By MATT EHLERS, Staff Writer

Six weeks after its 2004 album "Save Me" appeared in record stores, the Pat McGee band was without a record label.
Warner Bros. cut its ties with the group, leaving McGee and Co. with a brand-new record and no company to back it. Disappointed but determined, the group took the album to the much smaller Kirtland Records, and a new version of "Save Me" was released in June. This one features different artwork, five additional acoustic tracks and a video for the climbing-the-charts single, "Must Have Been Love."

Things seem to have turned out just fine for the band, whose sound McGee describes as "modern classic rock." It's a friendly, acoustic-based rock that fits alongside bands such as Counting Crows and Sister Hazel. The Pat McGee Band will appear Thursday in Raleigh with Vertical Horizon.

McGee, 32, might be a rocker now, but the first musical instrument he picked up was his sister's clarinet for a spot in the school band.

He spoke from a tour stop in Philadelphia.

Q: How long did you stick with the clarinet?

A: Two embarrassing years.

Q: What did the clarinet do for your musical career?

A: It taught me that I didn't like to read music. It did help with getting up in front of people and that kind of thing. You had to do little private recitals and things. When you're in sixth and seveneth grade, that's really frightening.

Q: What is a modern classic-rock band?

A: We obviously can't call ourselves a classic-rock band, but we have so much influence from classic rock that I'd put us in the same category -- not musically like Jet or The Killers, these bands that sound like a certain era. We sort of go back to the singer-songwriter, folk-rock bands. Of course, we've gotten a little bit heavier over the years, but we drew from that kind of stuff. We have so much influence from classic rock, there's no going around that. I grew up listening to Beatles and The Allman Brothers and Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin.

Q: Were you worried at all when this record was priced at $9?

A: No, that to me that's fantastic. I wish we could sell them for five bucks. I just want to get it out there. It gets harder and harder to sell music. With all the competition on the Internet, you really have to spoon-feed the stuff to people.

Q: I read that you guys have toured 44 states. Which ones are missing?

A: I doubt we've been to both Dakotas, that's two. Hawaii and Alaska would be four. And we haven't played in Arkansas or New Mexico. But we're doing Albuquerque and Little Rock coming up. The Dakotas, maybe we might hit this time around. I know why we haven't played Alaska. I don't know why we haven't played Hawaii.

Q: Why haven't you played Alaska?

A: Well, it's not exactly easy routing. When you get in a bus and you travel around, you don't put Alaska on the routing for places you've got to hit, sadly enough. But we'll eventually get there.