When the lead singer of a band called Vietnam (a beardier-than-thou outfit that makes anti-establishment retro-psych) starts talking about signing up for a United Service Organization tour in Iraq, you can't help but feel that maybe, just maybe, he's winding you up. But Michael Gerner, speaking in a southern drawl on the line from New York's notorious Williamsburg neighbourhood, seems deadly serious.

"Right now, we're working on playing shows in Iraq and Afghanistan," Gerner says. "I'm a military brat–my father is in the military. He's retired, but he met one of the ladies from the USO. He called me up and said, 'Now that you guys have a record out, they might be interested, so if you can help out…'"

The offer may be part of a recent drive to recruit independent bands for USO tours, which the Wall Street Journal first reported on in a March 29 article. Established artists are refusing to enter those war-torn countries, and so the entertainment wing of the U.S. Armed Forces is trying to find bands hungry for a crowd. The raspy-voiced Gerner, who, on Vietnam's self-titled debut, is given to penning lyrics like "Money and class/Just a pain in the ass for me", sees no insurmountable contradiction in the idea of a tour of duty.

"You fly in an airplane that makes a 75- to 45-degree landing, and you pretty much throw up all over yourself, and then you have to make a 10-mile drive from the landing strip to the base, that they're constantly attacking, and then you have to fly from base to base in a Black Hawk helicopter in full body armour, because they're trying to shoot you down. But growing up as a military brat, you feel like that's something you have to do. I'm a patriot. For the most part, all the soldiers there are just poor kids who couldn't get anywhere else."

Though Gerner and his bandmates–singer-guitarist Joshua Grubb, bassist Ivan Berko, and drummer Michael Foss–have a reputation for being spectacular waste-cases, they're not so much anti-establishment hippies as they are completely immune to the idea of following someone else's rules.

Witness Vietnam . Adored by critics and fans for its shambling, heavy nature, the disc turned out the way it did partly thanks to some help from Maroon 5 bassist Mickey Madden. That Madden comes from one of the most reviled, overtly commercial acts in America today seems irrelevant to Gerner.

"I don't think they're that terrible," he says. "I think they're really good for pop music. I'm not going to listen to it on a regular basis, but I don't really think about what people play. It's how they are as people. Actually, all of those guys in Maroon 5 are pretty nice.

"I think it's all kind of a big hoax," Gerner adds, regarding Vietnam's perceived radicalism. "At the end of it all, I'm just gonna have a fucking good time."

Vietnam plays Richard's on Richards on Friday (May 25).