Now You Know: Space Nature sings songs about bats and blood and stuff

“I put in a dollar and got one song,” says Space Nature singer Matt Meyers at East Village dive the Jewel Box. Both the Hank Williams and Cramps tracks skip on the jukebox, so “The Wizard” by Black Sabbath plays as Meyers, guitarist Tyler Daughn, bassist Tommy Pockets, and I talk over a pitcher of beer a table away from a women’s roller-derby team.

“I’m, like, really bad at instruments,” Meyers continues. “I started singing because that’s all I can do. Pump people up and piss people off or whatever it is I do.”

Friends since high school in Bonita, the three lived for a stint as the “token white kids” in Sherman Heights before moving into a two-story former clean-and-sober house in Golden Hill with Coronado natives Taylor Charter (guitar) and Zack Oakley (drums).

“Everyone works together, lives together, plays music together,” says Pockets, who works at a downtown deli with Meyers.

Charter is the main songwriter of the group, though Meyers contributes his share of improvised reverb-laden lyrics about “bats and blood and shit.”

“I don’t know if we’re necessarily going for anything,” says Meyers of their psychedelic surf-rock sound, citing influence from the Stooges, the Misfits, Peter Tosh, and King Khan and the Shrines. “It’s a bunch of weird shit...but in the end we’re just having fun.”

“We’re just rocking for no reason,” says Daughn.

Space Nature got their start at Tin Can Ale House less than a year ago and has gone on to play a handful of house shows, Soda Bar, Beauty Bar, Queen Bee’s, and recently 710 Beach Club. The band is currently recording an as-of-yet-unnamed album of 15 or 16 songs at Stereo Disguise Recording Laboratory with Keith Milgaten (Jamuel Saxon). They recently sent in an email interview for local marijuana advocates NUG Magazine, which included the question “Why do you grow your hair long?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Meyers jokes in a John Lennon voice. “Girls like it. We’re thinking about growing our eyebrows out, too.”

Back at the Space Nature house up Broadway, Captain Beefheart and Minor Threat records play while Meyers tosses darts at an old show poster and Daughn tells me about the time their dog, Jerry Garcia, was attacked by a pit bull.

“We saw Brian Jones at Guitar Center, and somehow it turned into the worst day ever.”

Got a wicked pissah new band? Let us know by sending the MySpace thing to barnaby_monk@sandiegoreader.com. We’ll check you/them out for our next installment of “Now You Know.”