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At first, the four members of The High Score seem almost as nervous as the fictional geeks as which they’re dressed.

Heads turn as Hooters of Alcoa patrons stare, puzzled, at the four dudes dressed in polyester, plaid, shorts hiked up too high and pants that stop at mid-shin. The four Hooters girls selected for the photo shoot (Ashley Slade, Aislynn Surrency, Brittany Dawkins and Jessica Dotson) roll their eyes and arch their eyebrows, wondering what, exactly, would possess the members a rock ’n’ roll band to make such fools of themselves.

A bag of props is opened, and the camera comes out. And like the stage under which they’ve labored for so long in roadhouses, bars and dives around the Southeast, they transform The High Score. Comic books, vinyl albums, 3-D glasses and cups of milk are passed around, and within minutes, the corner of the restaurant is a cacophonous din of laughter, excited shouts and over-the-top acting.

Guitarist Chris Cook chugs a cup of milk. Vocalist/guitarist Robbie Trosper tears into a few hot wings, a balled-up mess of exaggerated shyness as Surrency dabs some sauce off his chin. Bassist Jeremy Bain and drummer Brad Henderson stare wide-eyed at the models, faces full of melodramatic, unrequited lust.

Welcome to rock ’n’ roll, High Score style. It’s just another day for the guys who make up one of the most raucous, rocking and rollicking bands on the local scene.

Back to basics

A quick history lesson: The guys in The High Score came together back in 2001, forming from the remains of several modestly successful local bands such as Mustard. Trosper and Cook have been at the band’s core, and shortly after forming, they cut “Sexy Losers,” a loud, chaotic, punk-influenced record that showed a lot of potential. In 2006, with Henderson on board, the group recorded “We Showed Up to Leave,” a more polished affair filled with various influences — hard rock lifted from Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy, punk from the Meat Puppets and the SST label and power-pop that places the band on the same shelf as such local outfits as the Westside Daredevils, the French Broads and Superdrag.

Last year, the guys began collaborating with Mic Harrison, former guitarist/vocalist/songwriter for The V-Roys as well as a one-time guitarist for Superdrag. That partnership led to the creation of “Push Me On Home,” released earlier this year and credited to Mic Harrison and The High Score. It’s a full-on Southern rock record that puts to good use the members’ appreciation of classic country and honky-tonk. This weekend at HottFest in Knoxville, The High Score will release its third, self-titled album.

Needless to say, it’s been a hectic year for Trosper and his compatriots.

“It’s been really busy and fun, going out and touring with Mic and at the same time doing The High Score stuff,” Trosper told The Daily Times this week. “Finally, Mic’s got an album that really says something for him. It’s got that dirty Southern rock thing going for it, and on this new record we’ve got, there’s a much more raw, in-your-face sound. We went in to record it, and in four or five days, we had it done.”

The recording process was simple, Trosper said — minimal use of backing vocals, simple straight-ahead, twin-guitar rock, one bass track and the drums. In deciding against any sort of slick production, the band may well have captured the feel and sound of its live performance in a way that previous records haven’t quite been able to do.

“The High Score” charges out of the gate with “New Who,” a slowly building rocker that’s unmistakably linked to the band’s previous albums. Trosper’s vocals, half-sung and half-spoken, ride on a wave of anthemic chords and steady drums before launching into the punk-fueled “She’s a Heartbreak,” a high-octane boost that kicks the record into overdrive. For the rest of the ride, it’s like being in the car with a friend behind the wheel who’s just crazy enough to turn off the headlights while barreling down a back-country two-lane for the sheer thrill of the adrenaline rush.

“Something about the songs this time around just feel more like me,” Trosper said. “A couple of them I’d written a long time ago, and we would break them out occasionally, but this was the first set-up where they sounded the way I wanted them to sound. I don’t know if I’m getting any better at writing songs, but I’m getting better at recording them the way I want them to sound.

“As for the songwriting process ... I never even thought about it, really. I write every song sitting around the house with an acoustic guitar. I have no idea what motivates me to say anything, and I’m definitely not one of those guys who can sit down and say he wants to write a song to change the world. They’re mostly just goofy ideas and funny situations.”

Good friends, good times

If anything, The High Score has a penchant for winding up in funny situations (prime example: Tuesday afternoon at Hooters of Alcoa). This summer, the band has played three times at Smoky Mountain Harley-Davidson in Maryville, backing up Harrison.

“The first time we played there, we probably scared a lot of bikers because they didn’t know what the hell they were watching, and I kind of got a little crazy that night,” Trosper said. “Scaring bikers — that always feels good. The last time we played there, we had six or seven little kids on stage dancing and running around. Mic had one on his shoulders, and I let one come up and hit my guitar. I think you can YouTube that, but it looks like a bunch of midgets going crazy in some nightmarish David Lynch movie. You never know what’s going to happen at a Harley place.”

Playing with Harrison gives the band two distinct personalities, although many local fans mistakenly assume that The High Score is Harrison’s backing band. Actually, Harrison hooked up with the guys to fill in for Cook after the latter became a new father a couple of years ago, and their partnership developed out of that.

“It confuses people sometimes, and it seems to confuse more people in Knoxville than it does out on the road,” Trosper said. “When we go play with Mic, I feel like we are a band, even though it’s separate. We might do three or four of my songs to get our sound out there to people who wouldn’t normally hear it, and it’s always a hell of a good time.

“And really, that’s all you’re going to get out of it. That’s what we try to achieve. We played a party deal in Raleigh (N.C.) last weekend with Mic, and he just burned it up and sounded great. By the end, we were playing bad Replacements covers that no one really knows. Where else would a crowd see something like that. We just try to make it fun.”

Fun for the audience, and fun for The High Score. Rock ‘n’ roll dreams of superstardom aside, the guys in the band have it pretty good. They all work flexible jobs (Trosper is a long-time employee of an indoor skydiving outfit in Pigeon Forge) that allow them to hit the road for long weekend stretches, and they play regularly around the region.

Would the band enjoy hitting the big time? Sure. But the members aren’t holding their collective breaths, Trosper said.

“If somebody called up and said they could put us on the road for a year, then yeah — I’d do it,” he said. “But there’s no point in quitting a job and saying, ‘I’m gonna make it!’ and then go home and not play anywhere until the weekend. Right now, we’re such a close-knit kind of crew that we just have fun.

“That’s the whole goal — to play music and get it out there and, hopefully, people will like it. We’re all killing ourselves and doing everything at once, but I don’t know any other way to do it. It’s a good time, dude, and that’s what we try to be about.”