Submitted photoNew Jersey power-pop band The Smithereens will make its Bend debut at the Tower Theatre on Saturday.

It’s not easy to keep Pat DiNizio off the road.

Two years ago The Smithereens’ lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter injured his arm in a nasty fall outside his Scotch Plains, New Jersey, home in the middle of a snowstorm, and eventually underwent carpal tunnel surgery and ulna nerve surgery on his elbow. DiNizio is now in physical therapy and has been laying off the guitar in his band’s recent shows, though he said he can play fine. He’s still not sure if he’ll play when the band makes its Bend debut at the Tower Theatre on Saturday. Nevertheless, he’s on the road.

“Since the operation, all the shows have been done with me as a front man, not unlike David Bowie or Paul Rodgers from Bad Company — I’m good at that, and I play harmonica,” DiNizio said from home about a week before the Tower show.

“… For me, it’s life-changing because I’m used to holding the guitar all the time; that’s all I’ve done my entire life. In the meantime I’m just working furiously to try to heal and get back to where I once belonged, to quote The Beatles.”

DiNizio, now 60, lives with his mother and serves as her caregiver. Friends have helped take care of her for the last two years when The Smithereens have gone on tour, though it hasn’t always been easy.

“When Hurricane Sandy hit several years ago, I was stuck in Houston for 10 days, and she was here alone with no electricity,” DiNizio said. “… And she’s a survivor, perhaps more so than I am. So I don’t worry about that, and it is what it is. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Except keep playing.

DiNizio and the rest of The Smithereens — founding members Jim Babjak (lead guitar) and Dennis Diken (drums), and bassist Severo Jornacion, who joined in 2006 — have a credo that’s served them well for 36 years: “Don’t dial it in. Don’t change the guitar tones. Don’t lower the volume.”

“We have to play furious shows,” DiNizio said. “That’s very important. We have to transport people back in time.”

DiNizio repeats it often over the course of a half-hour-plus conversation with GO! Magazine: See The Smithereens live, and you’ll hear 100 percent faithful renditions of the band’s recorded work. The band is known for three-plus hour sets; at one point in the interview, DiNizio lamented the band was only allowed to play for two hours at a show at the B.B. King Blues Club and Grill in New York City last year — and even at that, it managed 31 songs that night.

This year the band is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its debut album, “Especially For You,” with a deluxe reissue and some full-album performances (if audiences want that, DiNizio said). For its current round of touring, the band added John Mayer keyboardist Andy Burton to its lineup, further increasing the amount of material the band can tackle.

“It’s really dramatically increased the amount of songs that we’re able to perform,” DiNizio said, “songs that we were never able to do previously because the studio versions contained Hammond organ or piano or mellotron or accordion. It limited us in terms of really being able to present onstage the depth of the catalog of Smithereens songs.”

That catalog now spans seven studio albums of original material, including 2011’s comeback “Smithereens 2011,” the band’s first all-original effort since 1999’s “God Save the Smithereens.” The album, full of crunchy guitars, driving rhythms and the literate songwriting DiNizio built his reputation on, was a long time coming, and almost didn’t see the light of day.

To stay afloat in the Internet era during a stretch in the mid- to late-2000s, The Smithereens focused on a series of tribute albums starting with 2007’s “Meet the Smithereens,” a faithful recreation of 1964’s “Meet the Beatles.” Next came the self-explanatory “Christmas With The Smithereens”; “B-Sides The Beatles” followed in 2008. DiNizio also released a stream of solo albums around this time, including a tribute to Buddy Holly in 2009.

“The Smithereens Play Tommy,” which celebrated the 40th anniversary of The Who’s seminal rock opera in 2009, seemed to cement the band’s place as the ultimate touring bar band of the 2000s. Initially the band balked at the project.

“By that time the guys (in the band) had had it with tribute albums, but they kept us alive when nothing was happening for anybody,” DiNizio said. “… I said, ‘Bob,’ you know, Bob (Frank) at E1 (Music), I said, ‘They don’t want to do it.’ And he said, ‘What’s it gonna take for me to get “Tommy?”’ And I said, ‘You have to finance and release a brand new, original Smithereens album.’ And it was just an inspired ploy on my part, and he went for it.”

Though he’s clearly proud of “Smithereens 2011,” DiNizio knows he doesn’t have to write another song ever again. After 36 years in the music business, he is well aware of his audience’s desire to hear the band’s classic ’80s and ’90s material — hook-laden, power-pop hits such as “Blood and Roses,” “A Girl Like You,” “In a Lonely Place” and “Behind the Wall of Sleep.” He understands, mostly because he is one of those music fans.

“I went to see Black Sabbath, their farewell tour, with my daughter at Madison Square Garden in New York City about two weeks ago; it was a gift for her 22nd birthday,” DiNizio said. “And they did not do one song from their number one album, Black Sabbath, “13.” Much ado was made of the fact that it was their first number one album, and when I saw that tour, whenever they did the new songs, it was, OK, we’ll put up with them, the band feels they gotta do it. People want to hear the stuff they grew up with, the stuff that brings them back when they were in high school or when they were in college.”

Still, DiNizio said at least three or four songs from “Smithereens 2011” have made the band’s recent set lists. After 36 years of performing, the garbage man-turned-rocker now sees multiple generations at Smithereens shows.

“They span the decades in terms of age — some are in their 60s, some are in their 70s, 50s, 40s, 30s,” DiNizio said. “Their children are in their 20s coming to the shows saying, ‘You know what, I never thought I’d ever get to see you guys play; I’m so happy. My dad raised me on your music, I heard it when I was a child.’ And now they’re bringing their grandchildren to the shows.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com