Is Grant Lee Buffaloed About ‘Fuzzy’ Success? : The L.A. folk-punk trio’s admittedly off-the-cuff, freewheeling debut has been touted as one of the year’s best.

Ready for folk-punk?

Grant Lee Buffalo doesn’t play with the speed or abrasiveness of traditional punk, but the Los Angeles trio is loaded with the maverick spirit and spontaneous instincts associated with that movement.

In fact, there is such an intense, freewheeling element to the group’s approach on its debut album, “Fuzzy,” that it’s easy to imagine that the band made up the songs in the studio.

Which is apparently what happened--and the group isn’t defensive about it.

“All the stuff on the album is just totally off the cuff,” says Grant Lee Phillips, the 29-year-old lead singer of the group, which also includes bassist Paul Kimble and drummer Joey Peters.

“Very little was planned or arranged beforehand,” Phillips said. “There were things that I was just sort of working on and the tape was rolling and Paul said, ‘OK, that’s great. Let’s print!’ and I was like, ‘I did the song?’ ”

The approach worked.

Released in February, “Fuzzy” has been a hit on some alternative/college radio stations--and the band has done turn-away business in Los Angeles clubs. Calling it one of the best debuts so far this year, Rolling Stone magazine described “Fuzzy” as a “sagebrush Doors” with the dramatic sweep of Love’s “Forever Changes.”

The group’s genesis goes back to 1985 when Phillips met Peters and they became the rhythm section of the late L.A. underground band Shiva Burlesque. Many of the current group’s elements--including the emphasis on hard-edged acoustic music--date back to that band.

The difference, Phillips says, is that the playing is much more aggressive now: “There was this feeling that we were holding something back, holding something down. It never quite exploded like it does now.”

After Shiva Burlesque, the two musicians joined with Kimble and played around Los Angeles under various names before adopting Grant Lee Buffalo in 1989. They chose the name to signify “a dying part of America.”

On record, the group blends a rich, Bowie-esque swankiness with raw, tumbling balladry, all set against Phillips’ quirky blend of happy/sad lyrics. On stage, the band adds a teasing sense of the unpredictable. The trio (which is currently supporting Sugar on its U.S. concert swing) never bothered to make out a set list during its recent three-month tour. They just played what felt right at the moment.

“I don’t know how other bands play the same songs every night,” says Phillips, a Stockton native who dropped out of Columbia College film school in Hollywood and tarred streets for a living before the band was signed last year by Slash Records. “It seems so mundane. I don’t like knowing what the next song is because that’s what I’d think about during the number we’re playing.”

The group’s themes frequently touch on such matters as individual complacency and idealistic yearnings, but they avoid the heavy-handedness of many folk-rooted groups. The lyrics are generally abstract, and the band doesn’t like to amplify on them in interviews.

Phillips acknowledges that some critics have called him cynical because of some double-edged tunes such as “Wish You Well,” but he feels the term is inaccurate.

“I do go rattling on about things you should watch for in this dangerous life--all the roadblocks,” he says. “But I’m also the one that says things can get better. There’s always a chance.”

L.A. POP DATEBOOK

Tickets will be available Sunday for the Spin Doctors/Soul Asylum/Screaming Trees bill Aug. 28 at the Greek Theatre. . . . Tickets also go on sale Sunday for Little Richard’s July 17 date at the Universal Amphitheatre. . . . Frank Black will be at the Palace on July 14. . . . Twenty unsigned folk acts will perform tonight at the Highland Grounds coffeehouse in a competition for a spot on the June 5-6 ‘ Troubadours of Folk” festival at UCLA.

O.C. POP DATEBOOK

Tickets go on sale today for Poison’s July 7 show at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. Poison also appears July 6 at the new Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion near San Bernardino.