Dustin Blocker paces the stage of the Lakewood Theater on a recent afternoon. His bandmates in Exit 380 listen to him rattle off ideas about how they could enter, where they'll stand and what they should wear.

JASON JANIK/SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR

Exit 380 is (from left) Aaron Borden, Jon Hutchison, Dustin Blocker and Bobby Tucker.

They're getting ready for the most challenging live show of their nine-year career, and the frontman just wants everything to go smoothly.

"What will work with the live show is dressing the part," Blocker says later. "Yeah, we could come out with rock shirts and spiked hair and do a normal show. But I want this to be more like a play. And if you miss it, you miss out."

Friday's show will debut Exit 380's concept album The Life and Death of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Stone. The new songs – about the ups and downs of a fictional 1930s couple – allow Blocker and the guys to move beyond the '90s-influenced alt-rock they've done in the past.

"It's about opening up and expanding. I feel like that's what we're doing. This could blow people's minds or bore them to death, but at least they'll remember it."

Here's more from Blocker, 29, on the album and the concert.

Q: What brought on the need for change?

A: This time last year, we decided to just start from scratch. We didn't want to have rules anymore, because the last record was more on the heavy side, and fast-paced and all that. So we started working, and found that we really liked the weird things that we tried the best. We added keys, organs, maracas ... just whatever we wanted. We'd built our own studio and really had unlimited time to work.

Q: And how did the idea of a concept album come about?

A: All my lyrics are always about death and religion and those kinds of things. I didn't say, "Hey, let's do a concept album." I just went behind everybody's back and wrote songs with lyrics that kind of went with a story line I had in my head. So every time someone would bring in new music, I flowed it into what I had. And after we had 10 songs, I dropped the concept idea on them. They were into it.

Q: Does it scare you that you might be throwing your local fans off a bit?

A: We've always had pretty good things going on. Good crowds, been pretty successful. When I was in college, we would have huge college crowds, but if we went anywhere else we'd have to play the party places that like you to do covers. So after a while we decided to stop the cover thing, focus on rock and just hope that at least some of the party crowds we'd been playing to would stick with us. And they did. But then we ended up playing so much around here that we kind of beat our old material into oblivion. That's why we wanted to start fresh.

Q: What themes appeal to you most when you write lyrics?

A: The themes that occupy me ... well, there's a religious undertone to all the songs. I'm not necessarily religious, though. What I believe and what I don't believe, I don't really know. But I like thinking about it and exploring it. That's kind of why I set the story of the album in the '30s, because nowadays people don't seem to slow down long enough to talk about those kinds of things.

Q: Do you come from a musical family?

A: My brother and sister always sang. My dad was a music minister, and my mom was a music teacher. And we'd do all these concerts as a family. But once they said I didn't have to do it anymore, I gave it up. I didn't do it again until college. And now, what's funny is that I'm the only one in the family who does music for a living.

Q: Were there concept albums that you loved growing up?

A: I'm a late bloomer with everything – I got into the Beatles and Zeppelin when I was in college. As far as concept albums, The Who's Quadrophenia was one of the first ones I liked. More recently there's a really good one by Richard Buckner called The Hill. Every song is named after a different person in a little village. It's awesome.

Q: How will you bring your concept album to life onstage?

A: Well, we're definitely not planning to do this show every week. We have special guest musicians coming to help us, and we want to play around with the whole "wall of sound" idea. The weirdness of the record has to be reflected in the show.

Q: You probably haven't slept much lately, right?

A: No, not at all. Especially the last few weeks, because we've been getting everything ready. But that's the way I am about things. I obsess over them. If I don't do it, who else will?

Exit 380

• CD release show Friday at 9 p.m. at the Lakewood Theater, 1825 Abrams Parkway. With Energy Williams and Opium Symphony. $10. All ages. 214-821-7469.

• Exit 380 will also play Saturday at Lola's Saloon in Fort Worth, 2736 W. 6th St. $6. 817-877-0666.

• Hear some music at myspace.com/exit380.