Written somewhere on the long list of reasons why any band forms - amidst the excess and the trappings - is a genuine love of music. It's not always as high up on the list as, say, free beer and babes, but it's there. And in the case of the rockers in Jellyroot, it's on the very top of the list. Jellyroot is a straight-up barroom rock 'n' roll quartet from Rochester that maintains a classic strain without sounding like just another retro rehash. And besides the obvious fact that the band is happening today, there is a contemporary freshness to the future classics brewing beneath the surface. We'll be enjoying this band long after it's gone.

Jellyroot has just completed its second album, "The Things We Do," at Saxon Studios and it continues to hit stages around town - an endeavor that every now and then seems like an uphill battle.

"We struggle with live shows," says Jellyroot guitarist-vocalist Chris Baerman. "It seems to be real hard to get bodies into the rooms. We're still working on that, trying to get that fan base. One strategy is just to play less."

But the band - Baerman; his father, David Baerman, on bass; drummer Matt Cramer; and guitarist Ed Czarnecki - soldiers on.

"Even if there's no one in the clubs," Baerman says, "I enjoy playing with these guys, I enjoy writing music. I enjoy what we're doing and the direction the music is going in."

The music has been going in this direction since Baerman and Cramer were in the 7th grade. "Neither of us played very well - still don't - when we got together," says Baerman. "We were heavily into The Beatles and the music played on WKLX. We were obsessed with it, obsessed with The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran."

Those weren't exactly typical touchstones for a band growing up in the late 80's, and Baerman knows it. "A lot of the music [at the time] was ‘pump up the jam' and hair metal, and that didn't appeal to either of us," he says. "We were outsiders in that respect."

The band that would be Jellyroot lasted through high school, then scattered after graduation. Baerman continued on to play with the oldies cover band Ruby Shooz while Cramer slid into the domestic routine. It was when the two got back together in a band that Baerman hastily threw together for a pig roast in 2008 that the two realized that there was still something there. The bass player had bailed last minute, so Baerman recruited his dad, David, who had prowled the local scene for years, most notably in The Hideouts in the early 80's. Chris Baerman credits his dad's love of garage rock and 60's music for lighting his fuse in the first place.

It was the perfect scenario.

"And I thought, ‘My best friend and my dad?''' says Baerman. "This is a blast. It was like, ‘I've been in cover band limbo for 15 years, now I have an outlet.'"

The band holed up in Cramer's basement and recorded its debut, "A Better Plan," on a Yamaha 16-track digital recorder. Because the band liked to beef up and layer its music, the trio decided another guitar player was necessary to pull it off live. The band soon found that Craig's List isn't just for finding roommates, used cars, and cleaning ladies; it found guitarist Ed Czarnecki lurking there as well. Czarnecki has been in Jellyroot just more than a year at this point. Though his playing has helped to fatten up the band's sound, it's fundamentally the same.

"I don't think the arrangements really change," Czarnecki says. "It's more the attitude with how the songs are played that's changed a little bit."

It's this attitude that keeps Jellyroot focused in the storm of influences that rains down upon it. Baerman explains: "It's the schizophrenia of what I enjoy listening to," he says. "And I write what I enjoy. Anything can come out, and if it's valid and cool and I'm feeling it, then we do it. The music we're writing... we're not writing it for anybody, we're not writing it to be commercial - we get off on it, we dig it. You hear some artists say, ‘I don't listen to my records.' And I'm like, ‘Hell no, I like listening to my music.'"

So does Cramer. "My son said to me the other day - we were in the truck - ‘Dad, is it kind of weird that you listen to your CD all the time?" he says.

Baerman sums it up: "There's the satisfaction," he says. "A room full of screaming girls would be great, but my 3-year-old being my biggest fan...it doesn't get better than that."

Jellyroot

Saturday, October 22

Lovin Cup, Park Point Drive

9 p.m. | $3-$5 | lovincup.com