Hometown heroes The Chesterfield Kings are hitting the American highway harder than ever with the release of the fantastic new record, "Psychedelic Sunrise." Recorded on Little Steven Van Zandt's Wicked Cool label, "Sunrise" is quintessential Kings; a powerful 12-song scorcher that buzzes wild and loose with an unmistakably vintage swagger. With this disc, along with the thumbs-up from Van Zandt, the band is finally getting the attention it deserves.

Van Zandt wasn't busy enough slinging a guitar for The Boss or packing a pistola for Tony Soprano. He wanted to share his love of late 60's rock 'n' roll with the world via satellite radio. It was simply a matter of time before the Kings - already cult heroes in the genre - got some airplay.

Apparently a whole lot more was in the cards.

It was during the recording of the Kings' previous "The Mind Bending Sounds" LP in 2003 that the band first hooked up with Van Zandt. He invited the band down to New York for his "Underground Garage" radio show's launch party.

"We just went down on a whim," bassist Andy Babiuk says. "We didn't know him. We just figured, let's go down and get drunk."

"And you know what?" says drummer Mike Boise. "He treated us as nice that night as he does today."

Cult status was swell and all, but the band had been treading air. Little Steven was the little boost the Kings needed.

"He brought us up several levels," says singer Greg Prevost. "You know, we were just like in the gutter or whatever you wanna call it, and he brought us up to this level."

This level has included appearances on "The Sopranos," "Jimmy Kimmel Live," "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," as well as national press like the bit in November 1 Rolling Stone. The subsequent attention opened up the road here in the States, including last fall's tour with The New York Dolls.

Since 1987 The Chesterfield Kings had been touring overseas to a huge following while remaining relatively underground stateside.

"We got to the point where we were just playing Europe," Prevost says. "And we weren't playing the United States. And the United States is a big fucking part of the world."

"It's kinda lame; you gotta go over to Europe to tour all the time," says bassist Babiuk.

"And your record isn't even out over there," Prevost adds. "They gotta buy it as an import."

And now, despite The Chesterfield Kings' more-than-25-year history, it's still a new band to some.

"What I'm noticing at shows," says Kings guitarist Paul Morabito, "[is] there's either 40-year old people [saying] ‘Oh, I've loved the band forever,' or there's 21-year old kids goin' crazy, ‘This band is fuckin' great."'

The Chesterfield Kings are arguably the kings of garage rock; daddies of a genre that they resurrected, re-invented, cultivated, and to some extent made better than it ever was. It's a genre that both drives and exasperates the band as myriad mop-top disciples in its wake miss the point by simply copping the look and surface tones. Consequently, The Chesterfield Kings don't always cotton to the category. Perhaps you could call them the Reluctant Kings.

Yet no matter how hard its members try to shrug off labels or distance themselves from pigeonholes, The Chesterfield Kings is a garage band...and probably one of the best.

It's that Chesterfield King sound, with its psychedelic sonic blasts and savage beat. It's the well-written songs. It's those relentless live shows. It's the band's unwavering love of rock 'n' roll - rock 'n' roll that won't be caged or defined.

"There's always gonna be these guys who think they're purists," says Prevost. "And there're guys who just like rock 'n' roll. And that's what we are. We're a rock 'n' roll band."

In keeping with the band's reverence to the form, it has collaborated with legends like Mark Lindsay, Sky Saxon, Mick Jones, Johnny Thunders, and Kim Simmonds. To keep it fresh, rockers like Dee Dee Ramone and Gilby Clark have also shown up on Kings records.

Throughout the years, the band hasn't strayed all that far from vintage rock 'n' roll. With a sound akin to The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, and The New York Dolls, the band has explored, pushed, pummeled, and twisted all manner of music within its sound, yet remains rooted in late 60's authenticity and timeless energy. That fact is proven every time the band takes the stage.

From the ominous "Outer Limits" intro to when the smoke and confetti finally clears to reveal a wasted stage and theater, it's a non-stop garage rock cavalcade at a Kings show. The band personifies rock's volume, violence, bravado, and threat. Prevost succumbs to his own self-induced frenzy, blindly swinging the mic stand, throwing kicks, colliding with band mates, and obliterating maracas when he isn't prowling the stage. The rest of the band doesn't necessarily match Prevost in the demolition department, but still contributes to the mayhem without dropping a note.

All eyes are locked on the bandstand to dig the spectacle, but also to watch for any shrapnel or flying debris. It's a heads-up affair with fans in the front row just waiting for a mic stand in the head.

"So am I," says bassist Babiuk.

"I just think we try to entertain people, whether they like it or not," Prevost says. "I don't know if what we're doing is good or bad, but we just do it. We figure you come there, you're gonna know you saw something."

Despite a classic sound reminiscent of the band's earlier days, Babiuk insists "Psychedelic Sunrise" isn't a step back in time.

"We've been around for a while," Babiuk says. "Rather than look backwards, which is kinda silly - you usually do that when you can't come up with anything good - we've come up with what they tell us is our best record."

Prevost and Babiuk founded The Kings in 1979, making the scene with the release of the single "I Ain't No Miracle Worker," backed with "Exit 9." Prevost was a voracious record collector seeking out rare 45s, especially ones by Texas garage rockers like 13th Floor Elevators and Moving Sidewalks. Early Chesterfield King sets were mined from this dusty vinyl.

The band began playing joints around town like Scorgie's, The Red Creek, and Casablanca. Rochester wasn't necessarily a hotbed for fans of garage's piercing fuzz guitar, howling vocals, organ wail, and manic beat, but the band's incendiary shows rapidly earned it a rabid following. Trips down I-90 to play The Peppermint Lounge in New York City brought more attention and marked the beginning of the band as cult icons.

