The scene is a small, suburban cafe. About 40 teen-agers and twentysomethings buzz in and out, dropping their $3 cover charge into a fishbowl, ordering their coffee and finding seats.

Three musicians sit outside in front of the cafe, talking to friends, mentally psyching themselves up for this night’s performance.

A few minutes before 8 p.m., the three members of Billings Brew Band — Mike Billings, 22; Randy Billings, 20; and Dan Bragdon, 20 — wander inside to put the finishing touches on their battered sound equipment. After minor adjustments and a brief sound check, it’s showtime.

“Could we lower the lights?” Mike asks, as he picks up his guitar and settles into position on the makeshift staging tucked in the front corner of the cafe.

The room darkens in time for the first song, soulful and bluesy. Audience members listen, some eyes closed, some mouthing the lyrics. The following song bounces cheerfully, and the audience adjusts, tapping their feet. Some brave the dance floor.

Mike’s face twists into a grimace, his fingers do a tango up and down the strings, his voice rising in his characteristic grumbling — a picture of complete focus.

Beside him, Randy strums his bass guitar, one moment watching his brother take center stage, the next casually scanning the crowd, a slight smile playing on his lips.

Dan, the drummer, sits in the background, a bandana tied around his head, his drumsticks bouncing on air, keeping the tempo as Mike finishes an impromptu solo.

Just looking at their faces, it is obvious these guys love what they’re doing. And the crowd — half of which has spilled out of the tiny cafe and is now dancing with abandon in the light of the shopping center’s parking lot — loves them right back.

The Billings Brew Band has only officially been together for eight months. Unofficially, they have known each other since “about birth.” For brothers Mike and Randy, this is no exaggeration. But even Dan grew up only a block away from the Billings’ residence in Eddington. So it seems like forever, especially since they all went to elementary and high school together. Dan, “the third brother,” never escaped the good-natured wrestling matches, so typical of siblings, says Mike.

Both Dan and Mike have played together in the past, in different high school and college bands. Randy is the newcomer to the music scene, only picking up the bass a year and a half ago.

Within the first few months together, the band already had enough songs to cut a CD. So they pooled their funds (about $1,500) and recorded their first self-titled CD now available at area music stores.

Two weeks ago, their original sound won them the Battle of the Bands in Brewer’s Bouchard Arena with a prize package of recording time in Rolling Hills Records’ downtown Bangor studio and a new CD, all of which they are going to use toward rerecording their previous CD to produce a “phatter sound,” says Mike.

Later on, the three sit casually in the living room of the brothers’ apartment in Old Town analyzing a video of their performance at Bumstock on the University of Maine campus.

“When I’m up there playing and I can’t see anything, and the sweat is going in my eyes; Dan knows where I’m going by my facial expressions,” says Mike, who works long hours on his grandfather’s lobster boat as a sternman when he’s not playing his guitar or thinking about song lyrics. “When I’m playing live, I’m a totally different person. Whenever I get in that state, I know Dan has been there and we’re feeling it, and Randy’s the navigator making sure we don’t run into any rocks.”

“Mike and I have an argument on stage with our instruments — both being headstrong people. Randy’s the most modest,” says Dan, a music major at UMaine in Augusta who works part time as a store clerk in Bangor, substitutes at area schools and gives private music lessons. “We can have a conversation and at the ending we’re going to finish up our conversation.”

“The only thing I know is that I have a drummer that’s going to go off and all I’m trying to do is keep it together,” says Randy, a student at UMaine in Orono who is currently taking forestry classes, a major he says is “due to change.”

They pride themselves on their unique sound, inspired by an odd mix of musicians including (but certainly not limited to) James Brown; Medeski, Martin & Wood; Band of Gypsies; Stevie Ray Vaughn; Miles Davis; Jimi Hendrix; and Phish. And their genre — what they call acid-blues — is virtually nonexistent outside themselves.

“It’s almost like we have three contrasting styles,” Dan says.

Mike jokes that Dan, with his close-shaven hairstyle, looks like an officer in the Marines. Randy, with his longer hair, is the hippie, Dan adds. And Randy and Dan crack up as they point out they still haven’t figured out Mike.

In the past, the guys have been kicked out of apartments because their jam sessions were a little too loud for neighbors’ tastes. Sometimes their music has been too loud for the venues they’ve played in. Or it has been the wrong “type” of music.

Right now they are trying to take their music “to an apex,” Mike says, a look of seriousness spreading across his face. They are booked into various venues — coffeehouses, bars, concert halls — in and out of the state. They’ve played in New York, Massachusetts, and so far have been very well-received. This weekend, they are going to play in Burlington, Vt. — Phish’s hometown.

Their combined dream is to take their music out of Maine. They want venues to be more open to original music. They want to be able to play loud. They want to keep the blues alive.

They want their music to be heard and understood.

“I can’t express it,” Mike says, shaking his head. “What I’m thinking is what I’m playing on the guitar. And sometimes it’s too loud for people.”