The Beat By Monica Ortwein, Associate Editor 40 Oz. of Genius What’s better than actually being a redneck? Acting like one. Just ask Naskar Nazarene, before they beat your ass. They’re lean, mean, whiskey chugging machines, and no, they’re not your stepdads. We’re actually talking about the three men of Naskar Nazarene, and there’s nothing that they love more than singing catchy songs about beating on women and a variety of other hazardous – but fun – redneck activities. The first time “Butch Miller” (whose name in real life is actually Howie Seibert) called us to set up an interview, he spoke in a Southern accent and had us totally fooled. When Seibert called again, however, he forgot about using the Southern drawl, so we figured out that he and “Cooter Lowenbrau” and “Dale Pabst” aren’t actually Southern rednecks – they’re just Allentown natives who put on a really, really good act. “Basically, what we do is we dress up like hicks from the South,” Seibert said of a typical Naskar show. “We put on sunglasses and mesh hats; that’s basically our gimmick. It’s a blast.” The crowd thinks so too – Seibert says everyone starts screaming and clapping as soon as the trio of Southerners takes the stage. And, if you’re lucky, you might even catch a few skits between songs. Songs with titles like: I Kicked My Wife Today, for instance. The kind of music you can expect Naskar to play at a gig has kind of an upbeat stoner rock sound, or as Seibert describes it: “We call ourselves a whiskey rock band.” But why? “We come out and everyone’s yelling, ‘whiskey!’” There’s a reason for that, too: These guys drink pitchers of whiskey at shows instead of your typical Lager or Miller Lite. Hey, anything to keep in character, right? Seibert is a guitar player at heart, maybe even more so than a redneck. In Sarin, another area band that doesn’t dress up as anyone except rockers, he plays lead guitar. “I started playing drums [in Naskar] just because it’s so hard to find drummers around here,” he explained. “Our bass player, Mike, he plays bass, but he’s a guitarist. And our guitarist is actually a bass player, so we’re all playing the wrong instruments.” They’ve got the right idea when it comes to putting on a creative show though. So where did Miller, Lowenbrau, and Pabst get the zany idea to dress up like Southerners and play ? “It basically all started as a joke,” Seibert told us. “We used to get together on Sundays and just jam. We’d hang out and drink 40s of Camo and talk about NASCAR. We never actually planned on playing out or anything like that, we just started writing really good stuff.” Luckily, at the first show they played, Naskar got a huge response and has seen its fan base grow ever since. “Now we play a show, and the place is literally packed,” Seibert said. You know that means: Get your sorry, wife-beating ass to a Naskar show early on to get a seat. And don’t forget the Wild Turkey, neither, punk.