartet has purple hair, ratted so high it looks as though their heads blew up.

Oftentimes, fans with purple hair get into shows at a cheap rate. The band drives the Zeromobile--guess what color it is?

Besides being funny-looking, the Zeros have funny names. There's Sammy Serious on vocals, Joe Normal on lead guitar, Danny Dangerous on bass and the one and only Mr. Insane on drums.

Except for that stuff, they're just like the other million people from New Jersey who moved to California. You remember New Jersey, don't you? It's the place that has license plates almost like ours, probably so the drivers can pass for locals until they can get to the DMV.

Zeros' music is sort of cartoon-like; imagine the Ramones meet Jellyfish at a steroids convention on Sesame Street. It does feature some pretty spiffy three-part harmonies. The songs are pretty funny too--"Death Rock Girl," "Rich Chicks" and "Zero To Mom."

The band will play the Carnaval Club in Santa Barbara tonight. It'll be the place with the purple-clad people lined up outside, those hard-core Zeros' fans, the Zeromongers. But for everything you ever needed to know about the group, let's ask Sammy Serious, who pretty much lived up to his name.

A comedian I know, Doug Ferrari, once said, "If you can't laugh at it, it's not worth taking seriously." So what's so serious?

Well, sure. It reflects our music. Each guy has his own name and it just reflects what we do. Some are Serious, some are Dangerous, some are Normal and some are Insane.

How's the album doing?

The album just came out on Aug. 30. So far, it's doing real good--we're getting a lot of feedback. It's actually our first album; we released a self-financed EP in 1985.

There have been rumors for years about your band getting signed. How do you almost get signed?