Kevin Bronson on June 29th, 2009

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That rock cliché about smoky vocals took on a whole new meaning when Leslie Stevens and her band were recording their new album. It was 2008, and “the wildfires were raging,” Stevens says. “You could see on the hills, there were chunks of ash in the air, and you could smell it in the room.”

With that faintly apocalyptic backdrop, Leslie & the Badgers’ “Roomful of Smoke” was birthed. Produced by David Bianco, who’s worked with the likes of Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Teenage Fanclub and Tift Merritt,”  the band’s third full-length is an open-hearted, “No Depression”-channeling paean to classic country that displays nimble musicianship and a winsome and woozy (if not boozy) forthrightness.

||| Download: “Los Angeles”

Not that Stevens’ path from her native St. Louis to country songstress was in any way direct. She originally moved to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College, but her musical explorations eventually took her to Italy, where she studied opera, and USC, where she studied jazz. She even played in the punk band Zeitgeist Auto Parts before matriculating to the Americana-based sound she found refreshingly honest.

“When I was a kid, I loved ‘Hee Haw,’ but when I was in college everyone hated country because it was so uncool. I wanted to be those girls in pigtails,” she says. “It feels totally natural to me, what I’m doing now.”

The music on “Roomful of Smoke” – a strain that bandmate Ben Reddell terms “bourgeois country” – reflects that sensibility. “The songs are about falling in love, getting dumped, falling in love again, getting dumped again, breaking somebody’s heart and having your heart broken,” Stevens says. “It’s country, but it has a little bit of poetry. The great thing about country is that the lyrics leave very little room for interpretation. There’a literalism to it, but a beauty to it too.”

Stevens and her band – which includes Reddell (bass), Glenn Oyabe (guitar and lap steel), Travis Popichak (drums) and Charlene Huang (violin) – have come a long way as performers, but Stevens says she’s most content in the creative process. “Dolly Parton says she sees herself as a writer and not a singer. It could’ve fooled me, but I see it,” Stevens says. “I’m really happiest when I’m reading or writing or experiencing.”

Like scores of songwriters over the years, Stevens found “grist for the mill” in “Los Angeles,” which includes a subtle nod to Elliott Smith. “I say ‘Los Ang-el-eez’ the way he said it,” she says. “I was with my band in the 4100 Club the day he died – there was a guy in there who knew about Elliott before anybody else did, and he was just drinking it away. it was dark.”

The quintet found a warm reception (not to mention a happy intersection; see top photo) on a recent tour of the West. And combined with the credibility of having recorded with Bianco – “We knew we were working with a heavyweight, but it was great he wanted us,” Stevens says – the band is optimistic this self-released album will take them places. Quite possibly, smoky ones.

||| Live: Leslie & the Badgers celebrate the release of “Roomful of Smoke” with a show Tuesday at Spaceland featuring the Chapin Sisters, Olin and the Moon and Eagle Winged Palace.