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A visitor to the small warehouse bay in which the South Florida rock trio The Numb Ones rehearses wouldn't be faulted for thinking he'd stumbled into a teenage boy's bedroom. A photo spread featuring former porn actress Traci Lords is tacked to one wall near an array of local-band fliers and a large Led Zeppelin poster. A smashed cockroach has been pinned to another wall, and a hand-drawn bull's-eye encircles it. Dank carpet resembling wet dog fur covers the door and walls.

The Numb Ones feel perfectly at home here, as well they should after spending roughly a decade playing, writing and charting their future within this room. The band has also spent a good deal of those years trying to settle on a name, having so far adopted -- and abandoned -- everything from dotFash to Voodoo Death Gods to The Pheromones.

Singer and bassist Russ Rogers, guitarist James Coyle and drummer Phil Tucciarone -- all now in their early 30s -- have played together since they were high-school students in Boca Raton. After years of trafficking in arty, atmospheric rock, the band members decided to try something different -- namely, something with balls. The Numb Ones' sound is uncomplicated, straight-up modern rock influenced in part by 1980s pop-metal bands such as M�tley Cr�e and Guns N' Roses.

So far, the transition has paid off. This month, the band is releasing Everything in Between, its full-length debut on Los Angeles-based Cleopatra Records, which signed The Numb Ones to a three-album deal. The band's shot at the national spotlight comes three years after Rogers, Coyle and Tucciarone had reached their musical breaking point. The group had just released a CD as dotFash and was creatively exhausted. "By the time we were done, it was a great album," Rogers recalls. "But we just looked at each other and said, 'We're tired of playing this music.' "

The only solution was to rediscover why they had started playing together in the first place. "We decided to break away from [what we'd been doing] and do something more energetic," Coyle explains. "We had all grown up listening to anything from metal to thrash to punk. In my younger days, I recall, that's what I really liked. Playing the music we were playing was fun, but I thought something was missing, and I just wanted to go back to something more basic and something everyone could get into that had more balls and was a little sleazier."

While dotFash had contributed songs to compilations produced by Cleopatra, the label had shown no interest in signing the band to a long-term deal. That changed after the group rechristened itself The Numb Ones and an old friend stepped in to help.

"A guy that Phil and I used to play with moved to California and got a job at Cleopatra," Coyle says. "We kept in touch for a couple of years, and we did a couple of songs for their tribute records. Then, he called us one day and offered us a deal."

"They weren't really signing bands [at the time]," Tucciarone adds. "We're, like, the second real band that they've signed."

Soon after, the label flew the band to Los Angeles to record an album to be produced by Fred Coury, the drummer with another of the band members' favorite glam-metal acts, Cinderella. "The coolest thing was when he was just calling and talking about what we were going to do," Rogers remembers. "Once we were there, by the second day, we got over it. It was a working relationship, so you get over the, 'Oh my God, he's sold this many albums' or whatever."

Tucciarone, however, had a tougher time controlling his excitement. "I know it's cheesy, but when I was younger, I would play air drums to his music," he admits. "And then, when we were recording, he was in the sound booth, and I saw him air-drumming to our stuff."

No matter how cool the band members tried to act in Coury's presence, they had little time to gush anyway, since the album took only seven days to record. "Russ finished the last song vocally at 4 in the morning, right before we were leaving to go to the airport at 6 a.m.," Tucciarone relates.

Everything in Between is a hooky, melody-rich affair stuffed with memorable, sing-along choruses. The band that describes itself as dark-glam-mod-punk-rock could easily share a spot on the radio dial with acts such as the Foo Fighters and Velvet Revolver. While the album features covers of The Cars' "Just What I Needed" and Sweet's "Love Is Like Oxygen," The Numb Ones don't lack for original material. One song in particular, "Arm's Length," is a supremely catchy and upbeat tune despite its cautionary lyrics about a junkie's downward spiral.

"[These songs have] a more-refined aggression," Rogers says of the album. "Just melody, hooks, balls, rock."

The band members are equally all-business when it comes to promoting Everything in Between and planning their upcoming tour. While each is married and holds a steady day job, they dismiss the idea that their stable personal lives conflict with their rock-star aspirations. Rogers, in fact, also plays with his wife, Alicia, in a band called Kill Miss Pretty.

"The monotony of the 9 to 5 drives me further by constantly reminding me that this is not how I want to live the rest of my life," Coyle explains. "The idea is that my daily life can run on autopilot, and I can focus on doing anything and everything I can do to push the band forward."

This maturity may very well be working in The Numb Ones' favor. If the band's members had been signed when they were in their early 20s, Rogers says, they might not have known how to capitalize on the opportunity.

Back at the rehearsal space, talk turns to that night's television viewing, and the musicians are torn between Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO and Grey's Anatomy on ABC. As they get ready to leave, a symbol of the band's longevity catches Tucciarone's eye. "See that?" he asks, pointing upward at a trio of blackened Gummi Bears. "We stuck them there, like, 10 years ago."

The Numb Ones will perform 11 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 23 at Alligator Alley, 1321 E. Commercial Blvd., in Oakland Park. Admission is $5. Call 954/771-2220 or visit Alligatoralleyflorida.com.