GEORGIA SATELLITES: LOW TECH, HIGH ORBIT

The last time Georgia Satellites singer-guitarist Dan Baird received a progress report from the record company, they told him the band had sold 300,000 albums--more than halfway to a gold record.

Recalled Baird, “I’m going, ‘You’re kidding. This, for a bunch of hicks who are playing music that is not in fashion? Come on !’ ”

But it’s true. In fact, this unfashionable “bunch of hicks” are doing extremely well: Their debut album, “The Georgia Satellites,” has cracked the national Top 40 and is climbing. Same for the first single, “Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” the video for which is in heavy rotation on MTV.

MTV also asked the group to perform on the channel’s New Year’s Eve extravaganza. The Atlanta-based band has already completed one well-received string of concert dates opening for Jason & the Scorchers. The Satellites have since landed the opening slot on the Bob Seger tour, which includes shows at the Forum on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

As surprised as Baird sounds about the inroads his band is making, there is some precedent for the Satellites’ unexpected success. But last time, the success came after the group had disbanded.

The first incarnation of the Satellites--essentially Baird, guitarist-singer Rick Richards and whatever rhythm section they had that week--slugged it out on the Atlanta bar circuit from 1980 to 1984.

They called it quits after they grew tired of playing the same bars, and after demo tapes they recorded with producer Jeff Glixman generated zero record company interest.

Baird then joined the North Carolina group the Woodpeckers, while Richards connected with bassist Rick Price and drummer Mauro Magellan with the Hell Hounds. Price and Magellan had previously played together in the Atlanta outfit the Brains, and now form the Satellites’ rock-solid rhythm section.

Meanwhile, the Satellites’ road manager had taken the demo tapes to England, where in April, 1985, they surfaced as a six-song EP, “Keep the Faith.”

That EP received gushing praise from the British rock press, with one critic calling it “the finest Rolling Stones album never recorded.” This prompted the scattered Satellites to regroup, and Elektra Records signed the quartet in early 1986.

The band returned to the studio with Glixman (best known for producing the likes of Kansas, Black Sabbath and Saxon), and aside from some minor overdubs on “Over and Over” and “Railroad Steel,” recorded the LP “live” in the studio.

This no-frills process yielded an album that salutes the key Satellites influences (the Stones and Faces) but delivers the songs with a contemporary wallop and fierce twin-guitar dynamics. The record breaks no new ground, but it covers its familiar blues-rock territory with a spirited, potent simplicity.

The LP is strong support for the less-is-more approach to record making, and chief songwriter Baird clearly understands the perils of stylized, high-tech production.

“You listen to people who are really into that and it’s so disappointing when they have a choice,” he said during a recent phone interview. “Like Cyndi Lauper. Look at her new record. That ‘True Colors’ song is hysterical. I mean it sounds like Elmer Fudd’s wife is singing it: ‘Bewtifewl wike a wainbow .’ She was OK on the first record because she was just being herself. Now you can hear people telling her what to do and how to sound--and she’s listening to it.”

There are other artists or aspects of the current rock scene that disturb Baird, though many of his complaints can’t be quoted in a family newspaper.

Most of his verbal venom is reserved for people he feels are bastardizing rock ‘n’ roll or being dishonest in their music. But get him on the subject of a current band he does admire--like the Replacements--and it becomes apparent that those criticisms stem from a deep, protective fondness for the Real McCoy.

Like the Replacements, the Satellites tend to be feisty and reckless on stage, judging by the quartet’s raucous show at the Palace last November. That’s exactly the point, Baird asserted: “It’s just hee-haw, man--you make mistakes. If you didn’t make a mistake it’d be a video, wouldn’t it? With a live show, it’s going by once, so what do you wanna do? You want to put forth the whole thing of ‘This is going to leave you breathless.’

“We play a little more together and tame for Seger’s audience. It’s not like all of a sudden we stop being ourselves. What we’ve done is say, ‘OK, let’s present it in a format these people understand. Let’s not go out and purposefully alienate everybody and get thrown off the tour.’ ”

These shaggy-haired rockers aren’t big on compromising, but they’re also not about to sabotage their career. Their odd history has taught them you can’t keep a good band down, and right now the Satellites are definitely soaring.

“For some reason, it’s working,” Baird said. “I hope it’s because the band is an honest band, and we care about what we do. It may be that we’re just throwbacks and familiar-sounding, and that people like us for that reason.”

Maybe a little of both.