The inspiration for Bari Bari 13's on-stage look at first seems most inspired by a few too many late-night viewings of "The Wild One" on television.

The quintet of born-in-Japan boys sport dark shades, steel-toe work boots, leather jackets and vinyl zipper vests and trousers (all of the above black) with white sashes tucked snugly near their collars. The band's collective hairstyle gathers a variety of seriously greased-up and slicked-back pompadours — the one exception being bassist Shingo's voluminous ceiling-scraping dyed-blonde mane that bears a more than passing resemblance to the monster wave that swallowed George Clooney's boat at the end of "The Perfect Storm."

Lead singer and guitarist Tommy — first names only, please — steps up to his vintage Elvis-style microphone and presses his lips against its brushedmetal grooves.

"We are Bari Bari 13 ... Japanese-style rock 'n' roll band!" he says, his accent thick. "We ARE rock 'n' roll!"

The 30 or so souls in Lava Rock Lounge's tiki-bar environs shout their approval. And suddenly in action, Bari Bari 13 looks and sounds more like the biker-bar house band in a Japanese remake of David Lynch's "Wild at Heart."

Tommy and Takeshi offer a two-pronged surf rock and rockabilly guitar attack. Shingo shows off some deft bass acrobatics while Kenji provides solid meat-and-potatoes drumming. Keyboardist Norio, meanwhile, channels former Prince key master Dr. Matt Fink in his solemn-faced seriousness.

The songs are mostly covers of high-energy Japanese-language tunes inspired by 1950s American rock and '70s punk. Nearly all boast the phrase "rock 'n' roll" in its title or chorus. "'Bucchigiri' Rock 'n' Roll," "'Tsuppari' (Bad Boy) High School Rock 'n' Roll" and "'Kattobi' (Bari Bari) Rock 'n' Roll" blast by in three-minute spasms, with the band clearing up to a dozen songs in a 45-minute set.

No one in the locals-in-Waikiki crowd dances tonight. But they move to the beat in their seats and applaud loudly at the end of each song's signature showy guitar finish. Bari Bari's oddball music escaping out into the International Market Place, more patrons file in before the band is done.

Not bad for a group of Honolulu-based buddies who decided three months ago to follow days spent as office managers, custom motorcycle builders, rental business owners and denture model makers with nights proffering a Japanese take on American old-time rock 'n' roll.

"We thought the music was really, really cool. And nobody was doing it. Nobody sings (rock) in Japanese here," said Kenji a few days earlier in Tommy's Waikiki motorcycle rental business, MAX Rentals. "So we challenged ourselves to find an audience."

The five guys — ranging in age from 27 to 42 and Honolulu residents for the last six months to three years — had already formed a tight friendship based on a common love of custom-built motorcycles and retro-biker culture when Tommy introduced them to some tunes in June.

The hybrid music style Tommy jokingly described as "Japanese soul" had once enjoyed a minor kind of cool status in Japan in the late 1980s with kids forming bands, dressing up as '50s-era greasers and playing wherever they could — in small clubs or busking in parks or on street corners. Each amateur musicians, the rest of the guys loved the music enough to suggest forming a band to play it.

Bari Bari 13 — "bari bari," according to the band, is slang for "cool" and "13" was a number all five members dug — played its first gig a month later at an open-mike night at toughened biker bar Sand Island R&B. The band had rehearsed for a four-song set and wound up playing eight.

"That show went great!" said Kenji. "For some reason, everybody there liked it. They said, 'Hana hou!' It made us want to play even more."

Honolulu rockabilly trio The Hell Caminos and burlesque troupe Cherry Blossom Cabaret raised Bari Bari's local visibility considerably early on with invitations to perform at their young-adult-drawing events. Bari Bari 13's schedule since has averaged about a gig a week — impressive for a new band. The band recently recorded an EP (in Kenji's office at a helicopter tour company, no less) that it sells at shows, and has begun headlining its own gigs.

Bari Bari's repertoire is a mix of well-known-in-Japan songs of the genre, sprinkled with a few original tunes. Folks who understand Japanese will immediately notice the somewhat limited selection of topics that is a hallmark of the genre's lyrics.

"Bad boys, bad kids, fooling with motorcycles and cars, skipping class, drinking and smoking," said Kenji, selected as the band's unofficial spokesperson because he speaks English best. "Most of the songs have the same type of theme."

Women are included in lyrics only as they relate to any of the above — for example, the very cool protagonist of the very rockin' "She's Just a 'Tondel' Seventeen" who just wants to dress up in leather and ride motorcycles. Ballads, for the time being, just don't fit the Bari Bari 13 musical mold.

The boys — who off-stage prefer wearing jeans and casual biker T-shirts, and are very mellow and well-mannered — are as surprised as anyone else might be that the band they formed as fans of old school rock has suddenly turned serious enough to begin pondering a regular Honolulu gig and some touring. But they do have a theory.

"I went to see the Eagles in Japan even though I didn't really know what they were singing about. The music was so good, we just bought tickets to see them," said Kenji. "My wife loves opera (even though she) can't really tell what they're singing about.

"Music is universal."

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.