Take Five

(Correction: Because of a photographer's error, the names of two members of the Click Five were transposed in some edition's of Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section. The band members in the photo (left to right) are Ben Romans, Ethan Mentzer, Eric Dill, Joey Zehr, and Joe Guese.)

SOMERVILLE -- On a picture-postcard summer day five young musicians with fetching haircuts are gathered in a small room at Jamspot, a local rehearsal space. They aren't practicing their songs. They're perfecting their signatures.

The Click Five open
for the Backstreet
Boys at the Tweeter
Center Aug. 14.
Doors at 6:30 p.m.,
show at 7:30.
Tickets $26-$59.50.
Call 617-931-2000
or visit www.ticketmaster.com.

Eric Dill, the frontman, has recently begun accessorizing his autograph with a star. Ethan Mentzer, the bassist, can't say how or when but he's wound up with the XO. Joey Zehr, a drummer, is hunched over a stack of posters executing a series of loopy silver hearts next to his name. Ben Romans, keyboardist and songwriter, grabs a sparkly marker to demonstrate his signature's transformation from ''bank customer" to ''pop star." It now includes a smiley face.

The brooding lead guitarist, Joe Guese, doesn't have an adorable symbol, an omission so perfect it could have been scripted.

Everything about the Click Five, from their snappy suits to their happy sound, has been conceived with one goal in mind: world domination. It's a gloriously unabashed effort: one that involves strategic maneuvers at the highest levels of the music industry and songs about Friday night. Hysteria, as planned, has begun -- triggered by the uncanny confluence of Berklee College pedigrees, Click Five hair gel, 20-hour workdays, MTV airplay, and the special trick of eye-zapping girls in the front row.

In response to an inquiry about their musical style, Ethan, Joe, Ben, Eric, and Joey sing the words ''new school power pop" in glistening five-part harmony and it seems as if this sweet, eager quintet has sprung fully formed from the garden of Top 40 delights. In fact, two years ago the members of the Click Five were, variously, in an emo band, an alt-country unit, and an indie-rock group.

Then they met Wayne Sharp.

The Click Five is no Boston band, even though Sharp, their manager, found four of the five while they were students at Berklee, and all of them share a filthy apartment in Watertown, and the band figured out how to work a crowd during a brief, depressing run in the local clubs. The Click Five's synchronized moves and matching outfits didn't wow the clientele at the Abbey in Somerville, for instance, where the aesthetic runs toward the unvarnished and regulars are disinclined to bounce.

''We can be honest," says upbeat Ben, who regularly instructs himself to stop talking. ''We weren't necessarily having the greatest time playing some of these places because they weren't having the greatest time watching us play. But we were always thinking way bigger than where we were. We'd be on this tiny stage thinking we were playing an arena rock show."

Indeed, the usual trajectory -- from basement to nightclub to regional following to record deal -- has had no bearing on the Click Five's rise, which has progressed with such speed and has taken on such uncommon momentum that at this point it seems virtually unstoppable. For example: Last year the band was recruiting friends to come out for their free Monday residencies at the Paradise Lounge. Last week the Click Five's video for the single ''Just the Girl" was number nine on MTV's ''TRL."

''It's been an instant reaction," says Amy Doyle, vice president of music programming for MTV. ''It's very rare that something connects this quickly. Clearly they have this magnetism -- a combination of the music, the look, the personalities. I see a lot of screaming girls in their future. I see them having to wear disguises."

The album isn't even out yet. ''Greetings From Imrie House" -- a bubbly collection of classic hooks and lovestruck lyrics named after the street in Allston where Ben, Joe, Ethan, and Joey lived as students -- will be released by Lava Records, an Atlantic imprint, on Aug. 16. Two days before that the Click Five will perform at the Tweeter Center, as opening act on the Backstreet Boys summer tour.

Entertainment Weekly recently anointed the group with a spot on the annual Must List, calling it the bridge between BSB, Fountains of Wayne, Kiss, and the Cars. The description is quite literal: Fountains scribe Adam Schlesinger contributed two songs to the disc (including ''Just the Girl"), Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley co-wrote another with Romans, and Cars keyboardist Elliot Easton appears on one song -- which is pretty much the beginning and end of the outsiders on ''Greetings From Imrie House."

