Photo Courtesy Katie Dance

The Scurvies’ lead singer Chris Meurlott and bassist Daniel Firmin perform on tour in Baltimore, Md.

“Wanna tip this SUV?” asked a friendly resident of Orlando, Florida. Moments later, the Scurvies and a posse of PBR-swigging, mullet-sporting Metallica fans were overturning a Ford Bronco as a soundtrack of Queen blared from car speakers in the background. Several of the gentlemen present began trying to set the vehicle ablaze.

The owner of the lot where the vehicle resided stormed out of his home puzzled to investigate the wreckage. He disappeared and quickly returned with a bucket in hand to presumably extinguish the small fire. The bucket was filled with kerosene. Flames soon engulfed the fallen Bronco.

A massive automobile incineration provided the backdrop for just one legendary night on the road with Fairbanks’ finest punk band, the Scurvies. They recently finished a tour of the Lower 48 in support of Nightprowler, their latest record released on Portland’s Boot to Head Records in October of 2007. The 80-stop tour began on Halloween in Vancouver and took the Golden Heart City band from Alaska to Cali, Florida, New York, and 30 other states in between.

Perhaps torching sport utility vehicles is not customary practice for the good-natured members of the band, but inciting conflagrations on the dance floor is nothing new for the Scurvies. Brothers Nick and Chris Meurlott, aged 25 and 23 respectively, have been punk-rocking Central Alaska since 1999 in various bands. The Scurvies got their start in 2003 and the current line-up—which includes bassist Daniel Firmin, 23, and guitarist Brandon Stoner, 26—has been in effect since January of 2007. This was their third U.S. tour.

Being a touring band on a minor independent label today is hardly about red carpet strutting and paparazzi evasion. It is slightly more rugged. The Scurvies don’t have the benefit of traveling management, so they book their own shows and find places to stay. Their tour bus is a beat up old van. The record company merely presses their CDs and aids them with graphic design and a few leads for places to play shows.

Often times, they might play a show in a residential basement one night and a teeming club the next depending on connections in any given town. “It’s really cool,” says Chris, “We get a different experience every place we go.” They are aided significantly by tools like the “Book Your Own Life” website for Do-It-Yourself punk rock touring as well as social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook.

Some hardline punk dogmatists are opposed to the use of such big name networking sites because of the advertisements on the pages and weak aesthetics. However, that has been of little importance for the Scurvies. “It’s very rare that some people are unwilling to book a show with us because we’re a band with a MySpace page,” says Nick. Using mass networking methods may not be popular with punk rock puritans but they enable bands like the Scurvies to sing for their supper virtually anywhere they go.

Another way the Scurvies deal with lodging is through collectives. Since punk rock’s heyday, it has been a sound that flourished on social unrest and the marriage of punk culture and social activism is still iron-clad today. These social activist collectives host the band routinely.

However, many of the these collectives are becoming trendy bastions for urban bohemia populated by young people who seem to wear their politics like a fashion accessory more than having solid convictions. Even so, Nick makes light of the situation, “Even if they do good for the wrong reasons, they’re still doing good.”

When a tour ends, the Scurvies still love getting back to roost for a while in the hometown that bred their music. “Fairbanks is special. The people up here have a real spirit of independence,” Nick remarks with pride.

Chris adds, “You have to be creative to deal with the weather.”

“The cold drives people inside and that generates community and creativity,” Nick agrees.

The Scurvies are continuing to broaden their North American fan base with another tour this summer that will include a performance at the Cornerstone Festival in Illinois. Their garage-punk explosion can next be seen at the Clucking Blossum Festival at Birch Hill on May 17.

“I want to go big or go nowhere,” Dan jokes with a hint of sincerity. Here’s to hoping the Scurvies get bigger than Hasselhoff in Berlin.