The Giggitys won’t get stuck in a quagmire

October 18, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

For any viewer of “The Family Guy,” there’s little doubt that the character Quagmire is, well, a nimrod.

Someone who added a new dimension to this thought is Wadsworth resident and musician Ric Mallardi, who spent the ’90s as a guitarist-singer in the respected Cleveland punk band The Nimrods.

Now Mallardi (aka Ric Nimrod) has named his new band The Giggitys, which anyone familiar with “The Family Guy” knows is the goofy sound Quagmire makes whenever he’s excited.

“Not that any of us are hardcore ‘Family Guy’ fans, but we all watch it,” Mallardi said. “When we were struggling to find a name for the band, I found myself sitting on my couch watching the show when Quagmire busted off with a ‘giggity.’ I thought it sounded like a brilliant name for a band.”

Formed four years ago, The Giggitys have been playing out around Northeast Ohio, including dates in Youngstown. However, so far the act only has one EP to its credit.

“Yeah, we’re lazy,” Mallardi said. “This band is not about trying to be rock stars or whatever. We’re trying to play out in the area as much as we can.”

It appears as though new music from The Giggitys is in the pipeline. The band hopes to sign with a Canton-based label and soon thereafter set up studio time to record a full-length due out next spring. Among the new tracks the quartet is currently playing live are the Rancid-meets-The Ramones sounding “Total Deceiver” and the heavy “Beer and a Percocet.”

“I’d say that the new songs were written more out of turmoil than the first record,” Mallardi said. “The first record was a happier subject matter in all of the songs. The new one, there were relationship troubles. These songs were written from a little bit darker of a place.”

Fans of The Giggitys, which includes Nimrods member Davey Rockett on bass, can hear the unreleased material when the foursome returns to Cedars for a Friday show.

As for the comparisons between The Giggitys and The Nimrods, Mallardi said, “We’re 20 years older, so the song- writing does take a little bit more mature turn certainly over the years. You can’t help but get a little bit better at what you do.”

So what is it that The Giggitys do?

“People usually have a real good time at our shows,” Mallardi said. “It’s a party, and our songs are shake-your-butt songs. That’s the vibe, more of a bouncy good-time atmosphere. It’s not that we knock it out of the park musically, but it’s just people get drunk and have a good time. And really, that’s the only reason we do this. It’s because we want to have fun, and we want to have fun with other people.”

Giggity.