Hinder loves rock-star image

If Mike Rodden has his way, the age of the slump-shouldered and miserable rock star will soon be over. Rodden and the other four members of Hinder will be happily pounding nails into the coffin.

The guys in Hinder are pretty new to rock stardom, but in the year-and-a-half since their wildly successful debut CD came out, they've been loving life.

"We've been having a great time," said Rodden in a phone interview from a tour stop in Norfolk, Va. "The shows have been great, the crowds are rad. I can't see myself getting sick of this anytime soon."

Hinder has been on the road almost constantly since "Extreme Behavior" was released last September and sold more than 2 million copies. They've been home, in Oklahoma City, for a total of about a month since then.

No tales about the drudgery of life on the tour bus are forthcoming, though.

"It's really not work at all," said Rodden, Hinder's bassist. "I basically get to hang out with my best friends. We're going to Australia next. We haven't even played there, and we just got word that the album's gone gold. We've been all over this country, and it's (time) to go overseas and let more people join the party."

Rodden's pleasing demeanor and enthusiasm might be a little surprising, given that Hinder has developed a reputation as rock's new bad boys. They're unabashed drinkers -- Rodden happily admits that they're all alcoholics, and he interrupts the interview to ask someone what happened to his margarita -- and the band gained some notoriety when one member was quoted in Rolling Stone as saying that Nirvana was "boring."

Rodden said he was unaware of that comment.

"We said that about Nirvana?" he said, with some genuine shock and dismay coming through in his voice. "We love Nirvana. I do think they killed the rock star, though. If you saw Kurt Cobain walking down the street, he'd look like everyone else."

The guys in Hinder wouldn't mind being the ones who help bring in a new age of rock stars who seem larger than life. But for the moment, they'll have to do it with their live shows.

"We won't be back in the studio until January or February of '08," Rodden said. "It's actually good, because we're writing all the time and we'll have a lot of material, and by that time, people who bought our first CD will be ready for more.