Rehearsing in an un-airconditioned storage unit with temperatures nearing 100, Prosevere should change its name to “Persevere.”

“This is what we call our ‘Hell Space,’ not our ‘Hell House’ ’cause it’s so hot,” said guitarist Eric Ashe, 24.

“It’s easily 10 degrees hotter in there than what it is outside,” said singer Gary Segars, 25.

“We keep Gatorade in business,” said drummer Rocky Griggs, 23.

They practice two or more hours every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday. “If we’re coming out here in the middle of the day, you just can’t get around it — you’re gonna be sweaty and all that good stuff.”

But, he said, “We enjoy the pure fact of just playing. If we weren’t in this band we’d sit at home and play or we would jam out with buddies. The drive just to play pushes us. Whether it’s hot or not.”

Bass player Matt Riley, 30, came up with their name. “I was actually looking at the word ‘persevere’ and I just switched some letters around,” he said. “I just thought it sounded cool.”

Though every one has full time jobs, the band plays numerous shows, including weeknight concerts out of town that entail “getting out of work, driving to Jackson, Tenn., and then coming back at 1 or 2 in the morning and getting up at 5 in the morning and going back to work,” Griggs said. “A lot of our bosses understand what we’re doing.”

Ashe and Segars formed the band two years ago. “We wanted to make a really good rock and roll band that makes people feel good,” Ashe said.

“The Question” was the first Prosevere song. “It was about deciding whether or not we want to pursue this as a career now that we’re getting a little bit older,” said Segars, who writes their lyrics. “Or go back to just a normal day job working, going home and that be it.”

Many of their songs, including “Believing” and “Versus,” deal with being in a band. “Most other bands write songs about girls or how they don’t want to work anymore and all that,” Segars said. “And that’s cool. There’s nothing wrong with it. To us, that got boring. We had more questions than ‘Does she love me?’”

“Shots,” one of their popular songs, asks the question, “Who needs a shot, whether it be a shot of faith or a shot of whiskey?”

Prosevere recently completed their first CD, Versus.

When they’re not rehearsing, the band members hang out with each other. And they usually get along. “You have the days when you’re, ‘Dude, that is stupid, but I love you,’” Griggs said.

“Everybody respects each other,” Ashe said. “They respect the big picture — the band and rolling on for the next 20 or 30 years.”

Click here to hear music by Prosevere.

Prosevere performs at 7 p.m. Saturday at The New Daisy Theatre, 330 Beale. Cover: $8.

Listen Up spotlights area performers. Michael Donahue can be reached at 529-2797.