By Eliot Wilder / The Jefferson Starship built this city on rock 'n' roll. On a more modest scale, the members of the band that calls itself Wayne built their own studio with hammers, nails and plenty of sweat. This do-it-yourself approach extends to the band's songs, which have a lived-in feel that give off a burnished glow - alt.roots music down to the foundation.

At the head of the Wayne household - which makes its home in Birmingham, Ala. - stands Rodney Reaves, a singer and songwriter whose admitted influences include everything from Radiohead and Jeff Buckley to Neil Young and the Eagles. There is also some peak-period Elton John at work - more on that later.

"When I was young I would go into my dad's room and play all his Kansas and Chicago records," Reaves relays in a charming Southern drawl. "I tried to sing along with that and figure out what harmony was. I just loved the whole idea of being able to make a song." So when he was in late teens Reaves, curious by nature and ready to get his hands on something, got himself a guitar and started writing songs as he learned how to play. What he wrote - and still writes - about are day-to-day experiences. "Everything from relationships to business meetings - it all fits in there somehow."

A few years down the line Reaves hooked up with producer Jason Elgin and the two discovered quickly that they were kindred spirits. Together they got their feet wet playing acoustic gigs in small venues, while Reaves continued to hone his writing skills. When they'd collected enough songs, Reaves says, "We finally just decided to make a band out of it." On board came Birmingham locals Michael Swann (guitar, vocals), Justin Johnson (bass, vocals) and Jon Hornsby (drums).

While the group was still finding its legs, it had the good fortune to get in on the ground floor, literally, of its very own recording studio, Syncromesh. "There was a building in town that everyone in the band had lived in at some point," Reaves says. "It was a men's dress shop downstairs and upstairs was an apartment. We would rehearse up there, and when the guy downstairs got ready to retire he went straight to Jason and asked him if he would be interested in purchasing the building, which Jason did. Shortly after that we found the funding to get building materials and we built [the studio] all ourselves. It turned out wonderfully, like a home away from home."

With a familial atmosphere and unlimited studio access, the foursome, with Elgin - who has worked with the likes of Collective Soul - at the controls, created what would become Wayne's debut, "Music on Plastic," an album that's welded together with jangly electrics, shimmering acoustics, thrumming bass and ballistic drums. And, oh yes, unabashedly emotional tunes. "They're about the struggle to make things work, to make things right," Reaves offers, "to get a break and do what you enjoy doing - that's the feeling I get when I go back and listen to the album now."

One of the highlights of "Music on Plastic" is the track "Temporary." With its brilliant melody and soaring chorus, it exemplifies best the Wayne ethic: "That song is about trying to get your way in this business, about being able to express yourself the way you want to instead of the way somebody else wants you to. At same time we're letting them know that we're in it for the long haul." So you don't want to wind up ... temporary? "Exactly," Reaves chuckles.

As for the promised Elton John connection, those listeners who let their Wayne CDs run a bit past the supposedly final track will discover, of all things, a note-perfect rendition of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." "Our publisher at the time we were doing the album knew that we never, ever play cover songs," Reaves says. "He would always joke with me: 'When are you guys going to record your cover song?' We would just refuse. Then one day, for no good reason, 'Yellow Brick Road' kept going through my head. So I went to the studio and said to Jason, 'What do you think about doing this song?' He was just all over it from the minute I said it. We got everybody together and we sat down and listened to Elton John because we wanted to get it as close as we could to his version, because when they recorded it was just perfect. We really picked that song apart to make everything right - besides the fact that there's no piano on ours."

One last thing: why the name Wayne? "We got the band together, started rehearsing and booked our first show, and never once thought about a band name. The girl at the club who booked us asked me my middle name, and she just billed the show as Wayne." Adds Reaves with a laugh, "And we never changed it."

From Amplifier magazine