Shiny Toy Guns (Photo by Benjy Russell)

From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.

As football fans make their annual trek to Dallas for the Red River Shootout, lifelong Sooners fan Jeremy Dawson and his band Shiny Toy Guns are fighting their own battle in conjunction with the Oklahoma-Texas rivalry.

The Grammy-nominated electronica/rock band is representing the Sooner state at the Red Bull Sound Clash at 8 tonight at AT&T Plaza outside American Airlines Center in Dallas. Shiny Toy Guns, which has its roots in Shawnee, will engage in a musical face-off tonight against The Cannabinoids, featuring Texas native and multiple Grammy winner Erykah Badu.

“It’s like metaphorically representing OU-Texas,” said bassist/keyboardist Dawson in a phone interview from Costa Mesa, Calif. “I thought it was just going to be like a rock show, like, OK, we’re gonna play a show and Erykah Badu’s going to play a show. I didn’t realize how in-depth of craziness it was. … But it’s good to have something quirky and weird to pop up in the craziness of everyday music stuff.”

At the Sound Clash, Shiny Toy Guns will play part of a track, then stop and let Badu and her group take over in mid-song. The bands, who will perform on crimson and burnt orange stages, then will switch roles. In addition, both sides will participate in a Michael Jackson tribute by covering Jackson 5 hits.

“Erykah Badu is sort of like Sade with real kind of street-driven lyrics, real jazzy, very, very chilly, dubby, down-tempo R&B and hip-hop. Completely nothing like us in any way. Not even anywhere close. You can’t really compare the two,” he said. “I don’t know who’s going to ‘win’ because it’s all based on the audience … whoever gets the greatest volume of the crowd wins.”

The show, which is limited to about 3,000 fans, is free but tickets are required. After, Dawson will be the disc jockey at party for University of Oklahoma fans at the W Dallas-Victory Hotel’s Ghost Bar.

The festivities lead up to the OU-Texas game at 11 a.m. Saturday at Dallas’ Cotton Bowl. The Oklahoma native is predicting a triumphant weekend for his band and his Sooners.

“It’s gonna be fun,” he said. “I think it is gonna be a victory.”

Dawson and singer/guitarist Chad Petree formed Shiny Toy Guns in 2001 in Los Angeles, but the pair grew up in Shawnee. Though he now makes his home in Hollywood, Dawson spends about two weeks a month writing and brainstorming in Oklahoma with Petree, who lives in Nichols Hills with his wife and daughter when the band isn’t touring.

The new wave revivalists lately have been touring in support of their latest album, “Season of Poison,” the follow-up to their Grammy-nominated 2006 record “We Are Pilots.” Released last November, “Season of Poison” was the band’s first album with new singer Sisely Treasure, who replaced Carah Faye Charnow about two years ago.

On Dec. 15, Shiny Toys Guns will release their new album “Girls Le Disko,” a remix record including 16 of their most popular songs, which have bee revamped by dance music artists from all over the world, from Australia and Iceland to Belgium and the United States.

“We let them do their thing. We had final say-so at the end. But it’s always super, super exciting to give someone all the pieces of a song that you wrote … and then they turn around and rebuild it and reinterpret in their style and then send it back to you. They add and take away and change keys, slow things down. It’s really cool,” Dawson said.

And an EP tentatively titled “Three,” featuring five new songs, is planned for spring.

In the meantime, the rockers can be heard on TV and in theaters. Their covers of Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom” and Blue Oyster Cult’s “Burnin’ for You” are featured in commercials for Lincoln cars, their original songs “Season of Love” and “Ghost Town” were on the TV shows “Gossip Girl” and “90210,” respectively, and their anthem “Le Disko” made the soundtrack for the horror flick “Sorority Row.”

“That kind of stuff’s really good when you’ve got record companies nowadays spending little if anything on promotion. There’s never a dull or a lull in the advertising business; in fact, it’s incredibly profitable for everybody,” he said. “You get paid a premium for this kind of stuff, and Lincoln-Mercury spent millions and millions of dollars airing this stuff … and you can’t pay for that kind of promotion. That’s just priceless. It’s very important that we have that between records.”

While Dawson appreciates the exposure of such multimedia showcases, he prefers live shows like tonight’s Sound Clash.

“When you get to go out in front of thousands of people and then turn your amps all the way up and hear this thing that you’ve created just come screaming out, it’s kind of like the icing on everything, it makes it all worth it, makes it fun,” he said.

Going on

Red Bull Sound Clash: Shiny Toy Guns vs. The Cannabinoids featuring Erykah Badu

When: 8 tonight. Gates open at 7 p.m.

Where: AT&T Plaza at American Airlines Center, 2500 Victory Ave., Dallas.

After-party: 10 tonight at the W Dallas-Victory Hotel’s Ghostbar, 2440 Victory Ave.

Information: www.redbullsoundclashusa.com.