Kim Fowley has had No. 1 singles in multiple countries, performed with Frank Zappa and exposed The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds to Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

The legendary producer also compared this week's Roustabout! act, The Howlies, to "male cheerleaders running amok in a madhouse rubber room."

Those curious as to what exactly that entails, from a musical standpoint, would benefit from catching the Atlanta garage-rockers with a soft spot for '50s doo-wop and rock 'n' roll at 10 tonight at Bar Bleu, 114 S. Garner St.

On Feb. 3, The Howlies released its Fowley-produced debut album, Trippin' With Howlies, although the collaboration almost never took place.

"Our drummer sent him a message saying, 'produce our album, you're our hero,' and we just got a stock reply and we were told to send a demo," bassist Matt Forsee said during a tour stop in Ohio. "A few months later, we got an e-mail back saying he'd do it."

The songs on the record are the first set the members, who for the most part have lived together for the past 11 years, wrote since officially becoming a band in 2007.

"We were in another band-sort of group that was more introspective, more abstract, but we felt like we were taking ourselves a little too seriously," Forsee said. "We really try not to take ourselves too seriously."

The band's diverse influences, ranging from Tom Petty and Amy Winehouse to Howlin' Wolf and The Misfits, are attributed by Forsee to their "overlapping" styles and to their use of satellite radio while on tour. Despite the head-scratching list of musical muses, Forsee said the group's energetic sound is currently so "tight that it feels like it could fall apart at any second."

The band's style, which features a drummer on lead vocals and a significant doo-wop influence, can also be credited to the city of Atlanta itself, which Forsee said in recent years has had a large underground garage-rock scene.

"There's got to be a thousand bands," he said of the "neighborhood" of Atlanta. "Everybody's really friendly with each other and there's lots of incestuous bandmates. None are quite like us."

Jesse Ruegg, the Roustabout! promoter who booked the band, said the quartet should feel at home in Bar Bleu.

"They kind of play rock 'n' roll in that '60s tradition that we at Roustabout! are so fond of," Ruegg said.

Ruegg said the band was brought to his attention by the equally raw Baltimore band Thee Lexington Arrows, who made a stop at Bar Bleu in January. He added there is "similar kind of ethos" in the bands' music.

"The key though is that they do it all without resorting to the garage-rock cliché," he said before referencing the horde of like-minded bands that emerged after The Strokes brought the sound back to the mainstream. "They're doing a lot more than most 'garage-rock' bands out there."

The Howlies plan to return to the studio in the spring to record a follow-up, this time independently because the band members are at the point where they "don't need anyone else to direct" their sound.

But for now, they are focused on their live shows, which they say are "engaging" and meant to "make people move." Forsee said tonight's performance shouldn't be any exception.

"Most of our best shows are in college towns," he said. "All the kids want to have fun."