The Sunny Day Real Estate reunion commences at the Big Dipper

It’s not surprising that Spokane’s Dan Hoerner worships the Replacements. While growing up on the North Side during the ‘80s, the Mats meant everything to the Sunny Day Real Estate guitarist.

“There’s no doubt that the Replacements had a huge impact on me,” Hoerner said by phone from Seattle. “Every guitar line I write and (the late Replacements guitarist) Bobby Stinson is right there with me. I try to be as poetic as (singer-songwriter) Paul Westerberg when I write lyrics. I also noticed how the Replacements always screwed up.”

There is no band that blew so many opportunities to grab the brass ring as the gifted but enigmatic Replacements. The Minneapolis legends are the only band that was banned for life from “Saturday Night Live.” The Mats was fired as tour support by Tom Petty.

Sunny Day Real Estate is not on the Replacements’ level of self-sabotage, but the alt-rock band deserves an honorable mention when it comes to self-immolation.

“We were the kind of band that as we reached the finish line and the rope was stretched across our chest, we couldn’t help but kneecap ourselves at the last minute,” Hoerner said. “We would always shoot ourselves in the foot.”

Sunny Day Real Estate were formed by Hoerner after he moved from Spokane to Seattle in 1989.

“I wanted to form the greatest rock and roll band ever and I knew I couldn’t do it in Spokane,” said Hoerner, 53. “So many of my favorite bands, like Mudhoney, were in Seattle. So I moved across the state.”

Sunny Day Real Estate emerged from obscurity in 1992 with the release of “Diary.” The critically acclaimed debut album included the catchy but complex hit single “Seven” and the soaring, anthemic “In Circles.”

Just after MTV featured the band on its alt-rock show “120 Minutes” and the band performed “Seven” on the “Jon Stewart Show,” Sunny Day called it a day.

“By the time we played Jon Stewart we knew it was over,” Hoerner said. “We had already broken up.”

Vocalist-guitarist Jeremy Enigk found God. “That didn’t go over well with everyone in the band,” Hoerner said. “I didn’t care. I loved U2 and Bono is a heart-on-his-sleeve Catholic. I was fine with whatever as long as Jeremy was passionate about what he was writing.”

The band’s rhythm section, bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, joined the Foo Fighters at the behest of Dave Grohl shortly after Sunny Day splintered in 1994.

“It was a shame since Jeremy was prenaturally beautiful and he has a gorgeous voice,” Hoerner said. “We had some good-looking dudes in the band and we could have done well on MTV, but we created our own obstacles.”

Sunny Day Real Estate released “LP2” the following year. The album was well received by fans and critics but the members of Sunny Day were working on other projects.

The band reunited for 1998’s “How It Feels to be Something On.” The earnest, passionate and adventurous tracks earned solid reviews and appealed to fans. 2000’s “The Rising Tide” is an atmospheric collection of compelling and baroque tracks. The fan base widened, but the band wasn’t rewarded monetarily.

“It was the dawn of Napster and free downloads,” Hoerner said. “I remember seeing a report that Sunny Day was number one for a week. We were even ahead of Metallica as far as downloads went. I couldn’t believe how many people got our album for free. We were grateful that our music was getting out in the world. But we just didn’t get paid for our music. We did sabotage ourselves quite a few times but we also were unlucky.”

Sunny Day Real Estate reunited in 2009 for a tour and in 2014 with the release of the single “The Lipton Witch.” The group, Enigk, Hoerner and Goldsmith, has reformed once again for a tour, which kicks off aptly enough at the Big Dipper, the Spokane bar and live music venue Hoerner owns with his wife, Dawson.

“She is the light of my life,” Hoerner said. “My family is very important to me.”

The Hoerners moved from New Zealand back to Spokane in 2006 to raise their three children in Spokane. “We love Eastern Washington,” Hoerner said. “It’s a great place to live and raise a family.”

It was also important for the Mead High School graduate, class of ‘87, to reconnect with his community by opening the Big Dipper in 2013. “I played on the Dipper stage in 1989 and it’s an important part of our city’s history,” Hoerner said. “I didn’t want to see it turned into a parking lot. Our building is 114 years old. We can have a guy like Billy Strings play at the Dipper in front of 50 people one night and watch him pick up a Grammy the next night. That next evening some kid from Spokane who never played a live gig could be on that stage taking the first steps of a dream. You never know who will be on our stage and who knows what they’ll do?”

When Sunny Day Real Estate performs at the sold-out Dipper, fans might witness a first for the band. “We’ve been working on this beautiful cover of the Replacements’ ‘Unsatisfied,’ ” Hoerner said. “That song totally encapsulates the Sunny Day experience. Never in the history of Sunny Day Real Estate have we covered a song live. But we’re going to play ‘Unsatisfied’ at some point during this tour. We’ll see whether we do it in Spokane.”

The band will do it without Mendel, who is busy with the Foo Fighters, who are gearing up to play a tribute concert for its late drummer Taylor Hawkins on Sept. 27 in Los Angeles after this past weekend’s star-studded event at London’s Wembely Stadium.

“Everything is great between us and Nate,” Hoerner said. “It would be uncomfortable to ask him to play with us considering the situation the Foo Fighters are in after such a tragic loss. But we’re all moving on and enjoying playing with each other as much as we ever did.”