Hailing from Hawthorne, Calif., home of the Beach Boys and Black Flag, the members of dios (malos) are making their mark in the musically inclined history of their motherland.

Bassist JP Caballero, who grew up with the rest of the band around the South Bay area, has spent 100 percent of his adult life making music, beginning his escape from working-class reality at the age of 17.

“I don’t have to worry about trying to figure out how I’m going to define some part of my life that most people never end up defining,” Caballero says.

But he does have to worry about setting the band apart from the youthfully carefree musical heritage of Hawthorne.

Coming from a non-bohemian, working-class area, where as kids they just tried to figure out how to have fun making music in the garage, the members of dios (malos) realized that it has more to do with pleasing themselves than making something that’s aesthetically pleasing to the scene, Caballero says.

“We’re not an aesthetically appealing band. We’re not this romantic group of 21-year-old, 6-foot-tall, model-looking junkies who make these intense live stage shows that are shambolic,” Caballero says.

What, then, is dios (malos)?

In defining themselves, the members of dios (malos) say they have an air of drunken diluted California beach pop, but Caballero coins their sound as “psychedelic thrift-store lightning.”

They haven’t lost sight of where they are from, though.

“I think a lot of people want to look at us through the lens that we have a lot of hometown pride,” Caballero says.

“But I think ultimately we have a lot of pride in the fact that we’re our own entity. Everyone is just what they are.”

Dios (malos) has just started its first headline tour, allowing for its first large-scale opportunity to show audiences and critics just what it is and what its latest album is all about.

“Maybe this is the album that makes [people] want to be in a band or want to try or have some sort of goofy dream they try to follow. That’s something you’ve got to appreciate when you have it,” Caballero says.

He admits the band is very honest in its music.

“The songs speak for themselves,” Caballero says. “And no amount of PR or money will give you a good song. It’ll give you pictures in a magazine, a video on MTV and a lot of 15-year-old girls liking your band for about a year, but it won’t give you lasting impact on people.”

“If we can mean something to people – that’s the biggest accomplishment. If we can be honest to ourselves and affect people and encourage them – that’s what I consider the biggest success you can have as a band – besides making millions of dollars and having nice cars.”