Nestled in their quiet North Shore neighborhood, local Long Islanders are blissfully ignorant of the madness about to break loose in their midst. For the first time since its stateside arrival, a band called Foghat is off the road and home for a privileged six months. With a live Bearsville LP from their spring tour barely released (Foghat Live), the four zany rockers are already scouting the territory where they'll record rough tracks for album number eight.

An expanded business office fronts the newly-chosen studio site. What appears to be a sunset glimpse of mustachioed music types climbing in and out of vans is really Foghat lowering property values before the citizens' eyes.

"The new office is opposite a colonial monument and a landmark house that can't be touched," says lead guitarist Rod Price. "When we bring our amps in the back," he taunts mockingly, "the real estate people will be very interested." "It'll be soundproofed," explains drummer Roger Earl, lowering the alarm level.

"We're going to try some new stuff ... really take our time. I have no idea what's gonna happen," laughs Rod. "We haven't had much time to write lately," he adds. Bassist Craig MacGregor is moving down from Connecticut for the new album project, which will be self-produced with an assist from former member Nick Jameson.

"Nick will help with the technical side," says leader Dave Peverett. "We'll learn that aspect of recording as we actually play." It was Nick who produced the platinum Fool For the City and traveled with the band to the tour dates where he and sound whiz Bob Coffee supervised the taping of Foghat Live. At two upstate New York dates, the band tore through their favorites, "Slow Ride," "Honey Hush" and "Fool for the City," plus rearranged renditions of "Home In My Hand" and "I Just Want to Make Love To You," the number picked for the single. "Road Fever" rounds out the set.

"That song had been rush-recorded the first time we did it," says Dave. All four boys are pleased with the new version and with the whole LP." I got very excited about the live album," Roger comments "because of its very straight format." It has no girl singers, no horn section and no keyboard player. But the album clicks so well, sounds so full, that an un-clued listener would imagine there are more than four musicians in Foghat. Adds Roger, "I think it's one of our most successful efforts ever."

In this season of stars being "broken" through concert records, how does Foghat feel about entering the sweepstakes? Though the band jokes together like a vaudeville troupe and acts as cozy about its union as newly-weds, the quartet doesn't always see eye to eye when it comes to goals and standards. "The live album was inevitable"says Price, "but its timing wasn't planned the way it might look. Since we're a road band it just made sense to do it."

"We listened to five years of live tapes before picking the ones to use" discloses Roger, "and the best ones were the last ones. Though we don't like to admit it, we have improved. These tapes from Rochester were the best of the overall-played dates ... the sound, the feel, they had everything. And it was time we released something from the pile of stuff we've got ... all the recording was very expensive. God knows how many dollars we could piss away if we tried to preserve every performance.

"The Foghat Live show was done early enough in the tour that the band didn't feel burned out, but late enough that the tempos had gotten very consistent, the group vocals strong, the new arrangements comfortable. "We learned a lot from those tapes," Rod smiles. "Of course I have real hopes for Foghat Live, but as for what the album's gonna do, I'm not even thinking about it!"

Roger Earl is the resident Foghat funny man. His participatory laugh, graces the soundtrack of the first TV episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. But Roger is the one who's able to draw back and size the band up while remaining involved and taking in every note around him. His comic antics belie a sober outlook on Foghat's career.

"It's a question of finding your place in the music business, and we have ours. We worked our way into it in steps. It's never been, 'Let's make a hit single,' or 'Let's alter our sound to be popular.' The success comes because of what we do and the way we do it, not the other way around. We don't deliberately create a hit; we're conscious of doing it right, but it's done in our style."

Rod Price's view is not so fixed. "If our success triples, that's fine. Nobody's gonna complain. Obviously, we're trying to be more successful. Everybody tries, but nobody really thinks about gold albums." So far, Foghat has five.

Lonesome Dave Peverett, who looks at the group only from inside it, seems unconcerned that the face of rock is changing around him. He's certain the band's main avenue of exposure and growth is the concert stage, and not the TV show, the hit single, the FM airplay reports, or the promotional gimmick.

"Our approach is the same one we started with. Our only ambition is to be able to play to people and enjoy it. "Slow Ride" was not a sell-out ... it's just us. We didn't go AM to get a hit 45, but "Slow Ride" did add a whole lot of new faces, young faces, to the show audiences ... even if they don't understand what "Slow Ride" is about," Roger snickers in the assumed voice of a dirty young man.

"The concerts have the biggest visibility," Dave continues, minimizing his band's recent absence from some media ... most notably, television. "We've never locked ourselves away ... we've always been available, almost to a fault." After a look at concert attendance tallies, it's hard to doubt this Fifties rock fanatic or his doggedly consistent approach. The record at St. Louis' Kiel Auditorium was shattered when thirty thousand fans flocked twice just to see Foghat. Crowds at the Cow Palace were equally monstrous. In mid-summer, Foghat opened up a new market for rock bands, selling out the Aladdin Theatre in Las Vegas a week before Peter Frampton appeared there and claimed the honor. And the once cool Northeast has just given Foghat a fine live album.

"We bypass trends," insists Dave. "We don't want any of this sweet, melodic nonsense," adds Rod with feigned solemnity. With the Rolling Stones off the road indefinitely, the Allmans fragmented by death and dis-enchantment, and Creedence, a group of the past, anyone who needs an uncut dose of mass-market blues-rock really has to turn to Foghat. Dave and Roger don't like to think too hard about the stylistic isolation of the 1977 Foghat phenomenon. But Rod, being the spontaneous bright-sider that he is, has three short words on the band's unique position: "I love it!"

--- Richard Hogan