NAME DROPPING

Growing up, they were all about baseball and making it to the major leagues. Now local band The Reputation is about becoming the popular new sound of music.

Band members Kevin Ferrari, rhythm guitarist; Tyler Jones, guitarist; Vince Pangallo, singer/guitarist; and Jake Wagner, singer/bassist/guitarist, started their band in August, originally calling themselves Red Wine Rewind.

The band went through many "one-day" band names, including Drop The Girl and That December, before settling on The Reputation. They dropped their name, jam-band reputation and a few members in an effort to be taken more seriously and create the style they categorize as "rock meets techno meets acoustic."

"I would like to see our band be the start of an entirely new genre," Pangallo says. "We try to have a very 'out there' style. We don't really fit into any specific type of music, so we have originals ranging from acoustic to hard rock to rap."

The band played its first gig last year at the UNLV/UNR Tailgate in the parking lot of Sam Boyd Stadium.

"We walked on to this rickety, makeshift stage that we had helped set up, but none of us were nervous because it was not like the huge crowd of over 400 mobbing football fans expected us," Wagner says. "We played about 10 songs, including some originals, but then we got an encore -- unexpectedly -- and played 'Lollipop' by Lil Wayne, a funny change."

Friends since age 10, The Reputation members claim their chemistry is what keeps their music together. They agree that performing live is one of the most rewarding parts of being musicians.

"Jake enjoys jumping off the drum riser, and once or twice I have almost gotten a bass head to the face," Jones says with a laugh. "We just like to have a lot of fun onstage, even if that means going a little crazy to pump up the crowd. It is the best feeling to live in that 15 seconds of fame, seeing a crowd full of people singing your songs."

The band's growing fan base is diverse in age, according to the musicians.

"We started off with a fan base of mostly our friends," Wagner says. "Our music is so different that even my grandma listens to it and enjoys it. Now we just have to keep promoting the crap out of our new songs."

According to the band mates, most of the "damage" is done in either Pangallo's or Jones' improvised home studios, aka the add-on living room/game room and the basement.

"I can't sing at all, but I found this really cool feature on my studio laptop that allows me to use auto-tone," Jones says. "Basically it makes me sound like T-Pain. Yeah, the friends call me Ty-Pain."

As a band, the guys have written more than a CD's worth of songs, or at least started them.

"Starting the songs is the easy part," Jones says. "We mess around with a melody, then Jake or Vince starts to improve-sing over the top. The second verse sometimes trips us up and we are all always too excited by a new song idea we come up with only 20 minutes later."

The Reputation considers itself an unconventional band; therefore, the members settle for nothing less than the quirkiest of temporary "working" song titles.

"We never title any of our songs before we are completely done writing them," Wagner says. "We like to use animal names plus an adjective or verb to temporarily name our songs, which ironically are mostly about girls, partying and dancing. Right now we are working on a song we call 'Suicidal Ostrich,' which has nothing at all to do with the song."

With dreams of one day traveling and playing the Warp Tour, The Reputation's main goal at the moment is to be signed with a recognizable recording label. The band members say they have been considered by two so far.