Music: Sarah smiles

When the members of Sick of Sarah went looking for a fifth member to help fill out their sound this past winter, they never even considered adding a guy. But it wasn't because of girl power or anything meaningful like that.

"One of them probably would've wound up dating him," drummer Brooke Svanes said, pointing to her (laughing) bandmates. "We don't want any fornication going on in this band."

The women have been getting ready for next week's release of their self-titled, radio-friendly debut. Sitting in their rehearsal space beneath posters of the Flaming Lips, Ratt, Van Halen and the Cows, Sick of Sarah made it clear that their all-female DNA is not a thing, per se. But that doesn't mean they're not proud of it.

"We all love the Go-Go's, Bangles, Sleater-Kinney, Tegan and Sara," said singer/guitarist Abisha Uhl, 26. "We like it being an all-girl thing. We want to be a band that represents, for sure."

Added Svanes, "It can be a double-edged sword. My favorite is when people come up to me after a show and say, 'You're really good for a girl drummer.'"

Guitarist Jessie Farmer, who switched from bass when Jamie Holm joined the band earlier this year, cut her teeth with one of the most revolutionary all-female rock bands of all time, Babes in Toyland. She played bass on the trio's 2000 tour.

"I was a 20-year-old living the dream," she said. "I got to play with my favorite band ever."

"She still comes to the shows and loves it when we point her out," Murphy said. "'Hey guys, that's Sarah over there walking toward the bar.'"

The humor also comes out on Sick of Sarah's album. Songs like "Daisies" and "Mr. Incredible" are emotional kiss-off songs in the vein of Alanis Morissette or Vanessa Carlton, but with Katy Perry's sassy kind of man-crushing humor. "You know he wanted it/He really really wanted it/But he always wanted what he couldn't have," Uhl snarls in "Daisies."

While Uhl does most of the lyrical writing, she said the songs come more from shared experiences within the band. But she does have the unique experience of growing up on a military base in Japan, where her father was an educator. She followed an older brother to the Twin Cities after high school based solely on his praise for the local music scene.

"I think it gave me more drive," she said of her isolated upbringing. "I was essentially living on a rock and would only see bands on American TV. I picked up a guitar when I was 13, and I knew that's what I wanted to do."

Uhl and her bandmates are doing pretty well, too. Their CD is coming out on a Los Angeles indie label, Adamant Records. They also have a manager in Los Angeles and a booking agent who has them on tour for the next month. The best indicator of their early success, though, might have been the hordes of mostly young women that I saw singing along to their songs at an Uptown Bar gig last fall. They also went over well playing before En Vogue during Pride Weekend in June.