Success comes in many different forms.

For the members of the local band One Track Mind, success is merely the opportunity to play their music one more time.

Twice a week for the past three years, Brandon Nivens, senior mass communications major, Devin Krtek, former junior psychology major, and Phil Burkhart, former senior biology major, have lugged huge amplifiers, drum sets and electric guitars up a flight of stairs, sometimes in freezing weather, to Burkhart’s unfinished raised garage.

“We have to do this after every show,” Nivens said, “It really sucks when you play like four times a month.”

The room that serves as a backdrop for the musical musings of the three men consists of two armchairs, one electric orange, the other a pea green model with only two legs, both on the same side, an old couch with a hole worn in the center and yellow stuffing peeking out and several folding chairs. All of these are arranged in a half moon facing the center of the room where the members puffed on their cigarettes in the cold night air and repeated the same equipment set-up, meticulous and calculated, that they have a hundred times before.

A round kerosene heater that the band members affectionately refer to as “R2-D2” sits in the center of the room offering empty promises of warmth.

The moment the amps were plugged in, the dynamic of the room changed immediately.

The air seemed electrically charged and the growing squeal of guitar feedback erupted into a surging, explosive collection of slap bass, rolling drums and heavy pounding guitar. Suddenly the modest room seemed out of place in the presence of a talented and charismatic band.

The path to rock stardom was slow for the trio. Nivens, guitar and vocals, and Krtek, bass, were neighbors during their teenage years when the dream of making music began.

“Brandon would make songs by himself in his trailor, and I would come over and bother him and force him to let me play on them,” Krtek said. “But I didn’t know how to play anything at all. But I had this itty bitty bass from the 1970s and a guitar amp, so I bothered him enough and let him borrow my bass so that I could play on the little songs that he made on his computer.”

The band’s early recordings, called “Mind Orgies,” produced some music that the band can laugh at now.

“We were yelling down a Christmas wrapping paper tube, singing into it about Denny’s,” Nivens said.

Burkhart, drums, began playing when a friend bet him that he couldn’t.

“So, one day a guy pulls up and he asks me if I want some drums because he has some out in the car for sale for $300,” Burkhart said. “So, I bought them. I’d never played them before in my life.”

Three months later, Burkhart and Nivens won the 2000 battle of the bands at Missouri Southern.

The band is an unlikely bunch.

Nivens is a paradoxical vision. His waist long hair, pierced eyebrow, and Cobainesque fatigues scream rebel, but in person he is relaxed and philosophical.

Krtek, with his shock of dark hair and ornery smile, is energetic and quick to control the conversation. At 22 years old, he is the youngest member of the group, but likes to consider himself the band’s producer.

Burkhart wears a short strawberry-blonde ponytail, is easy going and likes to laugh. Always willing to lighten the tone with humor, he acts as a sounding board and mediator for the other two members.

Unlike other musicians, the members of One Track Mind aren’t concerned with defining their music.

“I wish somebody would tell me,” Burkhart said. “I ask people all the time what we sound like, because I have trouble putting into words.”

The members emphasize the fact that their music is always maturing, because the band records every performance and reviews it later.

“The music we have now is much tighter and much more diverse than before,” Krtek said. “And that makes for a not-boring show.”

Their greatest moment as a band came in July at an outdoor concert in a field behind Burkhart’s house in Racine that attracted 450 people. Four bands performed including One Track Mind.

During the last transition of their last song, a generator powering amps and lights went out. Burkhart continued playing the drums while Nivens and Krtek beat-boxed in the dark. At a pivotal moment, the lights and sound returned and the band finished with a grand finale. The audience thought it was a part of the act and erupted in applause.

“It was kind of a time when you had everybody at your will,” Krtek said.

“When the lights come back on and there’s this sea of people out there and they’re going crazy, it gives you this whole surreal feeling,” he said.

One Track Mind has one CD available called The Pendulum Odyssey and another in the works tentatively titled The Gentle Alien.

Their next concert date is 8 p.m. on Nov. 29 at The Cesspool. The Yoosch will open for the show that is dedicated to Krtek’s mother. A portion of the show will be devoted to her requests including Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.

In spite of its success, One Track Mind promises to remain unapologetically original.

“We want to be one of those bands that makes a million dollars,” Nivens said, “not because we’re trying to, but just because we’re that good. We’re not trying to sell records or play what other people want to hear, but just making music because we want to.”

Krtek offered a more colorful version.

“I would like people to think that we had some kind of purpose or meaning or message to get across to people,” he said, “that we’re thought provoking music as opposed to glam rock-intelligent rock, y’know, people who don’t talk about mundane (B.S.).”