When Amherst band The Frills needed help naming their soon-to-be-released debut album, they turned to their online friends and fans.

“We got some fantastic ideas for the name of our album,” says bassist Meagan Day. “But we’ve discarded such gems as Possibly On Fire and We’ll Fuck Your Mind or Your Money Back. We have chosen a name, but if you want to know what it is, you’ll have to check our Myspace in a couple of weeks. No sense in jinxing these things.”

The Frills began in 2007 in the UMass dorm room of Day and singer/guitarist Lauren Garant. The duo soon found a drummer to join in, but found a more full-time replacement when it came time to record their Rational and Responsible EP.

“We had both previously known Isaac [Simon], so we asked him to be on the EP,” Garant says. “We booked the studio for the end of August 2009 and we started practicing the seven songs in June, so we really only had two months to pull the whole thing together. Isaac turned out to be an excellent fit in every possible way, and he’s been our permanent drummer ever since.”

Regardless of such changes over the last few years, The Frills’ songwriting process has remained relatively unchanged. “We have a definite process for songwriting,” says Garant. “I’ll have an idea, like a melody or a few lines of lyrics, stewing around in my head. Eventually those ideas will all come together at once and turn into a song, which I usually flesh out alone on an acoustic guitar and come up with a melody, a chord progression, an overall structure, lyrics, et cetera. Once I have it pulled together, Meagan and I will sit down and talk about how it should feel and sound, and she’ll come up with a bass part. We practice the song together and work out the bugs, and then we bring the song to Isaac and let him work his magic on it.”

Despite the band’s name, Garant claims that the group’s stage act—like its tunes—is pared-down and unadorned: “You can expect to see very few frills during a live show. We’re a three-piece band, so there’s not a whole lot of bells and whistles; our shows are fast, raw and stripped-down. We feel the raw energy of the audience and use that as momentum. If we have time, we’ll banter a bit, which is fun for us, fun for the audience, and gives us a moment to breathe during the set.

“We don’t spend a lot of time tweaking effects pedals or changing instruments—we have our effects pretty much dialed in ahead of time, and we don’t even use that many to begin with. Not relying on effects to make a ‘sound’ makes it a lot easier for us to focus on songwriting quality… I’d classify us as a straight-up rock and roll band, sometimes with a punk edge, sometimes with an indie rock edge, but for the most part, we just sound like us.”

The Frills appear March 27 at the Brass Cat and April 8 at The Sierra Grille. For more information, visit www.myspace.com/nofrillsthrills.