MUSIC / DASHBOARD SAVIORS : Interior Rock : Guitarist/singer Todd McBride offers insight into his upbringing, the roots of a truly Southern rock band.

The Dashboard Saviors are this week’s Happening New Southern Rock Band. They’re based in R.E.M.’s hometown of Athens, Ga., and Peter Buck produced their just-released debut album, “Kitty.” The band, which began four years ago, has been driving around in a van the last few months on its current tour, which includes a Halloween gig at Toes Tavern in Santa Barbara.

Guitarist/singer Todd McBride writes witty but world-weary songs about characters in the rural South who have made a career of going too far and have about as much future as a dirt road to nowhere. There’s songs about fancy dances (“Dilettante’s Ball”), fire and brimstone radio preachers (“Brother Shiloh Collins”), lousy love (“The Coach’s Wife”) and trailers that, largely in the South, still haven’t became mobile homes (“A Trailer’s a Trailer”).

McBride fellow Saviors are Michael Gibson on guitar, Rob Veal on bass and John Crist on drums.

In a recent phone interview from Bellingham, Wash., McBride described the life and times of his favorite band:

Your album “Kitty” was named for a dog?

Yeah, it was. The dog was 5 years old when it got run over.

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Those guys in R.E.M. are just hanging out--why didn’t you get them to open for you?

You know, we thought about that. We know they want to play, but it would be a major undertaking. We’re just driving around in a Ford Econoline van with a trailer. I guess we were just afraid to ask them.

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What’s the Athens scene like?

Right now, it’s pretty cool. I think people have finally accepted R.E.M. as a fact of life. A few years ago, every band there wanted to be just like them. Right now, the band is just a benevolent force in town. They just hang out like everyone else. The rent’s cheap there too. I pay 50 bucks a month. It’s a room in a band house--five guys, 400 bucks.

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So, obviously, no more day jobs?

We all had them, but not right now. I was selling office supplies. Right now, I’m having flashbacks because I’m at a phone across the street from an office supply store. I’ll probably spend all my money and have to go crawling back to that job sometime.

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What’s Southern rock?

I guess it’s rock music done by Southern people. I think we’re a Southern rock band. I don’t try to be Duane Allman or Ronnie Van Zant, although I do like their stuff. It’s that other band across the state I don’t like--the Black Crowes. I’m not ashamed of being from the South. I don’t fly a Confederate flag or anything like that, because it’s offensive to a lot of people.

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Besides Southerners, does everybody else have an accent too?

The people in the South definitely do. We just conquered the Midwest and they have an accent too. I found myself saying “Da-ko-taaah.” You people in California don’t have an accent. I used to have a girlfriend from California, and she talked just like a newscaster.

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How would you describe Dashboard Saviors’ music?

I dunno, rock ‘n’ roll. Honest. We’ve been called everything from grunge to folk rock to jangly pop rock. What do you think we sound like?

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I think you sound like the Gear Daddies, remember them?

Yeah, I do. We do sound like them, I guess. We played with them on one of their last gigs. The drummer got tired of it and quit or something, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing from Martin Zellar again.

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How did you get started in all this?

Just playing, I guess. When I was a kid, my uncle was in a country and western band. And I thought that was it--I just wanted to do it. I picked up a guitar in high school, and since I wasn’t good enough to learn anybody else’s songs, I wrote my own. I used to go see bands in clubs in Atlanta, and I thought, “I can do that!”

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What’s the coolest thing about being in the band?

The best thing is just being able to do this and have somebody want to see you do it. And we get to drive around and meet a lot of cool people. You know, there’s angels all over the place out there. I think when I go home, though, that I won’t know how to act. People will want to hear some road stories, but most of them, you had to have been there.

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If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing?

Probably trying to do this. No, I think I’d become a haberdasher.

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It’s a popular conception that rural is mellow and generally healthier for the mind and body than city life. Is that true?

I don’t think so. I know my hometown of Griffin, Ga., is a place where the frustration thing comes to a head. There’s a bunch of crazy rednecks down there not afraid to mess you up.

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How many Dashboard Saviors’ songs are there?

About 50 maybe, but all of them aren’t good. We’ve got enough to make two more albums right now. We also know hundreds of covers, and about 10 million Neil Young songs.

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What do you think about people that call trailers mobile homes?

Well, six of one, half a dozen of the other, I guess. I’m just poking fun. When you write a song with characters in it, everyone assumes they’re you.

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Who goes to see your band?

We get a pretty wild crowd, a lot of kids wearing Lollapalooza shirts lately. They’re pretty skeptical at first, but by the end, they usually think we’re OK, so that works. We get a lot of college kids, some bikers, the Sub Pop crowd. It seems like there’s some sort of Sub Pop backlash going on in Washington, and people are getting tired of Soundgarden.

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Are there any other cool bands out there?

The Jayhawks are the coolest band in the world.

* WHERE AND WHEN

Dashboard Saviors on Halloween at Toes Tavern, 416 State St., Santa Barbara, 965-4655. Usually, there’s no cover at Toes, but if there is, don’t expect to spend more than a couple of bucks. 9 p.m.