“Easy, Maverick!” There’s enough soul-shaking rock n’ roll to spare. With the release of their second CD “Easy, Maverick” last June, local band The Nod continues to serve listeners with a delicious blend of intriguing lyrics, jaunty tempos and melodies that will have listeners nodding along in no time.

Surrounded by the musical powerhouses of Minneapolis and Chicago that have produced talent like The Replacements and OK Go, Madison rests in a valley of harmonic fertility. UW’s own Brett Newski, Eric Maloney and Nate Deroy seek to gain a place among these musical giants in a genre of their own creation.

Some might classify The Nod as an indie/alternative rock group with folk influences and traces of the guitar pop that shapes the sound of groups like The Strokes and Hot Hot Heat. Instead, Nodders strive to create “hard-driving rock n’ roll,” Newski said, in the unique genre of Alternative Power Fun.

The Nod formed in the humble basement of 540 West Mifflin Street, lovingly dubbed the “spider cove.”

“We formed in various Mifflin Street basements like the dirty, dirty little crawl spaces we would practice in. We called it the spider cove, because we just stood in a circle and jammed really hard,” Newski said.

The Nod has since established itself as a major player in Madison’s music scene. They shared a bill with Cage the Elephant and Third Eye Blind last year at Freakfest and opened for OK Go during the All-Campus Party at the Overture Center spring 2009.

“[Freakfest] was a chilling night, but it was packed. Everyone was in costume. We were all dressed as Waldo,” Newski said. “We’ve played over three hundred shows – it’s those shows that you still get nervous for. You get the butterflies, and that just gets you pumped up.”

Opening for OK Go also served to remind the band of their influence on local music.

“There are always those milestone shows like playing for OK Go. We had our own dressing room,” Maloney said. “We [are] not just chumps playing in our living rooms any more; this is getting real.”

More recently, The Nod played the Triple M morning show and a concert at Memorial Union, Friday Oct. 1 with Gold Motel.

Besides public concerts, The Nod has undertaken an effort to build a loyal fan base by playing house shows, acting on the advice of the owner and local talent buyer of the Majestic Theater.

“We’re finding comfort in the house shows,” Newski said. “That’s the way to go. It’s so much tougher to get people out to venues.”

Maloney agreed, saying “[Your audience is] right there, and they feel connected to you. They’re like ‘boom’ I saw these guys play in my living room.”

The Nod also contributes to the Madison music scene by organizing shows to provide younger bands the opportunity to gain concert exposure. One such upcoming effort will feature The Nod alongside local talent at the Gates of Heaven Synagogue Nov. 6.

The Nod combines the driving energy of The Thermals and the dynamic, guitar-centric sound of The Fratellis with lyrics garnered through life experience.

“We like the Hold Steady a lot for their spit-fire lyrics,” Newski said. “Personally writing the lyrics, I put a lot of time into those. That’s one of our strong points, [and] our peppy, upbeat sound.”

The Nod also emphasizes the importance of song composition. Unlike many others, the band creates songs with an end game in mind.

“A lot of bands just jam out,” Maloney said. “Whereas we structure songs to the point that we know where we want the song to go up and then down. We try to take the person who’s listening on a ride.”

As The Nod has matured as a group, Newski’s lyrics have also assumed a more global perspective.

“Back in the earlier days […] I was just writing what I [knew], first hand experience,” Newski said. “I’ve branched out and do more story-telling about other people’s experiences, because how interesting is just one person”?

“I think that Brett’s a good story-teller, [because] he can make you think,” Maloney said.

According to The Nod, the group’s latest release is a collection of stories “written in planes, trains, city buses and hand-me-down vans […] on good days, [and] others on not so good very bad days. Some were written in one sitting, or in 100…on caffeine or on no sleep, or on adrenaline, or on a whim.”

The depth of their lyrics reflects the group’s collective life experience.

“I got to do some traveling in Thailand and Cambodia, and that was a great outlet to write from, because you get to see some really messed up stuff,” Newski said.

Like the location where the band formed, The Nod’s name has an intriguing back-story; it pays tribute to the group’s first drummer.

“Our first drummer who we will always love very much […] would just rock out so hard and be going a million miles a minute, just raging on the drum kit, so he’d sometimes forget where to change to the chorus, settle down, or bring down a break down,” Newski said. “We’d have to give him ‘the nod.'”

The Nod doesn’t have plans to settle down any time soon; in fact, with the possibility of two tours in the spring, they’re just getting started.

As a group, The Nod uses each show as an opportunity to connect with audiences and redefine viewers’ expectations of their music.

“I like to have [listeners] come in with preconceptions and have us blow them away [and] give them something they weren’t expecting to get from us,” Maloney said.

Whether they’re marching onstage at the Union terrace or breaking it down with listeners at a house show, one thing’s for sure; Newski, Maloney and Deroy definitely won’t have audiences nodding off.