They cooked up a rock career in the kitchen

At the beginning, there were the tapes. Tapes and tapes. For hours at a time, Josh Grier and Steve Nelson would isolate themselves in a cramped kitchen and record distortion-driven symphonies of noise -- daring each other never to repeat old themes or phrasings -- until the oven timer announced the end of the session.

It wasn't exactly the stuff of rock 'n' roll fantasy. But for Grier, 26, now the frontman of indie iconoclasts Tapes 'N Tapes, it was a start.

``I wanted a band right away, but the feeling wasn't mutual," Grier said last week during a phone call from his home in Minneapolis. Grier and the rest of Tapes 'N Tapes were resting before their first headlining tour, which will bring the band to the Middle East Downstairs on Monday. ``So I bought the domain name tapesntapes.com right away, after those first kitchen tapes," he continued. ``Then we had to be a band. We had a website."

That Grier was so bullheaded about his potential is typical of a musician who has, three years since the Tapes' conception, refused to take no for an answer. In 2002 , after Nelson and Grier recorded the kitchen tapes, Grier begged Matt Kretzmann to join the fledging band as a bassist. Kretzmann relented. Later, Nelson left for grad school. Grier talked Karl Schweitz into drumming; Schweitz was eventually replaced by Jeremy Hanson. In the midst of managing the game of musical chairs, Grier was at work refining the Tapes 'N Tapes sound -- clanging art rock that owes more to Stephen Malkmus and David Berman than today's indie scene -- and driving around in a van, begging promoters for stage time.

``They worked at it," said Nate Kranz, who books acts for First Avenue, Minneapolis' historic rock venue. Kranz helped bring Tapes 'N Tapes to the club in 2004, when Grier and company were first catching on with area radio stations.

``They'd play the local band nights at first, but they certainly never sold the place out," Kranz added. ``Then two weeks ago, they played at First Avenue and there was a huge line outside. Totally sold out."

``For us, this was the only way things were going to happen," Grier says. ``We've never had the mentality where we'd want to sit on something and not go forward."

The force behind Tapes 'N Tapes ' headlong dash to cult status -- which culminated in March with a handful of spotlight-hogging performances at South by Southwest, and a profile in Rolling Stone -- is ``The Loon," the self-produced debut the band released in 2004.

The record was cut after a series of epic sessions in an isolated Wisconsin cabin. When the band returned, it began to distribute the disc out of Grier's apartment; it didn't take long for indie fan sites, such as music.for-robots.com, and college radio stations to catch on.

``The Loon" is the happy product of contradiction -- the arrangements are practiced and tight, but Grier drives each song with dissonant, off-kilter vocals. On ``Cowbell," over a glitchy two-chord vamp, he confesses that he's ``been a better lover with your mother"; on ``Insistor," he wails ``Do you lie in bed with fright?"

``We've always had this overarching philosophy that we're going to do it whether or not it fits," Grier says. ``There shouldn't be boundaries."

Last month, Tapes 'N Tapes ended informal negotiations with a handful of respected indie labels, none of which Grier wanted to identify.

``You're dealing with people," he demurred. ``Which makes it difficult." In the end, the band settled on XL Records, a subsidiary of English label Beggars Banquet.

Tapes, which had already recorded ``The Loon," was looking for ``a creative label," Grier said. ``But there were large distribution possibilities at XL, at the same time."

For a band that was, only a year ago, running a small-scale production factory out of a Minnesota apartment, distribution is a key factor. Tapes' sound is eccentric, and not always accessible, and sales tend to favor acts with more of a pop presence. Grier, who has kept his day job as a data analyst, is hedging his bets.

``It seems like in the past eight months, a week doesn't go by when there isn't something that we freak out about," he said. ``Our lives are a constant flow of `holy [expletive]. Is this really happening?' "

Tapes ’N Tapes play an 18-plus show at the Middle East Downstairs on Monday. Tickets are $10 in advance; $12 at the door.

SAMPLE TAPES 'N TAPES Check out audio clips at www.boston.com/clips.