Homegrown band National Product may have defected to Southern California a few years ago, but the five guys — three of whom are from Kailua — are doing their part to spread the aloha.

Yeah, yeah, scream the cynics. Aren't we all? Not like this.

On the phone from the band's home in Huntington Beach, band frontman and local boy Danny Casler is like our very own ambassador to the rest of the world. It's pretty clear that everything he does as an up-and-coming rock star is fueled by his love for his Island home.

The band's collective approach to stardom is to treat others the way they want to be treated. For everyone else, that's called the Golden Rule. Casler calls it family values.

National Product was named one of the top 100 bands to watch in 2008 by the Alternative Press magazine and is scheduled to perform Thursday at Pipeline Cafe.

Three of you are from O'ahu. Was there any relocation angst when you moved to California in 2003?

It was a massive transition. You're going from having family and a great culture to fall back on to being thrown into this really fast-paced lifestyle in which everything that is not important in Hawai'i is important out here.

Nobody cares if you have money in Hawai'i. Nobody cares about things like that. But out here, having a nice car and having a nice house — all of that's a big deal.

We've always held tight to our roots and knew that those things were not going to be what defined us as a band. We took what we grew up learning and knowing in Hawai'i, and that's what we share with the world.

How often do you guys get to come home?

We'll come home two to three times a year. One or two times a year to play, the other times to visit.

You guys take your fans' adoration and support very personally. Is that deliberate, or does that just come naturally?

I think it's totally in our nature, because we come from a very loving background. Hawai'i is all about love and support. We love anybody who supports what we're doing. We return that with hugs and hanging out with them and sharing our personal lives with them because in the end, we're all here on this Earth for a very short period of time, and we want to love and throw our love on others as they do to us.

Is it true that when you're on tour, you prefer to stay with fans rather than in hotels?

Of course! That's what I mean about the close relationship with our fans. When we're on the road, we never have to worry about hotels because fans will either buy us a hotel and hang out with us there, or they'll invite us to stay with them and their families, and we love that.

We get to hang out with them and learn about them and their families and where they come from, get a nice home-cooked meal, meet the parents, and the brothers and sisters.

It makes the whole experience that much better. They want to know you because they love your music, and you want to know them because they support you, so you want to share those things.

Do your local values astonish others?

Oh, yeah. All the time! We all hug a lot, which is something we learned from growing up in Hawai'i. And people aren't turned off by that, but they're like, whoa, it is not normal to be that affectionate.

I have to explain to them that that's a part of our culture. We're a very affectionate culture in Hawai'i, and we're very different from the Mainland. We're a loud-and-proud culture. We support our own, and that's who we are, and when people see that, they're blown away.

That's what we want to impress upon them, so maybe they can be that way, too.

Who are your musical influences?

It's not necessarily other musicians that inspire us — the inspiration really comes from living life, the things that we experience. We take those experiences and write about them, and hopefully they connect with people in a way that inspires them.

Who are you listening to most frequently right now?

I always love Jimmy Eat World, and of course Bob Marley. We listen to AFI, The Beatles ...

Who does most of the songwriting?

We all write together. Some of the songs are written by individuals, but it all comes down to the team creating the music.

There are a bunch of YouTube videos out there of you guys goofing it up for the camera. You don't take yourselves too seriously, which is refreshing. But your music is much harder than your silly behavior implies.

I know, right? Yeah, some of the music is hard, but songs like "Love Me" or "Where Do You Go" touch on a much softer side of the band. We're all a bunch of fun-loving dudes that are really just a bunch of dorks.

I can tell. Which is why I expected to hear geek rock or power punk or something more Weezeresque. But there's a lot of vocal wailing and deep thumping drums — it's sort of post hard-core.

Totally. We grew up with a very punk-rock background, and so we just brought the things that we love most about those elements of music and put it into our own. There's a very fun side of us and there's a very serious side of us. It's a really big balance to maintain all of that.

Do you ever find it difficult to maintain the balance?

No, not really. When we get on stage, we're all about rocking out and having a good time. Our fans know to expect a mix between a rock show and a comedy standup act.

We're up there to have a good time, but there are moments when we're very serious, and we might be talking about the charities we're involved in. There's always time to have fun, but there's also a time when you gotta just break it down and talk about why we're playing music.

Have you always been involved with charity work?

Always. Even in Hawai'i, when we were a young band in high school. We always supported charities like Food Not Bombs and the Hawaii Foodbank. We've always wanted to be, and always will be, a community band.

Where do you see yourselves in 10 years?

If we're still playing music, that would be great. If not, I know we'll all still be in the industry, doing something that has to do with music.

Do you ever want to move back home?

Yeah. I definitely want to move back home. I think about it all the time.

What do you miss most?

My family. I miss being able to drive two minutes and go jump in the water at Lanikai beach. I miss grabbing a Spam musubi at 7-Eleven. It's the little things, you know?