Karalyn and the Dawn Patrol

Tonight, newly formed local all-star band Lady and the Tramps makes its headlining debut at the Hustler in Indialantic.

Anything but your run-of-the-mill group, the members of Lady and the Tramps aren't just veteran Space Coast artists; they also represent a unique collage of professional careers outside music.

Ranging in age from 26 to 46, the band is comprised of United Space Alliance aerospace engineer Karalyn Woulas, singer/guitar; Indian Harbour Beach maintenance man Jeremy Collins, singer/guitar; Brevard County paramedic David Roman, back-upvocals/bass; and renowned surfboard shaper Ricky Carroll, singer/drums.

Officially formed in March, this cadre of music-loving, surfing enthusiasts has fun as goal No. 1 when they take the stage tonight.

As bass guitarist Roman puts it, "If you like good, up-beat punk and alternative with an almost pop-'80s hair-band feel, then you'll love us."

Recently, SRK spoke to Roman to find out how this unique group of professionals came together, what punk music and '80s band Dramarama have to do with each other, and why Roman's answering machine urges callers to recite Japanese haikus.

SRK: What an assembly of people. How did the four of you meet?

Roman: I was recording bass tracks at Studio 101 (in Melbourne) for my friend's album. And Karalyn, who is the guitar player, actually called the studio to ask if any bass players were available, and the gentleman had given her my number. She had called me saying she was looking for a bass player.

After her and I met up, . . . she got a surf board made through Ricky Carroll. I guess while she was there talking to him, she said she was in band and was looking for a drummer. He said he played drums, and the next thing you know, Karalyn, Ricky and I started practicing.

Jeremy, our other guitar player, who was in another band I was in, called Finding Rights, used to come to our practices just to hear us. That's how we all came together.

SRK: With such busy lives, what prompted you all to join Karalyn in this project?

Roman: First and foremost, when I saw Karalyn, I saw something unique as far as there are not a lot of women guitar players in this area who will play guitar and sing. She was something different. Then Ricky came into the picture; me and Ricky have been playing for a long time. We have a bunch of years behind us as far as musically. Ricky and I clicked, for that reason. He also saw that Karalyn was unique. The other thing is the girl works hard at her music.

SRK: What's the deal with the revolving singer? Sounds like an anomaly in music, a band governed by true democracy.

Roman: Absolutely. It's that we all bring individually our own parts, and the common thing is that we all have fun. And we all love playing together. . . As far as the singers, Karalyn has an amazing voice, very powerful, very good.

Jeremy was the singer in the band that him and I were in. So just right off the bat, we had two people who could be lead singers. Then Ricky was like, "I'd like to sing this song." He used to sing some songs with the Howlies. So we started doing a song and let him sing.

Right there we had three singers who all had different styles, different types of music, as opposed to one person standing up there. It keeps it interesting for us and we would hope for the crowd, too.

SRK: Have you all played out before or is this your first big gig?

Roman: We've played out before, but never anything to this extent. . . . Previous shows it was either something we just did, open mic or a guy asked us to split a set with him.

SRK: Do you do covers or originals?

Roman: We like to mix it up. Originals are great, and, of course, they make us feel good, but by keeping covers in there, it's songs that people will know.

SRK: Of the covers you do, have any crowd favorites emerged?

Roman: "Anything" by Drama Rama from the '80s. We do a punk version of it. And people love that song. They will scream it. They'll get up and dance to it. We also do a version of "Linoleum," which is a classic punk song by NOFX, along with "To the End" by Rancid. Three covers that everybody loves.

We do a killer version of "Ice Ice Baby," a punk version. People love it.

SRK: Do you have a favorite of the originals you do?

Roman: I think we all like it and the reason is probably because it's the first. Just the way it was split up. We refer to it as the "Power Ballad," which was lovingly named by Ricky. This song came about when we first started to get together. I wanted to do something that would get everybody involved in a song. I didn't want to show up to practice and say, "Hey, I got a song, I got the lyrics, music, this is how I want the drums."

First I took the music to Karalyn and said, I don't care what you do, I want you to write lyrics to this song. I want you to sing it and have a connection with it. She went and wrote words. Then I showed Ricky the music. He came up with his own part for - Florida Today Newspaper