Mister Loveless is a band that looks to “connect with their generation of fans,” they said, through their music.

The band will be performing on campus at noon today at the University Union’s Serna Plaza.

Their interesting name came about in an unconventional way: vocalist Rob Miller remembered an old high school teacher named Mr. Loveless and it clicked.

Miller, Sean Gaffney and Charlie Koliha met in high school and started messing around with music for fun. After their first show in 2003, the band became more serious about their future in the music industry.

“Something special (about that performance) changed our whole perspective on what we wanted to do with music and it climbed to the top of our list of priorities – we’ve never looked back,” Miller said.

The band was hired to perform for a fan’s 19th birthday party. The fan, Nick Clark, told them of his interest in playing drums for a band and asked them to keep an eye out for any bands needing a drummer.

“We knew that we were about to part ways with our drummer and when we met Nick he expressed to us that he played drums for a majority of his life,” Miller said.

After a few jam sessions with Clark, they asked him to permanently join the band. Band members’ chemistry, Miller said, sparked a fire in them that makes them both stronger musicians and better songwriters.

Miller spoke of the band’s songwriting methods explaining there are two different ways they go about writing songs.

“I bring a skeleton of a song, something that I have been working on but not completely finalized and left room for the others to contribute and elaborate on it,” Miller said. “Other songs are completely derived from just jamming together with … limited verbal communication.”

“What People Do,” from their last EP was written using their organic jam session method. Miller said each member then works to add his part to the song instrumentally, beginning with lyrics then adding what they think would make the song stronger until they have a finished product.

“Ideally, we want people to feel like (the song) speaks to them and that they feel something rather than being music that people can dance to or talk over,” Miller said of the band’s mission.

The band said it fancies itself as being a live band as members feed off of the energy of the audience.

“The recording process for us is a challenge at times because it can be a much more sterile environment than performing live and rehearsing,” Miller said.

The band just finished recording its first full-length album “Grown Up,” which will be released in 2012. Miller said escaping from the confines of a state-of-the-art studio and recording at home proved to be a better fit for the band.

“What was unique about our session is that we were … doing them at home and that was a nice thing,” Miller said.

The band just released the lead single “‘90s Children,” from the upcoming album. The song is about what it is like being a young adult in society today and growing up in the Clinton years.

“We wanted to write a song about our generation and what we feel like things are like for us right now. I am 24 years old and I had a very different idea of what being 24 would be like when I was 16,” Miller said.

With the growing music scene in Sacramento, members of Mister Loveless said they felt performing at Sacramento State and downtown would open up the band to an audience which may have not known of them otherwise.

“Playing in midtown recently was the best of both worlds; it has an urban element that is kind of nice and makes you feel at home. There are also things to do, bars to go to and other bands performing bringing a city life feel to it,” Miller said.

Chanel Saidi can be reached at [email protected].