MADISON, Wis. -- A true, college homegrown band, O.A.R. has cultivated a devoted following of fans from the college-rock and jam-band scenes and scored success on the Billboard charts.

READ: O.A.R. Saxophonist Looks Forward To Freakfest Show

The band's fusion of rock, roots and reggae musical styles into a feel-good sound should appeal to many young revelers at Freakfest, the city-approved Halloween celebration along State Street in Madison on Saturday.

O.A.R. -- an acronym for the band's full moniker "Of a Revolution" -- began in 1996 in Rockville, Md., when junior high school friends Marc Roderge (vocals/rhythm guitar) and Chris Culos (drums) started jamming after school.

They recruited guitarist Richard On and bassist Benj Gershman in high school and all four went on to attend Ohio State University, where they met saxophonist Jerry DePizzo. At Ohio State, the band's party-friendly music caught on and O.A.R. played as many shows as it could, building a fan base primarily by word of mouth and its popular live shows.

The band recently landed the highest album chart debut of its career with its sixth studio album, "All Sides," grabbing the No. 13 spot on the Billboard 200 chart. The album also debuted at No. 3 on Billboard's Digital Album Chart as well as in the Top 10 in more than 20 major markets throughout the country, including New York, Washington D.C., Boston, and Chicago. "All Sides" is the band's first new studio album since 2005's breakthrough, "Stories of a Stranger," which included the group's hit singles "Love and Memories" and "Heard the World."

Channel 3000 spoke with drummer and O.A.R. co-founder Chris Culos about the steady rise of O.A.R. and the band's headlining show at Freakfest on Nov. 1.

Channel 3000: Your latest album, "All Sides," was released this summer. How would you describe it?

Chris Culos: We're really pleased with it. I think we've struggled for a long time trying to find ourselves in the studio by trying to focus on too many things other than just playing and writing songs that we really loved -- not to say we haven't put out songs we've really loved in the past.

Originally, we went in to the studio with a lot of unfinished-type songs, things we've been working out on stage and thought we'd get into the studio and work them out, and that was cool, but we never really captured the sound we wanted to capture. And then when we started focusing on the songwriting, I think we were focusing a little too hard on the structure of a song, not building on our strengths, which is infuse that original O.A.R. sound we had come up with just as a bunch of young kids jamming in the basement.

And I think this album "All Sides" captures all that and more. For us, as far as the style of music, it really does capture all sides of O.A.R., which is one of the reasons we named it "All Sides." It's got the light, the dark, the rock, the more reggae (sounding) songs, and a little bit of the slower stuff too, and we're really pleased with it. For this record our producer, Matt Wallace, really had us prepared, so once when went into the studio to record it, we really didn't have to think about anything besides playing. I think that was really freeing. It was really fun.

Channel 3000: The band seems to incorporate many different musical styles. Who would you say are your biggest influences?

When I say who our biggest influences are, I have to give a little disclaimer because it's not necessarily who we sound like.

We always credit Pearl Jam and Genesis as the two main influences for us to start a band. The singer Marc (Roderge) and I grew up on the same street and we were best friends since kindergarten, (and) his older brother had a concert of Genesis on tape, and we would watch that thing on VHS after school all the time, and it was our first real passion for live music and seeing that improvisation on stage and really stretching out past just performing songs. Phil Collins would go back and do a big drum solo with the Genesis drummer and it was just really inspiring to us as kids. It was different than what we were seeing on MTV and hearing on the radio.

And a few years later, when the grunge scene kind of took over the world, we were in eight grade and Pearl Jam "Unplugged" aired, and, man, that without a doubt inspired us to start a band. We taped that and watched it every day after school, and that was it for us.

But if you've ever listened to Pearl Jam, it doesn't sound anything like O.A.R. But it's really the passion that they put into their music, and that whole general direction is something we're been able to take. And there are bands like U2, where we've really taken an interest in their songwriting.

And bands like Dave Matthews Band, where we've really studied how they operate as a business. We've tried to model ourselves after them as a business model -- how they have sort of grown an empire completely in-house. (There's) no other band we want to model ourselves after in that way.

Channel 3000: What was it like playing sold-out shows with the Dave Matthews Band?

It was super exciting. When I was 13 years old, they were probably my favorite band on earth and to one day share the same stage with them is quite an honor. Plus, we get to watch their show every night; it's a free show for us, and it was awesome.

But like I said, we do get compared a lot to the Dave Matthews Band, and for us that's a little bit of an honor, as we think of them as one of the greatest bands in the world and certainly one of the greatest live bands ever.

But I think, for us, really it's about when we come off stage. We keep our eyes open and our ears open to observe how they operate behind the scenes. That's what we were really blown away with. We really pay attention to the kind of people they surround themselves with, how they operate as far as daily life on the road and touring and all that kind of stuff. It's something that almost nobody gets a chance to see, not because it's some super-secret thing going on, but it's behind the scenes.

There's not a lot of band's out there that are surviving more than a couple of years. So, I see a band like Dave Matthews as, for our generation, one of the last remaining bands that has survived over decades. There are the Pearl Jams and Green Days and obviously the U2s before them, but there just aren't those bands that are crossing over and reinventing themselves and keeping that audience really just super excited for years and years and years, and (we're able to) pay attention to how they do that and hopefully some of it will rub off on us.

