The Rah Bras are something else. If you’re planning on attending their last show this Friday at the WRIR 2nd anniversary bash you might want to make sure you’re up to date on all of your shots. Everyone gets infected by something or another at a Rah Bras show. Are you currently taking medication? Do you have any allergies? Rah Bras may induce dizziness, euphoria, blurred vision, fever, chills, shortness of breath, and/or a ringing in the ears.

For close to ten years, the local trio has tirelessly pursued a unique, futuristic fusion of pop-punk and performance art—an incomparable art form of sorts that began in friends’ basements and dingy dive bars but which ultimately led to performances in Europe and Japan and points in between.

Not content to simply pose behind their instruments, Jean, Boo, and Isabella Rah create more electricity between themselves and the audience than their Casios, “keytars,” and synthesized drums do plugged in. Their live performances—a postmodern meltdown of melodramatic rock, perplexing theatrics, and sexy slapstick—always energize a crowd.

The unorthodox unit’s place in the pantheon of popular music might be on the outskirts of obscurity but over time the group has managed to generate an eclectic fan base for itself and secure out of town label support. But after a decade on the road and in the zone, the threesome has decided to call it quits; for a while, anyways.

According to the group, they’re not really hanging it up, just taking a hiatus from live performance until 2037. Of course, a lot can happen in 30 years, despite the fact the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012. But unless a kind of Mesoamerican rapture occurs (or global warming makes breathing air impossible), a Rah Bras reunion tour already appears to be under discussion!

There’s no telling what the band will have up its sleeve when they take the stage at the Richmond Renaissance Center Friday night, but I’m sure something will occur that will ensure their reputation survives over time. At the very least, and as always, the Rah Bras will turn rock and roll on its head. The group’s drummer Jean Rah discussed the band’s past, present, and future:

When and how did the band come together?

In 1996 sometime before the desultory Route One South Music Conference. We played our first show at that event. It was eight bands in ten minutes. Isabella ran by with the Olympic torch (which looked suspiciously like a tiki torch from Garden Ridge) on her way down to Atlanta. We had been talking about the three suns of Thra in “The Dark Crystal” and decided that “Rah Bras” was analogous to the Ouroboros, the ancient symbol of a serpent eating its tail.

So Rah Bras is cyclic? What’s with the hiatus?

We’re conscious of life’s vicious circles; endings and beginnings and sex and death. But we have other individual projects in the works. The three of us expect to return to live performance together at some point in the future, but now it’s time to catch up with Ray Kurzweil on all that alkaline water and green tea.

So what is it about you guys that you can’t just play your instruments and perform a song?

Boredom. We’d all been in previous bands before! Rah Bras are a personal playground for three old friends that have known each other since middle school. It’s a great vehicle for us to go on vacation and experience life together. We’ve always had our own private weirdo world. You might say we have an almost Seinfeldian group dynamic about us.

What’s the longest tour you’ve been on together?

The first European tour was the longest. We were on one of the first international flights out of Newark after 9/11, which made for awkward timing. But in retrospect we were fortunate to be out of the U.S. filter during that period. Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky would clean up if they started a noise band and headed over there.

Do any of you have a background in art or theater?

No, but we do enjoy expanding our music in those areas, albeit without ever having to attend art or acting school like many of our friends have. And unlike a lot of folks we know, we’ve never really aspired to live off of what we do creatively, as Rah Bras. But that’s mostly because of our ambivalence towards self-promotion.

It’s amazing we’ve kept the band going for so long. This is our Dies Irae moment from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” when George and Martha kill their imaginary son. Which explains how we’ve kept from killing each other all this time; we kill imaginary things.

love this band.