Old 97's lead guitarist Ken Bethea didn't exactly have the best introduction to the Brew City.
"Milwaukee? I'll tell you a story about Milwaukee," Bethea said. "The only time we've ever played a gig and had the bar just stiff us, not give us any money and as a matter of fact insinuate that we owed them money was in Milwaukee, at a place called the Globe."
Maybe it was an unpleasant first impression for a group of upstart Texans, but the story does have a happy — if not entirely Milwaukeean — ending.
"A guy took us in that night; he was nice to us," Bethea said. "He lived inside the (Klement's) sausage factory, let us stay in his place for the night and then made us a nice breakfast, so that was really cool."
Things have improved considerably for the boys in the 10 years since. They probably won't be inquiring about space in any of the city's spacious factories when they come into town for Sunday's performance at The Rave.
Bethea, Rhett Miller (guitar, vocals), Murry Hammond (bass, vocals) and Philip Peeples (drums) already have five critically acclaimed albums to their name, and they've just added a sixth, Drag it Up.
The CD is reeling in the standard rave reviews for the tight songwriting craft that has already spawned "Question," "Nineteen" and "Rollerskate Skinny."
However, listeners should be quick to notice a change in the general feel of the new record. While it does return to the charmingly unpolished sound of 1995's Wreck Your Life and tracks like "The New Kid" and "Won't Be Home" are solid examples of producing skills, the band's songwriting ethos seems to have matured with time.
Gone is the Texas-barroom swagger of lyrics like "My name's Stuart Ransom Miller and I'm a serial lady-killer." Instead, the songs are about broken relationships, falling out of favor and lost friends.
"It's a combination of getting older and certain events triggering the lyrics," Bethea said. "There's the song 'No Mother,' which is about our friend who was killed last year. It doesn't really do you much good to write a happy song about your friend dying.
"At the same time, the songs are kind of a snapshot of our mood last winter, which isn't to say we weren't having a good time making the record, but I think that a good band will try to treat their songs with respect. If that means it should be slower, or faster, poppy… you don't need to go, 'Well, damn it, this is the way we sound and all songs will sound like us.' For bands like AC/DC that's fine, but for us it's not."
Not that it would be an easy task to define how the Old 97's sound. Not only do the band's styles change drastically from album to album, but are subject to change from song to song. Trying to describe what the band is like to an inquisitive mind is, as Bethea bluntly puts it, "a horrible pain in the ass."
"Any description always sounds like, 'It's kind of rock, kind of country, kind of pop, kind of bluegrass' — about three or four genres are named before you just trail off. But we always tinker. People come up to me and say, 'I love Too Far to Care, you should go back to writing songs like those,' but they don't realize we didn't sound like that before that album."
In addition to their something-for-everyone approach to songwriting, the Old 97's storming live performances have drawn in new fans from day one. Testament to this was the crowd they packed around the Piggly Wiggly stage in July at Summerfest despite headliners John Mayer and Maroon 5 having the same show time at the Marcus Amphitheater. Sunday's performance promises to be the standard rollicking affair.
Though they sing about how they "feel it slowing down" on the new album, all signs seem to read full speed ahead for the Old 97's.
They've recorded a cover of their heroes, the Kinks' "She's Got Everything" for inclusion on a Starbucks Valentine's Day compilation due in February, and Bethea said Miller will release another solo outing soon — following the success of 2002's impressive The Instigator — as well as Murry Hammond's solo debut.
Faster than you can mumble "inner dissension," Bethea is quick to say there should be another 97's record not too far down the road. The ties that bind the band are some of the strongest in the business, he said.
"I'm happy we've stuck together," Bethea said. "Apart from being in a band and being able to make records, it's what I'm proudest of.
"It's been the same four of us the whole time; they're my friends, guys I count on outside of the band for emotional support at times, even if it's something like complaining about a dishwasher not working."
The Old 97's play 8 p.m. Sunday at The Rave, 2401 W. Wisconsin Ave, with opening act Sarah Lee and Johnny. More information is available at www.therave.com.