Not too many Tuesdays ago, snarky, free-form radio personality Tom Scharpling, host of the aptly titled Best Show on WFMU, invited his listeners to call in their ideas for placing bands in movies. Naturally, there were a couple of real stinkers, including at least one that involved Stephen Malkmus in some lame scenario. But then one caller suggested something mildly brilliant: Why not cast the Black Lips in a remake of Porky’s?

Those familiar with Atlanta’s infamous “bad kids” can no doubt predict the band’s reaction when Crawdaddy! proposed the idea to the Black Lips backstage before their recent show at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. The band howled like Miss Honeywell in the boys’ locker room at the prospect of portraying the gang from the seminal ‘80s sex comedy. Just a whiff of the idea drove them nuts.

“Oh shit! That is fucked up because those are my favorite movies ever!,” said Jared Swilley, the mustachioed preacher’s son that plays bass in the Black Lips. “Tom Scharpling—we arePorky’s!”

“We are honored,” said guitarist Cole Alexander.

“I want to be the eye in the shower,” said guitarist Ian Saint Pé.

“I want to be… I want to be Meat!,” Swilley interjected.

A four-piece garage-punk band with a Southern-fried psychedelic crust, the Black Lips’ reputation for low-brow stunts—on and off stage—often precedes them. Their rap sheet reads like the plot synopsis for some unrealized Porky’s clone: Gratuitous nudity, fireworks, cock gags, assorted water sports. Detractors complain that when their shtick gets out of hand the Black Lips are, in the words of Village Voice music critic Tom Breihan, “one of the dumbest, most irritating bands working.” But the reality is that their notoriety is backed up with an iron-clad work ethic. This isn’t a band that flashes its nipples on national TV (although we wouldn’t put it past them) and calls it a night; this is a band with its dirty hands in so many pies that it’s miraculous that things haven’t gotten stickier than they can handle. There’s an ambitious hunger to the Black Lips. You can call them crass or crazy, but you can’t ever accuse them of being lazy.

“We’ve been kicked out of clubs lots of times,” Saint Pé says, his New Orleans drawl thick set and swaggering, “But they all invite us back. Money talks.”

“Clubs don’t give a fuck, so long as you’re making them money,” Swilley says. “I wanna get kicked out of the Tacoma Dome.”

At SXSW 2007, the Black Lips played 12 shows in three days (only one paid them), all while swinging interviews, photo shoots, and various promotional appearances amid the maelstrom of media, industry people, and festival goers. Their feats earned them “hardest working band at SXSW” kudos from the New York Times, and things have not slowed down much in the subsequent year. Before their interview with Crawdaddy! at Great American, the Black Lips rode BART across the Bay to Berkeley (during rush hour, no less) to play an in-store show at Amoeba Records, then returned to San Francisco in time to cram in a dinner of beer and hot dogs before an interview with imeem. Post show, they would depart for an afternoon gig in SoCal before heading on to… who knows what else.

“I only sleep three hours a night, so I’m naturally on speed all the time,” Swilley said. In addition to his bass-playing duties, Swilley also maintains the band’s blog, We Fun. The blog shares its title with Chris Dortch II’s upcoming documentary film about the Atlanta underground music scene. The Black Lips will be featured prominently in the film, along with bands like Deerhunter, Mastodon, and other artists from the Peach State’s most thriving scene.

“In the ‘80s [Athens] kind of owned the scene. They had the B-52s and R.E.M., all those indie bands. And Atlanta didn’t have shit. We didn’t try to catch up to them for like 20 years, and that’s finally happening now. So as we’ve slowly gained ground, they’ve been a little bitter about it,” Alexander said.

“We were banned from Athens for a while,” Swilley added. “[The film crew] has been following us around for the past couple of months, filming us at our worst moments. It should be done pretty soon. I hope I don’t embarrass too many people on it, including myself.”

“I’ve already embarrassed myself… I got drunk,” Alexander said, a note of regret hanging in his raspy voice.