But it's also the sonic truth. The Click Five, whose members are 22 and 23, is a boy band with a twist: The members write songs and play instruments. They're not dancing machines, like 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, and will never be ensnared in a lip-synching fiasco, like Ashlee Simpson, who took the group out on a national tour earlier this year. The Click Five is a true amalgam of fluffy teen-dream pinups and legitimate power-pop players -- not coincidentally the precise sound, image, and market niche that Sharp had set his sights on.

At Jamspot, Sharp is parent liaison (Ben's mom and dad have been e-mailing), censor (three tracks are off limits for an upcoming Radio Disney show because of references to antidepressants, lovers, and a bed), and retail rep. Click Five lunchboxes, backpacks, CD cases, trading cards, and beauty products are, he reports to enthusiastic response, en route to stores.

The guys want to know what sort of advance payment they'll receive for the merchandise deal. Sharp instructs them, gently, not to talk about finances, but will say that it's a third of the record company advance. Within half an hour Eric hands over a $170 car repair bill, Ben produces a letter from the IRS, and Ethan announces that they're running out of rent money.

Sharp tells them not to worry and whips out a measuring tape; he does wardrobe, too. The general manager of Lava has found a cheap tailor in China and Sharp is going to have spare suits made for each of them. The Click Five doesn't snap a photo or appear in public without their matching suits on. It's a key piece of Sharp's vision, and that vision is what all five of the band members signed on for.

Sharp, 43, has made his name in the jazz world as a smart, savvy manager who's helped guide the careers of Harry Connick Jr., Branford Marsalis, and Joshua Redman at Cambridge-based Wilkins Management, where he's worked since 1995. He established his own agency, Sharp and Focused, for the pop project, and by all accounts he shepherds the Click Five with an amiable, unwavering hand.

''He's not a dictator; he's a consensus builder, and he's very good at it," says Mike Denneen, the noted Boston producer who helmed ''Greetings From Imrie House." ''He cajoles and persuades and convinces and everybody is inclined to trust him, including me."

The snazzy look, the peppy sound, and the shot at a commercial slam dunk is something Sharp has been dreaming about for 20 years, since his first job out of college at a management company that tried, and failed, to break a group called Candy.

''That, to me, should have been a superstar power-pop band," says Sharp, a New Orleans native whose career has taken him to New York, where he tour-managed Kiss, Los Angeles for a stint managing Pee-wee Herman and working as an agent at the powerhouse Creative Artists Agency, and back to New York as vice president of music at Madison Square Garden.

''Ever since then I've always thought a band like this could work, but there are so many factors that go into it. I think the difference between the bands that don't make it and the ones that do are managers that can give direction. The first thing I said to them is, 'This isn't going to work unless you listen to me.' "

Sharp first saw Joe, Ethan, and Ben play at a Berklee showcase organized by Jeff Dorenfeld, a music business professor who runs the college's Heavy Rotation record label. It was May 2003. Their songs weren't memorable and they dressed poorly, but Sharp had found his triple threats: They could play, they could sing, they looked good.

Dorenfeld, a longtime friend of Sharp's and former manager of the band Boston, made the initial entree.

''I talked with Joe and Ethan," Dorenfeld says. Ben had just taken off for a desk job at a record company in Nashville. ''I told them, 'There's an opportunity here. This gentleman is an honest person, and I think he has a good plan. If you're interested I'll set up a meeting.' "

So he did, and Sharp, who was preparing to invest a huge portion of his time, faith, and money into the project, put it to them bluntly.

''I said, 'If you're interested in going in this direction all your friends at Berklee will think you sold out. People will snicker because you're wearing suits and the critics will hate you. But if we're right you'll get on the radio, sell a lot of concert tickets, and make enough money to be set for life.' "

A week later the Click Five had a bassist and a lead guitarist. They persuaded their keyboardist to come back to Boston. That summer Joey, who was in another student band at the time, was recruited for drum duties, and shortly after that Eric, a childhood friend of Joey's from Indianapolis, was brought in as lead singer and rhythm guitarist.

His power-pop dream band fully intact, Sharp went to Denneen. Denneen was skeptical.

''It was way earlier than I usually get involved in something," he says. ''We're talking months in the rehearsal room before we started recording. I told Wayne to get them playing gigs anyplace, anytime, every week. We recorded two songs in March of 2004 and I said, 'OK, the recordings are great but you still suck live and you won't get a deal because of it.' They played more shows and by the time we went back into the studio to do two more songs at the end of June, they'd improved. Dramatically."

