Only the Lonely : Four-man group from Kern County makes a break for it. They are appearing Friday at the Bermuda Triangle in Ventura.

It may be lonely at the top, but it’s pretty lonely in the middle too. Say, in the middle of the state. Or in a rock band in a town known for country music. The Lonely, a four-man rock group made up of Kern County natives, recently bailed out from the San Joaquin Valley and quit being lonely to become, well, lazy.

“We’re temporarily homeless now,” said bassist Mark Davis when I spoke with him in Santa Barbara, a call that took three days to set up--pay phones being scarce at the beach. “It’s sort of a carefree, exciting feeling. We’re actually living the bum life, just hanging out at the beach. One guy has a girlfriend who has a job. . . . “

If you’re going to be homeless, there are worse places than the beach. And the band probably won’t be homeless for long--they’ll be earning some cash Friday night when they open for Ariel at the Bermuda Triangle in Ventura. With the money they can make another foray home, so as not to forget about 100-degree heat, pickup trucks, pointy shoes and all those cowboys.

“Bakersfield’s not the best place to live; I prefer the serenity of beach therapy,” said Davis. “There is a pretty good underground scene up there, though, with a lot of underage kids. We go back and play there about once a month. They pay well. They’re quite generous.”

But with more than 40,000 students and what seems like 40,000 bands, Santa Barbara can also be too much, musically speaking. There are a lot of places to play, but also a lot of bands that want to play. Competition is intense. The Lonely have played the usual S. B. spots such as Alex’s Cantina on State Street, Zelo, the Prime Directive and the Anaconda Theater in Isla Vista. But often, clubs make the new guys suffer, which usually translates into a weekday night.

“Club owners want it to be guaranteed that there will be a draw, but then they give you a night where there’s no one around,” Davis said. “I think the bands here are only vaguely aware of each other, and bands should support other bands more.”

The Lonely started a few years down that long and winding musical road as a punk band called the End. Guitarist James Stodgen and drummer Don Collins soon changed the name to the Lonely and spent a lot of time at home practicing with another guitarist, Chris O’Brien.

“Don used to sing, sitting back there behind the drums,” recalls Davis. “I went to see them once and I was initially impressed by their guitar playing and their unique, tight sound. I just started hanging out with them. I needed a band and they needed a singer. It’s been about three years now.”

And for a bunch of lazy, lonely louts, these four seem to work awfully hard. There’s more to this than just turning over every couple of hours to make sure that the tan is even.

“We normally practice five nights a week, but Don’s been in Oregon trying to sell his VW van,” said Davis. “It all sort of depends . . . Our current song list has about 30 songs, but we could probably play over 75 songs. Most of them are originals; we know maybe 20 covers. Sometimes, we’ll do a Love and Rockets, an AC/DC or a Beatles’ song. Basically, we all write songs. One person will write out the chord progression, then we all add our own parts and work it out together.”

The band put out a CD entitled “Our City,” which it no longer is, but was in 1990. It had the romantic silhouette of an oil refinery on the cover. The band then took a self-promotional road trip, driving from San Francisco to San Diego, leaving CDs at every record store that would have them. Now, they’re doing some recording, but it’s going sort of slow because hanging out at the beach doesn’t pay so well. Yet, the Lonely relentlessly mails out press kits with their current five-song demo tape, plus a copy of “Our City.”

“Elektra called us back and said they might send someone to see us at this Ventura show with Ariel,” said Davis. “Also Private Records sent us a letter saying we should stay in touch. We figure on recording four songs at a time over a six-month period. If no one picks us up by then, we’ll just do like we did with our first CD.”

Lonely music sounds as if the Cure met the Lucy Show at the Monkees’ house with sort of an English flavor; in short, there’s no hint of a Bakersfield twang. Davis and Collins harmonize impeccably, making for the perfect KROQ sound. They could be out there opening up for Peter Murphy, well, if it wasn’t such a swell day at the beach and if this wasn’t the best summer weather in a long time.

“We’re just trying to be creative and take our music seriously,” said Davis. “I know that sounds stupid, but it’s true. We have a good time doing what we’re doing. In fact it’s the funnest thing we do. We’re all really close; we really, honesty like each other. I couldn’t imagine being in a band with personality problems.”