The Gourds' most recent album, ”Heavy Ornamentals,” which came out in January on Eleven Thirty Records, was recorded on old analog equipment.

With a sound that mixes Americana and pop-culture arcana, The Gourds are as versatile as their name implies. Even if at first listen you might think they’re a little out of their, well, gourds.

The Austin, Texas, quintet conjures classic sounds – a heady mix of honky-tonk, old-school rock, soulful blues and zydeco – without sounding derivative of anybody else.

Their songs have been called ”hyper-literate,” their lyrics ”enigmatic” and ”poetic.” The Village Voice wrote that The Gourds ”are all about wrapping the traditional in the eccentric and unexpected.”

The Gourds’ sound is so thoroughly consistent that it hits you with force, enters your cranium and sticks to your brain.

Maybe it’s because ”Heavy Ornamentals,” which came out in January on Eleven Thirty Records, was recorded on old analog equipment, a beautifully contrarian move in a digital age. As a listener, you feel as if you’ve tuned in to some forgotten AM station whose signals have been bouncing around the ether since the ’40s or ’50s.

Songs like ”Shake the Chandelier,” which you can almost imagine dancers going nuts to in some back-road juke joint, or the eminently catchy ”Hooky Junk,” only solidify these impressions.

When The Bulletin caught up with The Gourds’ Kevin Russell last week, he talked about the joys, trials and tribulations of being in a band from Austin. For one, there’s South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual music industry onslaught of showcases and panel talks and general rock pageantry that roars into town each spring like its own brand of March Madness.

”The periphery of it is great,” he said. ”There are all these parties that are not sanctioned by the conference that have sprung up all around town. Really, there’s a whole vibrant second and third layer of things that go on, whether in tribute to, or in spite of, the conference.

”I really like that,” Russell said. ”I used to think it was just reactionary and juvenile. People aren’t really reactionary so much anymore as they are just taking advantage of the opportunity to create some kind of moment in time where they have music of their choosing or people find each other.”

Most of what he does most years is reunite with friends. Still, he opted to sit out this year. ”This year was exceptional for my lack of participation in anything,” he said, laughing.

In part, he was gearing up for The Gourds’ touring season, usually a series of tours, the first of which brings the group to Bend Sunday (see ”If You Go”).

”We just go out for a couple of weeks and come back for a few weeks, and keep rotating in and out like that, instead of touring for months and months on end,” he explained. That’s the way most bands do it, and it’s probably ”the most efficient way to tour,” he said. But with wives and kids at home, The Gourds need to get out and get back home again.

Originally from Beaumont, Texas, Russell lived and played music in Shreveport, La., before moving to Ausin in 1994 and forming The Gourds with bassist Jimmy Smith, accordionist Claude Bernard and drummer Charlie Llewellin, who was later replaced by Keith Langford; multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston joined after a guest appearance on 1999’s ”Ghosts of Hallelujah,” according to All Music Guide.

The group made its album debut in 1997 with ”Dem’s Good Beeble.” The Gourds got a little more notice after covering Snoop Dogg and Dre’s ”Gin and Juice” on the 1998 album ”Gogitchyershinebox” (later re-released in expanded form as ”Shinebox”). ”Gin and Juice” became an Internet hit popular with jam band aficionados, as the mp3 exchanged among file-sharers was incorrectly credited to Phish.

The Gourds are closing in on middle age – Russell’s the oldest at 38 – but its taste for pop culture hasn’t faded. ”Heavy Ornamentals” references Johnny Thunders, Schoolhouse Rock. The album ends with ”Pick and Roll,” a ”filk,” a kind of parody song popular among sci-fi fans.”

Some of The Gourds’ cultural touchstones hark back a decade or two, or three. ”There are things, generation gaps are more noticeable now than they used to be with some younger people,” Russell said.

He tells how he covered The Commodores’ ”Sail On” during a solo show a couple of years ago. ”I played it on the ukulele, so it was a fish out of water to begin with, but still, it was pretty noticeable that this was that song, I mean, the melody, and I sung it well.

”It was really great, and I didn’t get much reaction. People just reacted like it was any old song. I was going for a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. After the show, a few people talked to me, and I guess a lot of people didn’t know the song. I was like, ‘Wow.’ They had heard of Lionel Ritchie, but they didn’t know that song.”

He does covers of whatever strikes his fancy, fitting for a guy whose father raised him on country but who went through a rebellious punk phase, feasting on Minutemen and Husker Du, in the ’80s.

”I didn’t want to be like my dad, although I’m exactly like my dad,” he said, laughing. ”You know how it is. He’d play Conway Twitty, and I was just, ‘I don’t know, Dad.’ I didn’t find any irony in it at that point.”

Later, he happened upon ”The Bristol Sessions,” rural recordings of rural acts made by Ralph Peer in the 1920s. ”That’s where the Carter Family was discovered, and Jimmie Rodgers, among others. It was just an incredible recording.”

That’s not all. People talk about epiphanies, life-changing moments, but in Russell’s case, the revelation took a few hours.

”On the same night I heard that, I saw ‘Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth,’ Bill Moyers’ interview with Joseph Campbell … and I also heard (trumpeter) Chet Baker for the first time.

”It was a big night. All within a couple of hours, this hit me. From that point on, with ‘The Bristol Sessions,’ my interest in older, traditional country music sort of grew.”

From punk, he brought a D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) mentality to The Gourds. ”I tried going to some of those (SXSW) workshops and stuff, trying to learn something, but I never could learn anything from that sort of format.

”It’s best to learn by doing. Learn by sailing,” he said, chuckling. ”I’ve always learned everything that way.”

If You Go

What: The Gourds in-store appearance

When: 4 p.m. Sunday

Where: Ranch Records, 831 NW Wall Street, Bend

Cost: Free

Contact: 389-6116

What: The Gourds

When: 9:30 p.m. Sunday, doors open 8:30 p.m.

Where: Domino Room, 51 NW Greenwood Ave., Bend

Cost: $13 in advance plus service charges at Ranch Records (389-6116) and TicketsWest (800-992-8499, www .ticketswest.com), $15 at the door; 21 and over only

Contact: 388-1106