Rocket refuels after adventures on television

Their 15 minutes of fame on prime-time television ended in ignominy rather than glory, but the members of the L.A. quintet Rocket are neither broken nor bowed. In fact, they regard their short time on Fox TV’s “The Next Great American Band” — an “American Idol”-like show that mercifully ends Friday — as marketing they could not have bought.

“What better way to promote our band?” singer Lauren White says. “We have no regrets whatsoever.” Adds guitarist Lauren Clark: “For us to be onstage with the lights and all those screaming people — I couldn’t even believe it was happening to this little local band we put together before I could even play guitar.”

Indeed, Rocket began before its members were musicians, with White, Clark and another friend joking to Teenacide Records honcho Jim Freek in the Spaceland parking lot one night in 2005 that they were “in a band.”

Freek made it so. The women recorded a song for a compilation CD, with Freek playing most of the instruments. "We had so much fun, we said, 'Jim, why don't we do a covers record?'" White says. "We didn't know what we were doing, or what we were in for, and we certainly didn't know it would become so serious."

The covers EP sold out, and Rocket played its first proper gig at the Viper Room in 2005.

Along the way, Kelly Brewer, Roxie Guzman and Kristin Brokaw joined the band, and they improved their musical chops with plenty of practice and touring, including a sidestage stint on the Warped Tour, dates with the Lashes, the Suicide Girls and Butch Walker and even a residency at Spaceland -- where the quintet was well aware that their unabashed girl-pop might be out of fashion.

"We had a lot of trepidation about playing the residency -- we're not cool enough to be a hipster band. But we did bring some people to Spaceland who hadn't been there before," White says. "It was frightening because our home is in that scene, but we're not a Silver Lake band."

A friend submitted a tape of Rocket's music for the show, and a longshot audition ended up with the band being flown to Las Vegas to play in front of the show's judges. Rocket made the final dozen but was gone three weeks in, with the judges slagging White for her singing.

“Yes, the criticism was harsh, but we know it was television and we know what television does is create drama. We’re a little smarter than that; we didn’t take it personally,” she says. “Besides, a vocalist like Cyndi Lauper was loved and she was hated — and I’d rather be that than just blend in and be forgotten.”

Since the show, interest in Rocket’s girl-group stylings has rocketed; not only are MySpace plays up, but the group has recorded tracks with, separately, producers Don Was and Beau Dozier and plans to have an album ready in 2008.

And they’ve lost neither their persistence nor their sense of humor. “That’s us,” Clark says with a laugh, “best fake band ever formed in a parking lot.”

||| Live: Rocket plays tonight at Safari Sam’s and opens for Sugarcult next Thursday at the House of Blues Anaheim. The quintet will also open for Horrorpops on West Coast dates in Feburary.