The Mark Barrett Project is not a twang-twang country band.

Vocalist and namesake of the band, Mark Barrett is quick to point this out as he and four of his five bandmates lounge around Studio Blue awaiting the fifth before their Wednesday night practice. "We always put 'rocking' before 'country,'" Barrett says of his band's genre. "If we don't, people assume we're twangy."

Vocalist Dawn Michelle nods in agreement, "We are not country western."

Formed in 2007, the band has gone through dozens of line-up changes to find the right ingredients to outshine similar acts. "There are bands out there that have been doing this eight, 12 years," he says. "We make them look like they're on quaaludes."

The rock 'n' roll influences within the Project's country songs about love, fishing and pride in their country may have something to do with the band members' pre-Project backgrounds. Spanning 28 years in age, from 23 to 51, the musicians have performed a spectrum of styles over the course of their combined lives. Keyboardist Achie Alexander is a classically trained pianist, while bassist Ray Jubenville played almost everything except country before signing on with Barrett, including heavy metal in the '80s and classic rock.

The newest member of the band, Jubenville concedes that when he joined the Project in April, he'd never heard any of the songs the band performs, like covers from country stars Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Toby Keith, as well as crossover country hits, like Big & Rich's "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy."

"I learned them all for the band," he says. Similarly, lead guitarist Nathan Blazvick comes from a blues background and had to learn country riffs to play with the Project.

Despite varying musical tastes and backgrounds, the band members are all bound together by their determination to succeed.

"We're not a garage band or a hobby," Barrett confirms. "This is a business."

But that doesn't mean it's not fun, too. For the band's most popular original song, "Redneck Sexy," Michelle reached out to friends and had a line dance created for the song. The theory, she explains, is that many popular country songs have line dances to them. "Who knows," Michelle ponders, "Were the songs popular and then a line dance was made for it? Or were the line dances created and then the songs took off?"

Currently, the band is hoping to capitalize on Las Vegas' ties to country, namely the National Finals Rodeo and NASCAR. They're working on playing more of Barrett's original music and less of the country covers, but complain that there are limited country venues in town willing to listen to original tunes.

Once they do play, they claim, they'll win you over.

"Nobody leaves during a set," Jubenville says. "If we start out with 50 people (in the audience), we will not end with less than 50 people."