The Mavericks live up to their name, take 2  

"We giggle how outrageous it is," Reynolds says.

But while clearly enjoying the music the band is making, will its audience be left at the gate?

"As a band, we are making music performing music," Reynolds says. "We're doing this all for pleasure for our own and for the enjoyment of others, our audience, whether it be a listening audience, a concert audience. We are simply making music for the pleasure of music."

"We have felt over the past few years very bogged down with the labelling that goes on in music today," he says. "It becomes very confining. We are no less the real true lovers of country music than we were 8 years ago or 12 or 15."

"Our having kind of jumped the fence a bit on this record is challenging music lovers to go with something that feels good if you like what we're doing, don't question it. If you love country music, don't be such certain that country music hasn't had a great influence on the stuff we're doing."

Reynolds cited Buck Owens influence on earlier records. "This time, it's Buck Owens with a dose of Herb Alpert. This record reflects the influence of so many different types of artists, and we're just putting it in all into one record."

"Trampoline" isn't the only recent disc from The Mavs. The only problem is that you're going to have to go north of the border to pick up "It's now! It's live!" a seven-song live disc recorded in Toronto and Ottawa and released last fall.

"It's a project that we did to say so long to last several years of touring and take a break," says Reynolds. "It's creating unusual music for the collector's market. It wasn't necessarily released to become the next 'Frampton Comes Alive.' It was more like something for the fans that are hard core fans."

The lively set, which almost didn't happen due to paperwork, mechanical and weather problems, includes three hits and a version of Merle Haggard's "(Tonight) The Bottle Let Me Down" courtesy of longtime sideman and keyboard specialist Jerry Dale McFadden.

It also marked the beginning of a hiatus for the band.

Members had their own side projects in 1997.

For Malo, that meant playing occasional big band gigs in Nashville.

Reynolds acted out on his Buddy Holly and rock impulses getting together with bands called The Everydays and Swag.

The former played a half a dozen gigs, including Crystal Lake, Iowa, the site of the Day the Music Died and Lubbock, Texas, Holly's hometown.

The ensemble played "very traditional renditions of Buddy Holly music. We did it with a great true love for the music."

Band members included Kim Richey, Mandy Barnett and Pat DiNizio, lead singer of The Smithereens. A core band was joined bysingers coming up to share a number or two.

"That was really really important to me. They were really special gigs. It was about his music and how it effected me personally."

Deakin joined Reynolds in Swag when he was available or else Wilco's Ken Coomer would pound away. Cheap Trick mainstay Tom Petersson also was a member. It didn't give me everything I still look for. We still intend to do some work."

Reynolds also wrote songs, contributing a few to Cheap Trick's last disc.

"All of that was all for our individual selves," Reynolds says of last year. "Now, '98-'99 looks like it is going to be important years for the entity that is going to be The Mavericks."

While there had been rumors last year about a possible break-up of The Mavs, Reynolds didn't see that on the horizon.

"Not at this point have I really felt that. It's one of those things you see as the ultimate as where most bands do go. If you use history as any kind of roadmap, you already get to see where most groups eventually end up. That is spending more time on other projects or more time away from that project. There are some exceptions to the rule."

"For the time we took off, it was a move of self-preservation, it was so we didn't burn out. It proved to be valuable."

"What I've always felt is we haven't done everything we wanted to do. Obviously, we had this record yet to do. We have some stuff in us that's for the future. This record may be the best foot forward for some future years doing Mavericks stuff. I do feel it's inevitable that The Mavericks will have to give ourselves individual time."

"The priority is The Mavericks right now," Reynolds says, adding, "The Mavericks I think for all of us is home base."