Almost every year, the music industry promotes a different genre — from swing to emo — as “the next big thing,” but the members of Minneapolis rock band B-Line don’t care. They just want to be a band.

“We don’t really have any preconceptions,” B-Line vocalist Mark Holland says on a rainy afternoon in Minneapolis. “We don’t sit down and say, ‘We’re gonna be a ska band, or we want to be a punk band.'”

Instead, the band gets together and jams, playing music that Holland says is guitar-oriented, with some pop rock, punk and even some groove influences.

“It’s kind of hard for us, because people say that they don’t really know how to pigeonhole it, which I think is a good thing,” Holland says. “I don’t really have a way to classify it.”

In a town that spawned seminal bands the Replacements and Husker Du, not fitting in with the occasionally cliquey music scene can be problematic.

“There are different groups that are kind of huddled together doing their thing, and then there is us,” Holland says. “We just kind of do what we do and play with the bands we want to play with.

“We don’t really fit in with the punk crowd or the groove rock crowd or anything like that,” he adds.

However, this doesn’t mean that Holland and the nearly 2-year-old band don’t have respect for the Minneapolis scene.

The singer names Soul Asylum, Husker Du, Arcwelder and Puzzle Factory (one of B-Line guitarist Doug Heeschen’s old bands) as influences.

“All those bands, at least locally, gave me an idea of what rock could be,” Holland explains.

About two years ago, Holland got his chance to make that idea a reality. After attending a Puzzle Factory show, he approached Heeschen about forming a band.

The guitarist seemed interested, and soon the two were playing together.

The duo went through a couple drummers and bass players before settling on the current lineup that also includes the rhythm section of Chris Berglund on bass and Paul Raukar on drums.

B-Line released its self-titled debut earlier this year, an album that features Holland’s introspective and sometimes enigmatic lyrics.

“Most of these [lyrics] are just kind of mental images that are in my head and kind of random thoughts that come through,” he explains.

However, his muse is not always so mysterious or abstract.

“A lot of it has to do with the sound I’m hearing and how much beer I’ve had that day,” Holland says.

But the singer says it is the live performance rather than his lyrics or the band’s sound that sets B-Line apart from the other rock ‘n’ rollers out there.

“We usually get up there, and we’ll throw down. We’ll kind of let it all go to the point where at the end of the set we’re exhausted,” Holland says. “And there are bands that do that, but I think we do it better.”

B-Line primarily caters to the I.D. crowd — music fans that are at least 21 years old. And Holland says the band’s fans are not the typical bargoers.

“We’re not really into the mainstream, pop rock, Hootie and the Blowfish type sound,” Holland says. “We have people that kind of want to feel music, not just be around it.”

Just like many bands, B-Line wants to expand their fan base beyond the realm of the bar and club scene.

And Holland thinks campuses such as Iowa State are the place to start.

“One of our short term ideas would be to kind of infiltrate college airplay — the radio scene — and hopefully garner some interest,” he says.

The band doesn’t plan to stop with college radio, however.

“We’re gonna try to take this thing as far as it can go,” Holland explains. “I don’t want to stay a Minneapolis club band.”

In order to begin this journey, B-Line plans to go into the studio in less than a month to record a five song EP that they will send to college radio stations.

Holland, who has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Minnesota, hopes he can survive in the music industry, because he can’t stand working a day job. He just wants to be in a band.

“If I’m not doing something that’s at least a little bit creative, I’ll go nuts,” he says.

“I can’t really deal with that — put on a tie everyday and go to your day job and kiss your boss’ ass. And then, at the end of the week, you have to get so drunk just to forget about your life, that you’ve become a pathetic waste.”