Are those drums you hear? Or is it the sound of Keith Richards joyously banging his fists on the lid of his coffin? Ted Nugent as well has seen the future of rock and roll, and it is Tommy Brunett's guitar: 18 wheels of white-line madness. More potent than a pitcher of adrenochrome squeezed from Courtney Love's glands.

The album is Hell or High Water, and it has style. Soon, all of the kids will be walking the school halls while sporting a version of Brunett's curious coiffure, an acid-washed Nureyev style he's worn for years and calls "The High Pony." And the kids will be speaking in Brunett's rusty-gate voice, dressing like 19th-century carnival barkers and greeting each other with the non-sequitur of a catch phrase that punctuates "Pushin' Time," one of Brunett's hard honky tonk tunes: "Let's go bowling!"

But Hell or High Water is really for smart rock fans who appreciate music with a history, and songs that tell a story. This music has been years in the making, but comes off like spontaneous combustion. Social Distortion-like country-punk irreverence haunted by the lyrical soul of Johnny Cash. Brunett owes an obvious debt to Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" on "The Drinking Song," a cautionary tale passed down from his father of how "some of the best times of my life I can't remember." Rhett Miller of the Old 97's sings on that track, as well as the rollicking "Born to Walk Alone." You could argue that Aerosmith rears its Toxic Twins heads in the masturbatory glory of "Sticky Stomp." On "Midnight Ride," the only thing missing is the empty beer cans rolling around on the floor of Tom Petty's old pickup truck. Or maybe that's Tom Waits rolling around on the floor. Put on a seat belt on next time, Mr. Waits.

But mostly, Brunett has developed his own sound, a darkness where the light at the end of the tunnel is a Bud Light.

Where does this sound come from? Perhaps it started with the vinyl records in his grandparents' basement. "My grandmother used to listen to Johnny Cash, Ray Price, Broadway plays like Carousel," Brunett says. "All that crap just went into my head. Then I kind of set it aside. My parents would bring home eight tracks, and it definitely wasn't Led Zeppelin. Bobby Vinton, Myron Floren…."

Who?

"Lawrence Welk's accordion player. Herb Alpert. I remember the whipped cream thing. My Fair Lady, The Music Man. Looking back on it, that's really cool, man. And that's what's coming out now."

Well, not so much accordion. But definitely the old-school country.

By his estimate, Brunett's tours have taken him across the United States 16 times, sometimes with bands, sometimes solo with his acoustic guitar "Pancake." And it's always a different road. In 1988, his Rochester band Immaculate Mary was named "Loudest Pop Group" by the Guinness Book of World Records when it hit 120 decibels at 50 yards during a local record store promotion. And Immaculate Mary wasn't a band whose message everyone wanted to hear: Not only did a band named after the mother of Jesus Christ upset some Roman Catholics, but Immaculate Mary's AIDS-awareness campaign included hurling prophylactics at its audience during shows and selling T-shirts that read "Immaculate Mary Says: 'Don't be a dirtbag, use a condom!' "

Brunett's played the Sundance Film Festival with Dennis Quaid and Dennis Carradine crooning and Timothy Hutton sitting in on drums. He even toured in a late incarnation of the British rock band Modern English. How many times can a man play "I Melt With You?" One too many.

For a few years Brunett even hosted and produced a radio show that provided broadcasts of concerts to non-commercial college radio stations. Diverse shows featuring the White Stripes, Kid Rock, Willie Nelson and Steve Earle.

Some of what would become Hell or High Water began percolating with Brunett's previous band, SpaceTrucker, a name that came to him in a dream. At one SpaceTrucker gig, the night's headliner, Ted Nugent, took a break from making sausage out of something he'd just killed to announce, "They rock! I want to take those guys hunting."

Hell or High Water is a mano-a-mammal prowl through primal America, by a guy secure enough to buy his own sausage. Yet while Brunett exudes a cosmic-dirt aura, but he's got his feet on solid ground. He's proud of his home town, Rochester N.Y., where the charisma-laden Tommy Brunett Band has played for 5,000 people opening for the Court Yard Hounds and for a few dozen people at bowling lanes, the local tiki bar, barbecue competitions and the Barrel of Dolls strip joint. Anything to get the word out. Anything for a good time.

He's real, and he's a real nice guy. Hell or High Water's title track gives us a road-weary traveler calling out, "hell or high water, I'll be coming home to you." Brunett's that guy: his music's family friendly. Brunett's two young sons are named Cash and Jagger. On particularly boozy stages, he'll lure his wife Jen from behind the merchandise table to get onstage for a duet on the Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash classic "Jackson."

Now in his 40s, Brunett's developed a suburban-squire side, a man who enjoys firing up the backyard barbecue. Anything left in that whiskey bottle, Tommy? A shot goes great with some of Nugent's man-made Michael Bolton Holiday Sausage, sizzling on the grill. Brunett's a gracious man, and he will share. You can hear that in the final song of Hell or High Water, "Track 11," a rollicking thank you to family and friends and the people who helped make the record. It's not at all the kind of song you'd expect to bring to close a collection of songs where the whiskey flows and mysterious witches live in the woods. But it's wonderfully genuine, as is Brunett, and as is the rest of Hell or High Water.