Eggplant Picks Firm Ground : Review: Despite the stars on their album, members of the band decide to stay true to their namesake.

Could it be that Eggplant--a rock band whose collective personality is as quiet, unassuming and unflamboyant as its vegetative namesake--is starting to see stars?

Not quite. It’s true that stars appear all over the front and back covers of the Huntington Beach band’s new album, “Sad Astrology.” But they shine with a wry twinkle: The front cover looks like a still from “The Jetsons,” and the back-cover painting illustrates the calamity that would ensue if every phony romantic pledge to love somebody “till the stars fall from the sky” were, up in the heavens, to be taken literally.

Here on earth, Eggplant’s members shrug at the idea of projecting themselves into the pop firmament. Aside from drummer Dave Tabone, who is the somewhat rambunctious contrarian of the band, bassist John Kelly and singer-songwriter-guitarists Jeff Beals and Jon Melkerson are some of the quietest, humblest, least presumptuous people ever to strap on an instrument and plug it into an amplifier.

While other bands in Eggplant’s alternative-rock, college radio-oriented bailiwick tend to mock the conventions of pop stardom, they still try to cultivate some sort of image, usually as anti-stars. Eggplant’s members come off as pleasant but retiring innocents, possessed of a quirky sense of humor, and passive in the face of the demanding pop career-ladder that others climb with all limbs flailing.

The thing is, most of those climbers probably would give a limb or two to make an album as strong as “Sad Astrology.” Coming after “Monkeybars,” the rough-hewn but vibrant debut album the band released last year, “Sad Astrology” signals that Eggplant, humble or not, is a genuine alternative rock contender. (Review, F4)

The question is whether Eggplant will be able to do the sorts of things that potential contenders do to pull themselves up that ladder to greater visibility. Gathered over pizza last week at an Italian restaurant in Huntington Beach (nobody would order the eggplant, a dish that none of the four members ever touches--”A handful of dirt would be better. It’s good to throw,” pronounced Tabone--the band members were keeping their expectations low.

Successful alternative rock bands usually build an audience via incessant touring. That isn’t in the cards for Eggplant, whose members either don’t want to quit steady jobs or, in Beals’ case, can’t even think of quitting because he has two children to support, a newborn daughter and a 2-year-old son he named after the whimsical rock hero, Jonathan Richman.

“If the record does really well, we’ll consider touring, but right now it’s not feasible,” said Beals, at 27 the oldest member of Eggplant. “It doesn’t matter whether you tour unless your record’s a higher-profile record.”

Limited touring in California and the Southwest after the release of “Monkeybars” didn’t make much difference in spurring album sales, Beals said, and he doesn’t expect it would have an impact on the new album, either--although a fall tour of California and the Northwest is in the works.

“We were totally unknown. Now we’re just partially unknown,” Beals said.

“A lot of people who (tour extensively) have this unrealistic thing about stardom,” said Melkerson, whose almost diffident manner contrasts with his striking ability as a guitarist and songwriter. “You have to be realistic.”

It isn’t that Eggplant doesn’t want to be well-known, Beals said. That desire “is there, but it’s just so rare to be able to do that. For the amount of bands out there, you’re foolish to ever think you’re going to be a star. You might as well expect the least and have fun with it.”

The dissenting voice is Tabone, the only compactly built member in a band of 6-footers. “I don’t want to be greedy about it, but I want more,” he said, adding that he’d be delighted to go on tour for months on end. “I just want it all.”

“That’s why he drums so hard-core,” Melkerson noted with a smile.

It’s hardly a surprise that the question of how avidly one should pursue a dream, or any course of action, crops up often in Eggplant’s songs. Beals’ humorous but wistful “If You See the Real World Coming” laments how hostile real life is toward our dreams.

The real world is for the sad, sad people who gave up their dream long ago,

Who once wanted something, but now go to work

‘Cause they ran out of places to go.

In such Melkerson songs as “Confidant” (a more polished version of the ballad that graced “Monkeybars”) and “Animal Song,” there are recurring references to a struggle to overcome inertia and gain the confidence or determination to act.

“I want to take a step, but I don’t want to fall,” Melkerson intones on “Animal Song,” a fine parable that seems to be about the importance of acting in the face of doubts about one’s own adequacy.

“I couldn’t tell you what it was about,” said Melkerson, who says his lyrical method is to tuck away images and phrases that he runs into by accident, then weave them into songs. “But there’s enough information there for somebody to get a mood out of it, or draw some conclusion. Subconsciously, I probably inflict my own ideas on it, even though I’m trying to stay a distance from it.”

Melkerson said he always thought his songwriting method was strange, and maybe just plain incorrect. When he recently took a songwriting class at Golden West College, he was happy to learn that it’s a recommended practice to filter odd fragments and chance encounters into songs.

Beals’ material tends to be more whimsical, with easier-to-follow story lines. But he, too, mines his encounters with the real world. “The Wild Ones (Cycle on the Lawn)” began in Laguna Beach traffic where Beals glimpsed an androgynous-looking couple on a beat up Harley-Davidson. Using Ray Davies’ quirky but respectful character sketches as a model, Beals translated that into his song’s strange but warm, sweet tale of a butch biker girl and a cross-dressing boy who fall deeply in love.

After spending all of $800 on their do-it-yourself debut album, Eggplant had about 10 times that budget to record “Sad Astrology.” For the first time, they worked with a producer, Russ Tolman, instead of just plugging their instruments in, setting the dials and letting fly.

“He came up with a lot of ideas we wouldn’t have thought of, to keep the record interesting,” said a typically modest Melkerson.

Beals said that in the early stages of recording, “I was totally worried” that Eggplant would emerge with a too-glossy package. “The process of recording it seemed so structured, I thought it was going to take away all our originality. But the last few days in the studio, as the songs were being finished, it began to sound the way we play live.”

Melkerson permitted himself just a bit of well-justified, though quietly stated, self-congratulation. “In the end,” he said, “I don’t think we could have made a better record.”

Eggplant plays a free concert Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Balboa Pier gazebo on Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach. The band also will play at a record release party Wednesday at 9 p.m. at Club Lingerie, 6507 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. For information and free admission, call Dr. Dream Records at (714) 997-9387.