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It's hard, being an up-and-coming rock band.

Fans insist on your time. Venues beg you to play. The music demands to be unleashed.

It's a rough job, but somebody's got to do it. And the guys in After Elvis say they're up to the task.

"Man, we've been so busy that I'm down to working one day a week," singer-guitarist Steve Paul told The Daily Times this week. "We're touring all the time right now, and we're only home a couple of days a week. We're so busy we're having to turn down some shows.

"Right now, I'm staring at a box of the new CD and know that they're going to sell out. Anybody that's heard the album, the reaction we get is a look on their face like they can't believe what's coming through the speakers. The response wasn't planned for and the demand wasn't planned for; all of this is something we wanted to do as a matter of pride. We finally broke that barrier of being successful and being true to ourselves, and we know it's going to pay off in the long run.

"We do what we want to do, and people understand and respect us for that," Paul added.

The new album, "Four Ways to Start an Apocalypse," is only a four-song EP of punk-metal speed and fury, but it explodes with the power of a suicide bomber in a crowded marketplace. Given the band's pedigree, that's no surprise — Paul has been playing in bands since he was 14, having toured in outfits that played on the Vans Warped tour before a job transfer brought him to Blount County. He looked at the move as an opportunity to start fresh, and it wasn't long before he hooked up with other local musicians, including bass player Steve "O" Marr, who graduated from Heritage High School in 2001. A self-taught musician, Marr met Paul through a mutual friend and was won over by Paul's guitar playing. In June of last year, they started putting together After Elvis, using songs Paul had begun with his previous projects in West Virginia.

The band's first gig at The Electric Ballroom in Knoxville went over so well that the venue invited After Elvis back the next week — to headline instead of open the show. The guys also worked hard to cultivate a grassroots fanbase, building a healthy following on Myspace and playing numerous shows at Alcoa's Springbrook Recreation Center, to which they'll return on Saturday night to perform a CD release show for "Four Ways to Start an Apocalypse."

The four songs demonstrate the dedication After Elvis has for the music it makes. Paul is a self-described perfectionist, and the four tracks on "Four Ways" reflect a professional level of craftsmanship that he said pushed the band to supersede its own expectations.

"We figured that we can take anything we do with five people in the studio and do it live, too," he said. "A lot of bands go into the studio and create a masterpiece, but they can't translate it to the live show. We pushed the limits as far as what we could do in the studio, and then we just forced ourselves to figure out how to do it live, too."

So far, a few indie labels have sniffed around the band, but for now Paul said he and his bandmates are content to keep doing things their way. If the right offer comes along, they would certainly be receptive; but with a Columbus, Ohio, booking agent handling gigs and the members themselves bombarding fans and the media to get the word out, After Elvis is happy right where it's at.

"At this point, we're going to stay away from what everybody else is doing and avoid it like the Black Plague," Paul said. "You have to make your own way in this business; otherwise you're just following a trend and riding somebody's coattails. The best way to put it is that we just want to make music that we like to play, that makes us laugh when we listen to it and know that we've created something no one else has done.

"We just want to push the envelope a little bit and do something fun. I mean, if we write a song that's got a banjo solo in it, I don't care as long as we're having fun doing it. And we must be doing something right, because we've been playing some weird venues. But when 300 kids show up and you're five hours away from home, you know you're doing something right."