Setting a melancholy mood from the opening track of their self-titled debut, the members of You’re Pretty waste little time in establishing what they are about.

The band’s dark guitars and emotional lyrics can be traced back to one origin: a dark attic in a rural Victorian home outside of Milwaukee, which proved to serve as more than a rehearsal space for the band.

Bass player Chris Stenger said not only did the band practice between the cobwebs in its early days, but the attic itself inspired many of the tracks on the album.

“That album had a lot of concepts to it, in a lot of ways,” Stenger said. “We decided to title the first track ‘Attic,’ because that’s where we got started. [The attic] had a really dark feel to it, and I’d say that four or five songs off the album are inspired by it.”

It was in the attic that You’re Pretty hammered down it’s abnormal songwriting style. Rather than starting out with a particular guitar riff or lyric, the band bases their songs around a particular feeling or emotion.

While the band plays, lead singer Beth Musolff begins by singing whatever comes to mind. As the mood of the song develops, lyrics are hammered out and a song is formed.

This free-flowing songwriting style allows You’re Pretty to express itself in ways that other bands can’t.

“I can pretty much say that we’re very driven,” Musolff said. “Emotion would seem to be the right word, but it’s more than that I think. For us, everything is on a field.”

Tying different parts of life and emotion together is something the band prides itself on. Often what’s going on in the individual lives of the band members will dictate the mood of each new song.

“The song itself normally gives me the feel for what the lyrics should be about,” Musolff said.

“We can’t really describe what we do in terms of what other bands we sound like,” Stenger added. “It’s very dynamic and the music builds on itself.”

Building on itself is something that You’re Pretty has become accustomed to. In a town with little support for new bands, the band’s four members had to carve out a niche of their own.

Refusing to play the same old Led Zepplin covers that frequented the Milwaukee bar scene, You’re Pretty laid out its own agenda.

“It was hard to go out and do what we do, which is play original music,” Stenger said. “Most of the bands around here serve more as a backdrop to the drinking scene.”

According to Musolff, the “if you build it, they will come” theory didn’t apply in Milwaukee during the time her band was getting off the ground.

“We have tons of venues, but the problem is getting people to come to shows,” Musolff said. “It’s not that the venues are bad, either. We have a lot of great places for bands to play.”

You’re Pretty, as it exists today, came together just over two years ago.

The core of the band came together when Musolff met guitarist Steve Kern. Kern was friends with Stenger, who was in another band at the time.

The trio began to play together, writing original songs. For two years they experimented with different drummers but could never land a regular.

“We’ve had a problem with drummers in the past. We played with a few for a period of time,” Musolff said. “But stuff would happen like having a drummer not show up for a show, or practice, and stuff like that.”

Two years later, in January of 1998, the trio landed drummer Dave Keckeisen.

After the addition of Keckeisen, You’re Pretty went on to release it’s first self- titled record. The album didn’t waste any time garnering national attention.

The album received radio play across the country, as well as catching the eye of some bigger names in the music industry.

When Family Values rockers Stain’d were in the area, Keckeisen was invited by one of his friends to attend the concert. The two ended up slipping a disc of You’re Pretty to guitarist Mike Mushok.

“We didn’t think anything of it until months later,” Musolff said. “He ended up calling up our manager and us while they were on the Family Values tour. He requested six more CDs and press kits and told our manager on the phone that he was gonna see what he could do for us.”

Although Mushok didn’t quite get the band booked on Family Values ’99, he did get them backstage at a Stain’d show in Denver.

You’re Pretty had a show in Denver the same week that Family Values was in town. The two bands met up after Stain’d’s set and talked about You’re Pretty’s album.

“He said he loved it and that he listens to it every night before he goes to bed,” Musolff said. “It was a neat experience.”

Mushok wasn’t the only big name that has been expressing recent interest in the Milwaukee foursome.

The members of You’re Pretty recently returned from their second trip to Los Angeles where they have played two showcase shows for over ten different labels.

The action has delayed the band’s Midwest tour, but no one in the You’re Pretty fan club is complaining. With rumors of record deals, fans anxiously await the outcome of You’re Pretty’s coast-to-coast endeavors.

“We were in LA in October, and again in January,” Musolff said. “When we were out there in October, we got asked back to the January showcase, and now we got asked out to New York. So that’s what we’re doing right now.”

Apart from traveling the country to play in front of record labels and playing weekend shows in the Midwest, You’re Pretty is preparing to record again.

The band will go into the studio next week to record five more songs. The songs will be used for demo purposes, but the band hopes to release the album as an EP, and another full-lenth album seems likely. In the meantime, fans can download music from the band’s Web site www.yourepretty.com.

With the new songs, the band looks to take its live show to the next level without abandoning its melancholy mood.

“When we perform out live, there are some changes here and there,” Musolff said. “But the new stuff is definitely You’re Pretty, because the formula is definitely the same. It’s more intense, and refined, but not something completely different.”

For Musolff, including all of You’re Pretty’s different musical emotions into its live show is important.

“Our show is a combination of what we are,” Musolff said. “Cause if we would hit you with all of our heavy hitters, it would be very exhausting, for us and the audience as well. We put our mellow stuff in to help create our mood. For that we need both the good and the bad, the negative and the positive.”

Balancing the good and bad from an old Victorian attic, to New York and Los Angeles, You’re Pretty has proved they know how to do one thing.

They’ve come to set the mood.