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It's frustrating, trying to describe just why, exactly, you should be excited about the Tenderhooks.

There's a certain je ne sais quoi about the young band from Knoxville that's hard to wrap words around. That same ingredients that elevate so many other local bands to a status beyond simple enjoyment are there — talent, determination, dedication to quality, modesty, a strong work ethic ... but there's something else, as well.

It's a little something extra, a spice that leaps off the tongue but escapes identification in an already-amazing musical stew. It's those subtle few ounces that tip the scales in favor a future for the band beyond playing local clubs, one that includes the potential for regional, even national fame.

It's that intangible that led Knoxville attorney and musician Eric Nowinski to make the Tenderhooks the first band on his newly founded Rock Snob Records.

"It's hard to describe — some bands have an intangible thing that makes you realize they're really good and have a lot of potential, and they definitely have that," said Nowinski, the founder and CEO of Rock Snob. "Their songwriting is really good — Jake (Winstrom) is young, but he's already one of the best songwriters, the best lyricists, in town, and his potential to get better as he gets older is unbelievable.

"They've got great energy, and they're a very cohesive unit. Around here, there's a tendency for a lot of bands to just want to get together and play some music, and eventually they end up getting stagnant. These guys really want to get out and try to make it. They're always asking questions and looking at what they can do to make it to the next level. They're just really eager to learn and go somewhere, and that's kind of rare these days."

The band — which includes Winstrom on rhythm guitar and vocals, Ben Oyler on lead, Emily Robinson on bass and newest member Matt Honkonen on drums — first formed back in 2003 with Oyler and Winstrom at its core. When Robinson joined in 2004, the band started to establish itself as part of a new generation of young rock bands on the local scene making a name for themselves. The rotating cast of Tenderhooks drummers, however, has been a thorn in the band's side, according to Winstrom.

"Our last drummer canceled on us the day of a show at Barley's and then told us a couple of days later he was moving to Portland," Winstrom told The Daily Times this week. "We had just recorded 'Vidalia,' and then we were drummer-less for about nine months. That was the big frustration, but the three of us definitely grew closer. At the time, we were all sort of uneasy, asking ourselves, 'So ... none of us are going to quit, right?'

"We had had such bad luck with drummers before — I think we've gone through four or five — so we took our time and explored working with several different people. And I think our experiences deterred a lot of them, because we were taking them like kids by the shoulders and shaking them and asking, 'So if you join, you're not going to leave us, right?' I mean, that's a lot to ask — 'Hey, come join our band and, by the way, drop out of school, tour with us for a year and help us pay for CDs and T-shirts.'

"It's a lot bigger commitment than just asking someone to sit down and drum with us a couple of times a week," Winstrom added.

In recording "Vidalia," the Tenderhooks got a helping hand from some of the best musicians in the local scene. Don Coffey Jr., former drummer for Superdrag and a production wizard and ace studio engineer with Independent Recorders, produced the album, and working with him was a serious learning experience, Winstrom said.

"He's very meticulous with his mixes, so with him doing the mixing and producing and Jennifer (McInturff) doing the artwork for the album, it was kind of a labor of love for everyone involved, and we all definitely benefited from that," he said.

According to Oyler, the evolution in the band's songwriting meant the quality of songs on "Vidalia" took a forward leap from the band's self-titled debut EP, released in early 2006. A solid debut effort, it was the sound of a band just learning to crawl. Now, the Tenderhooks are walking upright and sprinting full steam ahead.

"When Jake and I were in high school, we would do recordings at home and make songs that way, and this album came out of that to a degree," Oyler said. "We were really meticulous about the writing process, and it took forever writing words and music. We were always asking ourselves how to best write the songs, and I think that's what spurred us on to put some hard work into this.

"With the EP, Jake and I had played together for a long time, but it was the first time we had collaborated on songs. In hindsight, that one feels less focused, like we were just getting used to the process. On this album, we became more collaborative all the way around. On 'Vidalia,' Emily really got to stretch out and do a lot of different things like vocal overdubs, so it feels more like it's the work of a band in a certain period. We had an idea from the beginning of what we were going for, and we just followed it through."

Over the next week, the Tenderhooks will play four different shows in the area, all to focus attention on the Tuesday release of the band's new album, "Vidalia." (The group will also perform May 5 at Maryville College as part of the school's Blister in the Sun festival.) For fans of guitar-driven, sunny-side-up indie pop-rock, "Vidalia" is a gem — a swirling kaleidoscope of shimmering guitars, shiny hooks, pretty melodies and Winstrom's fragile vocals.

From the opening, Ramones-esque swagger of "Kidstuff" to
the Americana feel of "Mouthful of Rain" ... from the roller-coaster ride of
the title track to the languid pace and cotton candy-sweet vocals of "Quarter
of a Century" ... "Vidalia" is one of those albums that even casual fans will
pick up and exclaim, "This came from East Tennessee?" The labor of love that went into its making is evident in every note, every lyric, every twist of a song's narrative, every rising crescendo of electric guitar and every thunderclap of the rhythm section.

"We wanted to have a fleshed-out sounding album with a lot of muscle to it," Winstrom said. "We wanted different sounds for different songs, like a Beatles album would have. Ben and I were listening to a lot of Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams; a lot of lyric-centric people. On the first EP, we sort of filled in the lyrics as we went along. This time, we began with lyrical ideas and fleshed them out from there."

With "Vidalia" going on sale this week and a new drummer on board (Matt Honkonen, whom Winstrom describes as reminding him of "that first Bruce Springsteen drummer, the one before Max Weinberg, because his playing can be a bit freer, and he's got more of a jazz sensibility at times"), the stage is set for the Tenderhooks to up the ante — both to their peers in the local scene and to fans outside of East Tennessee. The band is about to embark on a 20-plus date tour that will include shows on the local stage at Bonnaroo, and with the help of Nowinski, "Vidalia" is being shipped to more than 300 press outlets nationally and abroad.

It's a heady time to be a young musician in such a band, but Oyler and Winstrom remain humble about the whole affair.

"It's tough for us, because sometimes I think we feel like we're working on this type of songwriting that has more in common with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones than with a lot of things happening at the moment," Oyler said. "I think it's fortunate that Knoxville has a wide range of music, which is kind of strange, because the city isn't that big. But there are a lot of really good bands here, so in that sense, it's really conducive to us doing what we want to do, and we're just glad to have people that are receptive to it."