Kindling Burnin’ Interest : Pop music: Still waiting for a major label, the O.C. band releases a promising CD and builds its local following.

Persistence, discipline, loyalty, a determination to get things right--a visitor to Club 369 last Saturday afternoon could tell that these virtues all matter to Burnin’ Groove, and the Orange County rock band hadn’t even plugged in its instruments.

With a concert celebrating the release of their first album a few hours ahead of them, three of the five members of Burnin’ Groove sat in the dark, otherwise deserted bar, pens in hand and piles of CD booklets stacked neatly on a table.

Piece by piece, they scrawled in the name of Burnin’ Groove’s roadie, Matt Hotch, which inadvertently had been left off a printed list of people the band wanted to thank.

Hotch had felt a bit slighted by the omission, according to the Burnin’ Groove members, but “when he sees we handwrote it 2,400 times, he might realize how special he is, dude,” lead guitarist Andrew Galvez said in a tone that was a little exasperated but mainly amused.

If Burnin’ Groove’s wildest fantasies of stardom come true, perhaps this initial printing of its album, “In the Gallows,” will someday be known to collectors of rock rarities as the “Matt Hotch Edition.” For now, it’s just a nice gesture by unsigned rockers whose promise is evident on the CD but who still are struggling to be recognized.

Progress has come slowly for Burnin’ Groove, but six years after singer Daren Carlson and drummer Steve Lynch launched the band, it has moved at least a few rungs up the ladder. Playing to packed houses at Club 369 has turned into a monthly routine for Burnin’ Groove; several major record companies, attracted by the band’s demo recordings, have scouted it on its home turf, according to manager Jim Cerrone, but those nibbles haven’t turned into an avid courtship.

It won’t be a surprise should Burnin’ Groove continue to expand its corps of Orange County fans. Its ‘50s-derived look--crisp T-shirts, pompadours and sideburns--follows in the tradition of two popular local precursors--Social Distortion and the Cadillac Tramps.

So does its general musical scheme, which features a limited, chesty-voiced baritone singer who will never be mistaken for a crooner, sharp backing vocal support from the rest of the band and catchy, quickly memorable songs. Most of the music rides a high-energy punk beat, and the songs usually tell a gritty tale.

Galvez’s blues-tinged guitar style helps take Burnin’ Groove several steps beyond basic punk bashing. With shared, sing-along vocals and a purposeful, everybody-go-for-it approach to stage performance, Burnin’ Groove exudes an appealing sense of all-hands engagement.

Burnin’ Groove rose out of a longstanding friendship between Lynch and Carlson, both 26. The Yorba Linda-raised rockers began playing together in junior high school, taking the Clash and such Southern California punk bands as the Adolescents, T.S.O.L., and the Dickies as their inspiration.

The two launched Burnin’ Groove in 1989 and soon recruited bassist Greg Johnson, 30, who had gotten his early experience playing in a Christian punk band called the Chosen Ones. The one distinctive thing about the band at that point, says Daren Carlson’s older brother, Jered, was its love of noise: “Loudest damn band you ever heard.”

Burnin’ Groove began to take shape in 1992 with the lucky acquisition of Frank Agnew, the original Adolescents member who is one of the best pure musicians to have come out of the early-’80s O.C. punk boom.

Daren Carlson had called meaning to invite Agnew’s younger brother, Alfie, into the band, but Frank answered and never gave up the phone. The other members looked to Agnew as a mentor and credit him with transforming Burnin’ Groove during his nearly two years with the band.

Among the lessons he imparted was the usefulness of turning down the volume at times to create a varied sound that would help sustain a listener’s interest.

When Agnew, who now fronts local band Blue Velvet, moved on in 1993, he handpicked Galvez, 25, as his replacement.

Galvez, who grew up in Placentia, had an early diet of blues, rock and heavy metal (he still counts Eddie Van Halen and bluesmen Gary Moore and Stevie Ray Vaughan among his influences). He fell for punk rock in high school.

“I saw it all come together,” said Jered Carlson, 31, who completed the current lineup when he joined last year as rhythm guitarist. “Frank was teaching them, and it was really good. It wasn’t just noisy. It looked fun, and they were serious.”

Burnin’ Groove’s leading asset as it tries to claim a future in the music business is its songs. With Daren Carlson writing all the lyrics, they almost invariably have insinuating musical hooks and an offbeat story to tell.

The songs are a varied lot, with a fanciful tale of doom in the old West (“In the Gallows”), a horrified vision of what could happen if the white-power movement the band deplores should gain a strong foothold in the United States (“Neo-Nazi”) and a clenched rocker full of high romanticism (“Sand Castles”). Then there are the handful of songs in which the protagonist has been cheated on or ditched by a woman and is reacting none too kindly.

The Burnin’ Groove members say they haven’t gotten any complaints from their female fans about disdainful songs including “Glittertown Dolls,” which lampoons a star-struck Hollywood scene-maker, and the self-explanatory novelty number, “Bimbo” (“Didn’t mean to call you a bimbo. . . . what I meant was ‘slut,’ ” goes the refrain).

“The girls like that song; they’re the ones [requesting] it,” Carlson said. But he doesn’t intend to write much more about strife between the sexes: “It’s pretty much old hat for me. The main deal now is not to write a song about women, because it’s too easy, and it puts you in a rut.”

One of the band’s most promising new, unrecorded numbers is “Whatever Happened to Eighteen?” in which Carlson, who turns 27 next month, ponders the strange notion that his youth might actually be finite.

“Somebody came up to me at Stater Brothers and said, ‘Sir! Sir!’ ” Carlson recalled of the song’s genesis in real-life experience. “I was so offended. It really bummed me out. People are 17 or 18, and they talk to you like you’re old.”

Lately, Burnin’ Groove’s members have been considering the possibility that the time they have to land a record deal might also be finite. All work day jobs, and Galvez says he has put off entering chiropractic college for several years, hoping the band will take off. He says he recently set a new deadline of one more year--but added that he has pushed back such deadlines more than once.

With its self-financed CD release--”In the Gallows,” can be ordered by phoning (714) 524-5059--Burnin’ Groove hopes to rebound after being passed over for a record deal.

“At first when I thought we’d get picked up and we didn’t, I was pretty bummed,” Lynch said. “It’s a compliment [to land a record deal]. You think you’ve succeeded as a musician because you’re signed to a label, which isn’t [necessarily] the case.

“But it would mean a lot to me to be signed to RCA,” one of the labels that has shown interest, he said. I could say to my dad, ‘I’m gonna make it, and it’s not a thing I’m gonna grow out of.’ ”

* Burnin’ Groove and the Buddha Heads play tonight at the Foothill, 1922 Cherry Ave., Signal Hill. 9 p.m. $8. (310) 494-5196. Burnin’ Groove also plays June 23 at the Lava Room, 1945 Placentia Ave., Costa Mesa, (714) 631-0031 .