By the mid 80's, a 60's revival hit pop culture. Mop top haircuts and go-go boots bopped to garage acts like The Fleshtones, The Mosquitos, The Cynics, and of course The Chesterfield Kings. Before long it seemed as if there were more garage bands than garages. In order to set itself apart from the crowd, the band took on the blues, surf, and heavier rock, venturing out of the very garage that it helped build.

"It was our mood at the time," Prevost says. "We decided we wanted to get away from all that. There was all this 60's this and 60's that, it was in People Magazine and all that crap. It just got tainted by a bunch of geeks that we invented. We'd go play somewhere and these guys in striped sweaters and mop haircuts would be, ‘Oh, you don't do this anymore?' And after a while you just get tired of that. Then the years go by and those guys go back and listen to their Journey records or whatever they listened to originally, 'cause they don't listen to the Yardbirds anymore."

The band's 12-album discography chronicles various line-up changes and the occasional variations on the band's theme. The first four platters - 1982's "Here Are The Chesterfield Kings," 1985's "Stop," 1987's "Don't Open Til Doomsday," and the 1989 compilation of earlier stuff, "Night Of The Living Eyes" - were textbook garage rock gems; mucho shake appeal with jangly guitars, pumpin' Farfisa, driving beat, and Prevost's snarling vocals.

The three albums that followed found The Kings stretching out a bit. "Berlin Wall Of Sound," released in 1989, was decidedly bluesier and heavier with slicker, more contemporary production. The following year The Kings swung the other way into low fidelity with the raunchy blues disc "Drunk On Muddy Water." In 1994 The Kings - having always been compared to the Rolling Stones anyway - out- stoned the Stones with "Let's Go Get Stoned." "Surfin' Rampage" was probably the band's biggest detour. Released in 1997, this 32-song marathon had the band sounding and looking a whole lot like Jan & Dean.

"Trippin' Out" (1997), "Where The Action Is" (1999), and "The Mind Bending Sounds of The Chesterfield Kings" (2003, re-released in 2006) marked the band's return back to the garage, where it remains today. It's where The Kings belong.

"I think the band is a mutation of a lot of things we like," Babiuk says. "When we started it had a heavier 60's influence and now it's really a culmination of different stuff we like. This record, and probably the last one as well... this is what we sound like. If you've seen us play live, this is what we sound like. And we've gotta be satisfied with what we're doing. We gotta like the record. If we think it's shit, then it's not going to come out. But if we're happy with it and nobody likes it, well fuck 'em, at least we like it."

Though the rest of the band adopts this attitude for the most part, Prevost finds himself languishing in limbo, waiting for feedback.

"The hardest part is the suspense," he says. "Wondering if people are gonna like it. I never really like it until people tell me it's good."

Recorded in the band's own Living Eye Studios in Rochester and mixed by Ed Stasium (Mick Jagger, Smithereens, Ramones), "Psychedelic Sunrise" is a brilliantly cohesive piece of work. Sure, it's a transcendental trip awash in reverb and color, but the album comes off more epic and apocalyptic than merely psychedelic. Just dig the creepy vocals on "Elevator Ride." The tune "Inside Looking Out" gives out a Baroque nod, and tunes like "Up And Down" and "Stayed Too Long" are righteous rock 'n' roll rave-ups in 4/4 time.

What keeps The Kings worthy of the crown is how the band manages to move within the confines of its own sound. Prevost is determined not to get stuck in the rudiments that have other garage bands frozen in time and somewhat stagnant. He likes curve balls; artists that don't read straight from the cookbook.

"There're guys that are still doing the same three chords, playing that busy signal organ," he says. "But then you get a guy like [Rochester piano hotshot] Paul Nunes. He comes down here and he's playing this stuff and it's like, ‘Holy shit, you're like [Animals pianist] Alan Price playing all this intricate stuff... wow.' Now that's playing. But nobody plays like that, none of these stupid bands."

Not only is "Psychedelic Sunrise" Prevost's favorite Kings record, the situation is ideal as well.

"Now we record here," he says. "We do it ourselves. We're in total control. We used to be in this turmoil with engineers and assholes and jerks telling us ‘You don't know how to do this.' It was just a struggle to make a record. So we put those records out, they were all shit, but we put them out because we spent so much money in the studio we couldn't start over again."

With this technical freedom, the band can focus on doing whatever it wants.

"If someone thinks a baritone guitar through an old Leslie cabinet with a fuzz box would sound cool somewhere in the song, it gets recorded," says Morabito. "Backwards chord-harp, finger clackers, whatever. We've even recorded stomping feet; me, Mike, and Greg standing on a coffee table with headphones stomping along to some chorus. Greg is incredible at writing and re-writing vocals. He can try two or three approaches to the same song that sound nothing alike. The best ideas then float to the top and a song is born. It's a very cool process."

The band members figure they whittled down 60 songs to the 12 that made the "Psychedelic Sunrise" cut. It's evidence of a willingness to try anything...just about anything.

"I tell you what I wouldn't do: jazz," says Morabito, drawing the word out as if it tastes bad.

"I love jazz," Prevost says. "I'd do jazz in a second. Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis. I love all that stuff. Or like Sun Ra, where you go up there and make a bunch of racket."

"Greg played saxophone for our last record, "says Babiuk. "And it sounded like Sun Ra."

But that particular track didn't make the album.

"Because he sounded like Sun Ra," Babiuk says.

The Chesterfield Kings

w/The UV Rays and The New York Vaults

German House Theatre, 315 Gregory St.

Saturday, December 1

8 p.m. | $20.50 | 303-2234