On a hot summer day after cooling down in a park fountain, the members of Nightosaur sat together on a park bench, exhausted.

They made sure someone stayed awake in case passers-by complained about one of the group’s members — a sleeping, bearded man in an American flag bandana and aviators.

These types of shenanigans are typical for metal band Nightosaur.

The band projects the quintessential metal look and attitude; it plays every show shirtless, and members can talk about Thin Lizzy and other influential metal bands at length. But despite the band’s image, Nightosaur aims to defy genre.

“I find myself getting tired of [metal], especially if we’ve been playing lots of shows with lots of metal bands. I’ve been listening to tons of Fleetwood Mac recently, and John’s been listening to Taylor Swift all the time,” Guitarist/vocalist Andy Webber said. “Why worry about trying to be metal? We just play how we want.”

One thing the musicians do know is that their music is untamable. Nightosaur is ferocious rock ‘n roll. The music is heavy without being noisy.

Webber said the band’s members don’t take themselves seriously, but they are serious about music.

“I’m self-conscious about almost anything else in my life, and that’s what I like about music — I don’t have time to think about if I look stupid while I’m trying to sing and play complicated stuff on the guitar,” Webber said.

Webber and bassist/vocalist John Henry laughed while describing the people they’ve encountered while making music with drummer Brad Schwab.

“Remember when we were in Texas and we met that guy who was like, ‘I’m the world’s second-best Buddy Holly tribute artist?’ And he talked to us for like an hour?,” Henry said.

“Yeah,” Webber said. “All my favorite parts about touring have been the people you meet. When they’re not racist, they’re really nice.”

The trio spends hours feeding off each other’s creative energy at practice — particularly when a member finds a riff that speaks to them.

“When we were very first starting, I found myself carrying around a little cassette recorder, and I’d just hum riffs that I thought of,” Henry said. “A lot of times, I wasn’t good enough to play them yet, so then on my own time, I’d just listen to [the riffs], and figure out how I’d make my hand move like that.”

Henry said each band member brings their own style to the band. Although they see music in a similar way, there are plenty of brotherly quarrels between them.

Henry refers to his bandmates as his “two ugly wives” who he doesn’t want to sleep with.

“You care really deeply about each other, but you just don’t agree on anything and it gets frustrating, and you can’t get rid of them,” Henry said.

Even though the bandmates fight, Webber said he still trusts their bond.

“A lot of times, when Andy is away in the bathroom or something, me and Brad talk about killing him in his sleep and I’m like, ‘I’ll eat his heart so I will have all his powers;’ so then I can write songs kind of like how we write songs together,” Henry said.

What: Nightosaur, L’assassins, Rabbit Holes

When: 10:00 p.m., tomorrow

Where: Triple Rock Social Club, 629 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis

Cost: $5 – 7

Ages: 18+