The storyline on Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's dramatic shift in gears has been widely reported everywhere from indie music magazines to Newsweek. The California-based band was in crisis, we've been told - its 2003 sophomore disc, Take Them On, On Your Own, having tanked; its label having dropped it; its drummer having fled. So its two founding members, singer/bassist Robert Levon Been and singer/guitarist Peter Hayes, reinvented the former Jesus and Mary Chainesque rock outfit as peddlers of country, gospel and blues-tinged Americana, the end result being the recently released Howl.

The band itself, however, is having none of it.

"It's something we talked about for a while," Hayes says of the new acoustic album. "We've always been writing a lot of songs on acoustic guitar ... some made sense to plug in, and some songs didn't.

"A bunch of these songs have been around since before the first album. We kind of held on to them - we thought they were an important part of the band. It was kinda fun holding on to 'em and just watching people call us one thing, and knowing that they had no idea."

To the listener, similarities between Howl and the band's early work are few and far between. But Hayes insists that, if not to Take Them On, the new disc is in some ways a return to what worked on 2001's heavily hyped self-titled debut. "On the first album, on every song I had at least eight guitar tracks going on," he says. "That was really hard to make, so on the second one we tried to keep it simple and straightforward. And on this one we went back to 'Let's not keep it simple. Let's have fun.' "

Clearly, though, that was taken to new extremes this time around. Aiming for a "back porch" sound, Been and Hayes (absent drummer Nick Jago, who temporarily departed before returning) decided that studio efforts were producing "too indie, too artsy" a sound. So they opted to produce themselves, adopting an "anything goes" approach that ended up with all-over-the-map instrumentation and far more gospelly songs than they had originally anticipated - and, though they won't admit it, a dramatically warmer, more accessible sound.

Granted, the band hasn't entirely shed its original personality - particularly the lofty, conspiracy-minded stabs at subsversiveness. Making the case for a sort of countercultural rebellion, Hayes is prone to lengthy rants on religion, the music industry, George W. Bush and all combinations thereof. "I think there's something to be really suspicious about with mainstream music," he offers. "I think there's a reason why what's being put in front of us has a lot to do with money and fame. I think that's what our government wants people inspired by. Fame is just a nice sidenote to it, but they really want you inspired by money."

But despite their protestations, this is clearly a different BRMC - older, wiser, and far less aloof - than the one of a few years ago.

The cockiness has been toned down, replaced with a hint of modesty. "It probably was more interesting making it than it is listening to it," Hayes says of Howl at one point; at another, he remembers times where "you'd sit back and listen to it and say 'Oh shit, what have we done?'"

After gaining a reputation as a bit of a nightmare to deal with, they've also grown more adept at representing themselves, particularly when it comes to the media. "I guess we walked out of a couple of [interviews] and word spread pretty quick that we would do that, so a lot of people would come into it thinking 'Oh shit,'" he recalls with a laugh. "We were never really like that, but we would definitely leave when someone didn't know who the f--- we were and didn't care. I guess we shouldn't have done that."

Most importantly, though, a band once derided in some circles for its pretensions has learned to let down its guard enough to defy expectations. Future efforts, Hayes forecasts, won't take the same acoustic approach; he likes plugging in too much. But he expects Howl's spirit to spill over.

"You're always kind of playing over your head, and that's the point," he says. "It can turn out sounding really bad, but that's the fun of it - it's not a polished pop act, and it's not supposed to be."