A band that has vowed to "put the showbiz back into rock"is rocking across America as headliners for the first time. "It's awesome. We have to get out there and do it ourselves now," says drummer Allen Shellenberger.Being headliners may add somewhat more pressure, but it is a mantle this Southern California quartet accepts. "If something goes wrong, it's our fault. We can't blame anyone else. In the same sense, this is what we always wanted to do. Now we're able to bring out a little more production and lights and make it more the Lit experience."

It's been quite an exciting one so far for the band and its fans.Lit's 1999 RCA debut and current album, A Place In The Sun, is platinum and continues to ring up sales weekly. Besides playing on the first day of Woodstock '99, Lit has toured with Silverchair, Eve 6, the Offspring and with the '99 Vans Warped tour as well as with Garbage on MTV's Campus Invasion tour.

The group has been nominated for a Blockbuster Award for favorite new artist and for a California Music Award for outstanding single of the year. "My Own Worst Enemy," Lit's first single off A Place In The Sun, was Billboard's number one modern rock single for 1999. The song is featured in a 1-800-Collect commercial as well as in promotions for UPN Television's "Shasta McNasty."

Shellenberger says Lit appreciates the long run this album has had. "It's just cool. It's opened a lot of doors and made our shows bigger and the crowds bigger for us," he says. He believes that many people related to the lyrics of "My Own Worst Enemy." "I would say just about everybody has been through that," he says, laughing. "And the melody and guitar riffs, everything about that song sort of came together and struck a chord for a lot of people."

Lit wants people to be entertained and perhaps get away from their problems for a while, Shellenberger says. "A lot of people can relate to some of the lyrics. We pretty much write about everyday kind of stuff that everybody can relate to. We'd like people to be able to get away a little bit when they listen to our music and be entertained."

As for that promise to bring showbiz back to rock, Shellenberger says the members of Lit feel it is needed on the concert stage. "For a while there the live aspect of rock was sort of boring," he says. "We grew up on bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, where they had all the lights and production and all that stuff. Then bands started kind of stripping it down, being more about just the music, with no lights, no production and that needed to happen. But it was kind of getting out of hand. They took it too far. We started looking elsewhere for entertainment visually. That's why we get into the whole Vegas and Sinatra thing."

That is seen in their fascination with the '60s Las Vegas era represented by the Rat Pack of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin and other entertainers. "Those guys were the kings of entertainment," he says. "Sinatra, he was the man. The guys wanted to be like him. The girls wanted to be with him."

Their fascination with Las Vegas stems from their interest in the Rat Pack, he explains. "It's the lights and the showbiz and all that good stuff. We only live probably three hours from Vegas. When I was a kid my parents would take me everywhere on vacation. For some weird reason, when they went to Vegas the kids weren't allowed to go. That's all changed now with the city being more tourist friendly for the family."

Lead vocalist A. Jay Popoff likes to say that Lit's sound is today, but its vibe is a long time ago. The creative process for the band often begins with guitarist Jeremy Popoff, A. Jay's brother, coming in with a guitar riff. "Every song is different," explains Shellenberger. "He might have a song pretty well mapped out. We kind of jam an idea out. It sort of goes into the Lit machine and comes out a song. Jeremy and A. Jay write all the lyrics and Jeremy does the guitar parts. Me and Kevin (bassist Kevin Baldes) do a lot of arranging and voice opinions on things."

Shellenberger's approach to drumming, he says, "is just to be a strong backbone." "I don't overplay things. Most of the great songs don't have a crazy drum beat. They are usually pretty solid and basic and anything that just fits the song and makes the song flow." They hope to start preparations for a new album in the fall. "We want to take a good chunk of time off between touring and writing. We don't want to write songs about the tour bus," Shellenberger says, laughing. That bus is taking the band to a wider audience. "We really don't target any specific age group. It's split between males and females. We like to see the guys floating on top of each other." He laughs. Lit enjoys feeding off the energy of the crowd. "We get energy from them when they sing the sings, and they even know the lyrics to the songs that aren't on radio. That's always nice."

What the quartet delivers in return is "a loud, hot, sweaty show, a big rock show," Shellenberger says, laughing again. Lit thought the experience of taking their rock show to Woodstock last year was, in Shellenberger's words, "awesome." They were there before things turned ugly. "It was a dream come true, then we got to see a lot of other bands," he says. "But the way it ended was ridiculous. In Europe they have festivals like that all the time and they go on without those problems. Leave it up to us (Americans) to screw up a good thing."

As for Lit, they want to keep a good thing going. They have re-released Tripping the Light Fantastic, their 1997 independent label album debut, on their own Dirty Martini label. It contains an enhanced section with a full-length video and a previously unavailable track. "The situation we were in before at that time with the independent label we were on, we felt it just didn't see the light it should have. We wanted to get it out there. It deserves more attention."

Lit would like to use Dirty Martini as a vehicle to work with other bands, and give some up and coming musicians some hope. "Everybody deserves a shot," says Shellenberger. "We just always stuck with what we were doing because we felt it was right," he says. "I'd tell new bands that if it feels right and you're happy, just go with it."