The Moline-based hard rockabilly trio The Afterdarks is a testament to drive, both literally and figuratively.

The band is on the road as long as five hours in a single night to get to a gig on a Friday, plays until 3 a.m., spends the night in a motel — or, just as often, a rest stop — and gets back on the road for its next show on Saturday.

And then they’re back in town by Sunday night. (Two-thirds of the band members work the graveyard shift.)

“I think we’re probably the only band in the Quad-Cities that’s ever been to Memphis and back in a weekend,” guitar player-singer Jacob “Dr. Nasty” Cowan said. “And go back to work on Monday.”

“We give up our weekends. We all work full-time jobs,” bass player-singer Joe “Papa Darkness” Robertson said as the band enjoyed a Sunday night breakfast at a Moline eatery.

The band is on the road throughout Illinois and extending into Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and other states throughout the Midwest.

Yet the band tries to play only once every other month in the Quad-Cities.

“It’s good because we don’t get overplayed,” drummer Tony “Smokehaus” Johnson said. “We’re not looked at as a house band or something. But it’s frustrating when we play Memphis or Louisville, Kentucky or somewhere way out in the United States and people (here) say, ‘Oh, you’re in a band.’ ”

The Afterdarks will get some local attention Friday night when they debut their album “Blood Sweat & Gears” at the Rock Island Brewing Co.

The album is the band’s seventh, a 31-track compilation of remixed and re-recorded songs from its first albums.

While the previous albums were self-released on recordable CDs that cost only $1 to make and sold for $3, the newest took several months to record and perfect.

“I listen to it and I don’t cringe. That says something, right?” Robertson said.

The songs improved from their initial recording, which was done after mere weeks of practice.

“You’re bound to get better at them. It’s being more comfortable as a band performing that stuff,” Johnson said.

“We never really had time to finesse the song, so to speak,” Robertson said.

The album also could provide an entry point for a larger audience, with the band also having hopes of being able to tour.

Robertson is the lone original member of the Afterdarks, which formed in 2003. Cowan joined in November 2005 and Johnson a year later.

Hesitant to use one or two words to describe their sound, the band members call it harder than rockabilly, yet not as intense as the punk hybrid known as psychobilly.

“It all depends on the listener, what they take from it,” Robertson said.

The three members share a love for the mid-1950s and its music.

“We love the style, we love the cars, we love the music,” Robertson said. “We’re just trying to take it into a new era.”

“It’s the lost episodes of being American,” Johnson said.

The band knows it already has an age range of fans, from an elderly bar owner in Indiana who kept slapping down $20 bills until they would do an encore to their MySpace Web site teenage fans who lament that the Afterdarks’ performances aren’t for all ages.

“As far as good rock ‘n’ roll and good American music for people to listen to,” Johnson said, “it’s hard for people not to appreciate what we do.”