Quirky rockers John Flansburgh and John Linnell Might Be Giants, but they’re not nerds.

“I’m not into that,” a disgruntled Linnell says about the geek-rock label that has proceeded the They Might Be Giants name in recent years. “How would you like to be called that? Ask anyone that question.

“It’s the kind of thing people come up with when they don’t want to think very hard about it. It’s annoying when critics call us geeks, but on the other hand, it’s not really our job to explain it.”

The Brooklyn based duo They Might Be Giants was alternative rock back when alternative stood by its definition.

Classic tunes like “Ana Ng,” “Particle Man” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” experimented with rock in a way most of the world was not quite ready for.

“Alternative doesn’t really mean what it originally meant,” Linnell says. “There was a time when it was an interesting word to use in the place of underground rock, but the stuff that gets called alternative now is extremely formulaic.

“You really recognize alternative rock when you hear it on the radio, and that makes it a lot less interesting. At one time, we were the perfect band to be considered alternative. Now, we’re obviously not alternative because it’s so specific.”

They Might Be Giants’ unique sound attracted an audience of college kids that has stuck by the band for a career that has spawned 10 records, including the recent live release, “Severe Tire Damage.”

Since the band debuted in the late ’80s, They Might Be Giants has been a staple on the College Music Journal charts.

“We weren’t really aware of the existence of college rock when we started, we kind of lucked into a sort of identifiable audience,” Linnell says. “I don’t think we were ever going after any particular group of people. We never really figured out who it was for; we were just making up songs that we liked.”

The band has kept its philosophy over the years and writes enough songs that is able to keep fresh material on its unique Dial-A-Song service. The number, 718-387-6962, is free when you call from work, The Giants often joke.

“All the songs have something to say, but there’s not a secret message,” Linnell says. “There’s nothing that I know that you don’t know when you hear the song. There’s stuff that is open to interpretation, but you don’t need a decoder ring to listen to them.”

“Severe Tire Damage” mixes the band’s greatest hits with less-known material that has taken on new life with the full band the Giants began touring with a few years ago.

The creativity exposed on the record has impressed critics who are especially entertained by the dose of hidden tracks about the “Planet of the Apes” movies.

“You know, it’s funny we hadn’t actually been aficionados of the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies or anything. We were just entertaining ourselves with the idea that you could make up a whole bunch of songs if you just wrote down movie titles. So every night, we were putting in a different ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie title on the setlist; then we’d try to make up a song from it.

“One of the big problems was that we didn’t know which were the proper names of the movies. There were six songs and only five movies, so one was wrong. I’m still not 100 percent sure which one it is.”

They Might Be Giants’ cult following has blossomed on the Internet, where the band’s Web site houses a song database similar to Dial-A-Song. The Giants are also the first major American group to sign a contract releasing a specified number of albums (five) in the new, controversial MP3 format.

The Giants’ Web popularity is evident by a pair of recent unusual achievement: Linnell was named People Magazine On-Line’s Ninth Most Beautiful Person, and Flansburgh made Time Magazine On-Line’s Person of the Century poll.

“Flansburgh is no longer in the top echelon of the Person of the Century, but there was a moment, and I wish that the polls had closed at that point, when he was No. 3 behind Jesus Christ between Adolph Hitler,” Linnell laughs. “We had the T-shirt all planned out and everything. Then he got knocked off by this pro wrestler.”

How did a musician in an underground alt-rock band make such a list?

“There’s probably a small group of people who know how to make their computers vote over and over again like a machine gun,” Linnell explains. “That was definitely what was going on with the Beautiful Person Award.”

It must be where the nerd references come from.

They Might Be Giants play the Hoyt Sherman Theater in Des Moines tonight at 7 Student tickets are $10 in advance and are available at all Ticketmaster outlets. General admission tickets to the all ages show are $15.

Singer/songwriter Michael Shelly will open the show.