Channel 3000: The band's success seems to have developed over word of mouth and your own efforts. What is it about O.A.R. that you think your fans respond to?

I think originally it might be just that we have a bit of a unique sound to us. We were a bunch of kids in high school when we started in my mother's basement 12 years ago, (and we) just wanted to make music that made us happy and that made our friends happy. We all had different musical influences and we individually brought that to the table, and the sort of recipe that we came up with was something a little unique to ourselves. Not to say that it was the most mind-blowing thing that has never been done before, but we certainly have our own sound, I think. It can't really be duplicated.

But other than that, it's our passion for music on stage. We love playing live shows and we really try to perform our best every night and make each night unique. We change our set list every single night and we improvise every single night, so even if we play the same song two nights in a row, it's not going to be the same version.

And I think we've really tried to grow as a band. Individually, we've worked hard as musicians to get better, and as a band we've gotten better. (It's just ) little things people might not necessarily know but when they see us, there's something that's a little bit better because we put so much effort into bringing out the best sound system or light show possible, and things like that. We're constantly trying to get better as a band, and we never really settle.

Channel 3000: What would you say was the band's first big breakthrough moment? Are you surprised by the band's success?

I don't know if I can pinpoint one thing. But there hasn't really been one sort of thing where we're broken overnight. I still don't feel like the band has necessarily 'made it.' But, on the other hand, we've gone way past anything I ever imagined we would have.

So, for us, we never had that one radio hit where we were a smash hit and all of a sudden we were on MTV all day and the radio all the time.

For us, it's been like a slow and steady growth throughout the 12 years we've been a band, but it's constantly building momentum and getting to the point where the band has more and more exposure out there.

I think over the years we've done a couple of things to position ourselves to get our music out there. Originally, we had our manager who started our own independent label for us, and that was the first milestone. And that enabled us to sign with a major label when we signed with Lava Records, which soon folded but we stayed on under their sort of parent name, Atlantic Records, so we're on Atlantic now. So, that was another milestone.

So (it's been helpful) to have the opportunities that come with a major label, like getting our single "Love and Memories" out to radio, which was a battle at first because nobody was aware of the band or the song or anything like that.

So there was a whole process of trying to educate people on who this band was, and why we shouldn't be disregarded as some college frat rock band. We were sort of being dismissed and we wanted to prove to people that we have a lot more to offer. So getting out name out there with "Love and Memories" was really important for us. And now on our new record, "All Sides," we have a single called "Shattered" that is doing way better than anything we've had before at radio and it's continuing to grow and we're really excited because all those people at radio stations who had never heard of us are now aware of us and it's sort of taking on a life of its own. So it's really cool to have those opportunities that we never had before.

Playing in Madison Square Garden was huge. We never thought we'd get to do that and we've gotten to do that twice now.

There hasn't been one moment, but there are all these things along the way. We've done so much but we feel like this is just the beginning.

Channel 3000: Some of the band's biggest early shows were on college campuses. How do you think playing Freakfest in Madison will compare?

Oh man, playing Halloween weekend in Madison is going to be insane. It's a legendary weekend, and I know that firsthand because I saw it every year I was in college. For four years, I went up to Madison for Halloween weekend. We were in Madison for Halloween weekend visiting friends, partying and hanging out.

From everything I've heard about the event, I think it's going to be great. We tour very often and are really interested in spreading our music and getting it out to people and to have fun while we're doing it.

While we do play major markets like New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, it's also important to us, if not more important, to play college markets and secondary markets. It's really important for us to get out there, because it's all about of word of mouth and the grassroots stuff.

Even with the small success we're having on radio, there's really no better recommendation than a guy going up to his buddy and saying, 'Hey, you got to check out this band.' That, for me, is usually when I hear the best stuff.

Channel 3000: Are you planning any costumes for Freakfest?

We've been talking about it. We have played in costumes in the past and I'd be surprised if we don't pull something together for it.

We went as Guns N' Roses one year, and our saxophone player was Kenny G. because there just wasn't room for a horn player. We've gone as pirates, as the "Dodgeball" guys, the Average Joes, some dumb stuff, some fun stuff; we'll see what happens.

Channel 3000: The band did a USO tour of Kuwait and Iraq in August 2007. How did that come about? What was that experience like?

It came about basically because we had done a few things with the army, some charity events and fundraising and things like that. Our charity, Heard the World Fund, had a couple of contacts within the USO and, through that, the army.

We had been contacted about interest in doing it and they had been struggling to find a lot of artists to go over there, from what we had heard. And when we heard about the opportunity to do it we jumped at the chance. For us, it was an opportunity to go over and thank the troops firsthand and also to give them a little break from the craziness.

No matter how you feel about the war, these men and women are over there and we just wanted to go over and entertain for the night, and it was amazing. Most of the people had never heard of us, but they were really excited that we had gone all the way over there, and for us it was really rewarding because some of these men and women are just kids, young people over there, and we kind of got to let them feel like a kid for the night.

O.A.R. will be headlining Freakfest at the Mountain Dew Amp/Z104 Stage at the corner of State Street and Capitol Square on Nov. 1.

Listen to O.A.R.'s music at the band's MySpace.com page.