Armed with a four-song demo, Sharp started shopping the Click Five to record companies in late July of last year. Within three weeks they had three prominent labels jockeying for position. Duringweek four the Click Five signed a majorrecording contract with Lava -- one month after finishing their demo tape.

Andy Karp, the senior vice president for A&R (artists and repertoire) who also signed Kid Rock and Sugar Ray to Lava, calls the Click Five a high-priority act. That means that in addition to financing the recordings, the label ponied up for an expensive video, the design and manufacture of Click Five tchotchkes, a wide promotional push at radio, and a spot on Ashlee Simpson's tour. In a move that Karp describes asincreasingly common, Lava bought the opening slot on the artist's road show for $25,000.

''In the life of this project that's the best money we've spent," Karp says. ''This act was unknown. There was no incentive to bring them on the road. And the response was phenomenal. Kids missed some of Ashlee's set to meet the band and get autographs. They sold enormous amounts of product. It's very rare at that stage of an album's setup to be able to gauge response like that. It told us that there's an audience."

The audience is brash, largely female, and prone to stuffing bits of paper with e-mail addresses and phone numbers into band members' jacket pockets during autograph sessions. When it comes to groupies, the guys show varying degrees of enthusiasm. Joe already has a serious girlfriend. Eric has been frequently spotted with Lucy Walsh, Joe Walsh's daughter and Ashlee Simpson's keyboardist. The other three are footloose, fancy-free, and happy to field inquiries, the numbers of which are likely to increase.

''Just the Girl" was the second most downloaded song on iTunes last week, in all formats, and had climbed to number 27 at pop radio. David Corey, music director at KISS 108 -- one of the nation's premier Top 40 stations -- says he won't be surprised if it becomes the number one song in the country. ''It's been the first or second most requested song for the last two weeks. It's a smash."

But there's dissonance, as well -- off notes that may or may not suggest trouble to come in the Click Five's fairy tale ascent.

The next day, back at Jamspot for the last rehearsal before they leave for Florida to join the Backstreet Boys, the guys are working on song transitions and group moves.

A few bars into ''Just the Girl," Joe announces that he doesn't want to jump in the air with everyone else at the start of the song. He thinks it looks stupid. Eric, a born frontman who sings during interviews and during lunch, asks Joe if he thinks the kids will think it looks stupid. Joe says he doesn't want every little thing mapped out. Ben says it's good to have things mapped out, that it's like an actor picking up his cues. Ethan, the pragmatist, points out that the moves always get a reaction.

Eric, clearly annoyed, tells Joe he doesn't have to jump if he doesn't want to. People, he says, just won't get into him. Later, sitting in the backyard of their Watertown apartment angling for slugs of two beers found in an otherwise empty refrigerator, Ethan adds a philosophical spin to the jumping dispute, which is reportedly one of many.

''We have this solid image and it's a good thing," Ethan says. ''But at the same time we all have to do our own thing to a certain point, so that each person in the audience can, hopefully, relate to at least one of us. Some people will fixate on Ben because they like how completely out of his mind he is. But for someone who that's too much for, they're gonna look at someone like Joe, who's a little more the quiet, mysterious type."

Someone suggests a parallel to another quiet lead guitarist, named George, and Joe smiles for the first time all day.

Kiss's Stanley has been quoted as saying the band reminds him of the young Beatles.

''These guys are writing very catchy songs and have a real desire to become huge, to reap all the benefits, to have members with personalities and to leave an audience feeling it was worth the price of an album or a ticket," he explains in an interview. ''The Beatles had that, Kiss had that, and it's a line of thinking more bands could benefit from. It's not a sin to be accessible."

That's a concept that music types, especially in this town, struggle with.

''A lot of raised eyebrows" is how Denneen describes reaction from friends and colleagues to his participation in the Click Five project. But he agrees with Fountains of Wayne's Schlesinger, who believes that ''what makes a good record is having a really clear conception of what you're going for and nailing it. That's what these guys did."

And they did it in a hurry: straight out of school into a major recording contract, packed concerts, and the intense glare of the media. Some say it's happening too fast, in terms of both artistic and personal growth. Asked to name his biggest concern for the project, Sharp is uncharacteristically circumspect.

''That would be about the guys," he says after a long pause. ''They're so young. If they do hit big I just hope they can all stay grounded and keep doing it. Let's be honest -- this is pop music. You don't have a lot of time to develop. You get one chance. We're just going for it."