Free Energy finds a spark

Move over, Hold Steady: There's a new band of East Coast-based, Minnesota-reared rockers lighting up the hipster blogs and noncommercial airwaves.

OK, so Free Energy doesn't reference Twin Cities streets and malls in its lyrics the way the Hold Steady does. But the Philadelphia quintet -- whose leaders used to front the slacker-ish Twin Cities band Hockey Night -- does boast more of a direct lineage to the Gopher State. Three members grew up in Red Wing, Minn., and one more lived in the Cities a long time.

Equally Hold Steady-like, Free Energy can brag about breaking into the indie-rock buzz bin with a '70s-baked, two-guitar-driven rock formula, although theirs is more of a poppy, hummable, stylish David Bowie/T. Rex sound with, um, carefree energy.

The band returns to Minneapolis on Wednesday on a tour with Foreign Born.

Who we want to be

Singer Paul Sprangers said his group's long-awaited debut album, "Stuck on Nothing" -- due for digital and vinyl release March 6 -- is not as sunny and bright as previously released singles might suggest.

"I'm definitely into big pop hooks, but I don't really consider our music happy-go-lucky," Sprangers said by phone from Philly two weeks ago. "A lot of these songs have to do with being in a band and breaking up and figuring out who you want to be. That's not exactly the stuff of pop music."

"Scott and I left St. Paul for New York to do our recording, but that kept getting pushed and taking longer and longer, so we needed to settle somewhere close."

They wound up in Philly simply because "it was cheap to live there and close to New York," Sprangers said.

Sprangers originally moved east to attend New York University and lived there off and on in the mid-'00s while playing in Hockey Night. Ironically, he moved back to St. Paul in 2006 to be nearer to the band, which then started to dissolve amid personality clashes.

"We tried to make it work, but couldn't," he said. "Scott and I thought maybe he and I would work on songs by ourselves for a while, and then work them out with the band. That was taken as really, really threatening, and that's when people started saying the band had broken up. Scott and I didn't really have that intention -- we just wanted to work in a different way."

Hockey Night drummer Alex Achen (currently playing in Leisure Birds) disputed Sprangers' account and accused the Free Energy founders of cutting out their bandmates when it came time to sign a recording contract.

Still, Achen admitted, "we all would have been unhappy if the band had continued."

Achen, Sprangers and Wells were part of a Red Wing posse that included Wells' younger brother, Evan, now Free Energy's bassist. Sprangers said of the scenic river town, "in hindsight, it was totally an idyllic place to grow up."

An LCD Soundsystem assist

Free Energy's Philly-based lineup -- including ex-Minnesotan Nick Shuminsky of Superhopper on drums -- was forged after the two co-founders already had written and mapped out many of the songs with input from LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, the producer for "Stuck on Nothing." They recorded with Murphy off and on over the course of about eight months.

"We've been moving really slowly with everything: songwriting, recording, putting the band together," Sprangers said. "Every step we've taken has been slow and deliberate, and one after another, good things seem to be happening."

The rest of "Stuck on Nothing" mostly follows the same blueprint: light-crunching guitars, more hooks than a bait shop and an always upbeat but laid-back rhythmic kick. Even the song "Dark Trance" has a Weezer-ish bounce.

Despite some of the darker lyrical undertones, Sprangers said there's a good reason the music sounds so sunny.

"It might sound corny, but we are having a lot of fun," he said. Living in Philly, for one thing, "has been kind of invigorating."

"It really reminds me of St. Paul. There's a real tight-knit scene here with a lot of great support and amazing venues, a lot of drama, a lot of fun."

More important, he said, "There's just a lot of joy whenever we're rehearsing or performing. We've learned from some of our mistakes, and I think we have a healthier band because of it."