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Flying down a dark highway in a giant red pickup somewhere between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, drummer Kelly Kane and guitarist Dave Drouin knew they had finally found something.

It was 2002. The two Amesbury, Mass., natives were driving back from their first gig with a brand-new lineup. Six months earlier, the two met up with bassist Joe Plante, and earlier in the month, his brother, keyboardist Chris Plante joined the cause, thus creating The Brew.

Six years and several hundred shows later, The Brew is bringing their age-cured approach to jazz-influenced rock to the Pearl Street Nightclub this Saturday at 10 p.m. The show will follow moe.’s 8 p.m. performance at the Calvin Theater. It has been a long trip for the up-and-certainly-coming band, but their growing fame can be boiled down to their first true assignment as a band.

The first gig: By day it was known as the Oyster River High School cafeteria, but that night, a less-than-a-month-old band would turn that one-star dining commons into a laboratory of musical exploration with a single goal.

“All we wanted to do was express ourselves,” said Drouin, guitarist. “We wanted to create an outlet to write good music and perform it live.”

Bassist Plante was in charge of sound that night. “There was a four-foot stage and crappy reverb, but I got it up and running.” The anxious quartet went on to play a mix of Grateful Dead and Otis Redding covers, but stuck mostly to original music in front of the crowd of 10, their nervous excitement causing the tempos of their songs to race.

Pushing through the six years of music gathered like cobwebs on the mind, one thing is certain: something happened that bonded the four teenagers together that night.

“We have come along in a perfect storm for musicians,” Plante said, referring to the technological advances in music, graphic design and Internet networking. The bandmates often log 12-hour days perfecting graphics for Web sites and publicity projects. By doing all the work without outside help, the band saves money, but also assumes a huge responsibility.

“You can’t be too hard on yourself, but you have to be hard enough on yourself to keep progressing,” said Plante. Joe is often the one responsible for upholding the band’s Web site and other Internet networking sites.

When behind the comfort of their instruments, the band transforms from webmasters and graphic artists to musicians who still carry the same goal from six years earlier, making good music.

“We’re always trying to move forward, keeping ourselves and our fans on the edge,” Drouin said. “We have really progressed as songwriters.”

The band is influenced by The Beatles, The Police and Pink Floyd, but also classical musicians of the Romantic-Symphonic era, such as master orchestrator Rimsky-Korsakov. Their creation of improvisational melodies over chord changes pays homage to their love of jazz musicians like Oscar Peterson and Stanley Clarke.

The main composer of The Brew’s music, Plante, describes his style of writing as “jazz influenced, while keeping a pop sensibility.” Plante has studied piano since he was 3 years old, but if it wasn’t for a skateboard accident as a 14-years-old he may not have become the player he is now.

“I was on a halfpipe, when I really shouldn’t have been,” Plante said as he recalled breaking his leg at the beginning of the summer. In order to cheer up his house-ridden kin, Plante’s grandfather asked a friend to help Plante learn to play the drums. His friend, 30-year-old Berklee School of Music professor Wes Harris Sr., began teaching Chris the art of music.

Since that summer, two things have happened. Plante began taking music very seriously, and Mr. Harris still comes to teach him every Saturday.

Flash back to August 2006, Lowell, Mass.: The Brew takes the stage in their most memorable show as the opening act for legendary pianist Bruce Hornsby. Looking out over a sea of thousands screaming in anticipation, the band was in shock. “It was a different sound, not discerning individual claps,” Plante said of the crowd.

The show was a success. The Brew was voted “Best Opening Act” by fans at BruceHornsby.com and it was at this gig where they met future producer of their newest CD and Bruce Hornsby’s saxophonist, Bobby Reed.

The quartet went down to Reed’s studio in Virginia for several weeks this fall to record their new album “Back to the Woods,” which will be released April 5 at Harper’s Ferry in Allston, Mass.

“Simply complex,” Drouin said of the album. “A kind of kill your TV settlement, but we have our own take on it.”

There is a dual meaning in the title, says Plante. “I’ve always grown up in the boondocks and every time I go to the city, I find it chaotic. Going back to the woods is a relief. Also, it is a question of how long can we experience population growth and eventually, what is it going to take to get back to the woods?”

Of late, the band puts even more stress on the meaning of their songs. “If no one else is really getting it, what’s the point?” said Plante, who looks to steer away from pointlessly abstract material he described as “headiness for the sake of headiness.”

To emphasize their heightened sense of lyrical value, the band has also focused on perfecting their vocals. Plante takes on the majority of the lead vocal duties, but Drouin and Joe have pivotal harmonization roles. Guitarist Drouin said the band is like a patient farmer waiting for the cream to rise to the top.

“We try not to take ourselves too seriously,” Drouin said. At a show in Maine, the band played a bunch of T.V. theme songs. From watching the YouTube footage, it is truly impressive hearing “The Price is Right” done to the “t.”

Over the past few years, the band has been touring the Northeast, playing shows from Portland, to Burlington, to Boston, to New York City. The Brew comes back to the woods of Northampton at the Pearl Street Nightclub on Saturday, March 8.

Living on the road has proven to be quite the lifestyle for the band. They have had to sleep with friends’ places in addition to a number of sub-par hotels across the Northeast.

“The last hotel we stayed at was pretty nasty,” said drummer Kelly Kane. “The only place we could find was a Motor Inn. When we got in our rooms we noticed the sheets had weird blood stains or something.” There was also a mysterious hole in the wall that Kane swore had a camera on the other end. It was avoided in fear that some day they might find a poor quality fetish video on the internet with their faces attached to it, they said.

Between touring and playing, the band is often working on their media Web sites. Beyond that, there is little time for recreation, save a recent mid-tour stop at a movie theater to see Will Ferrell in “Semi-Pro.”

“The band has absorbed my life and that’s how I want it to be,” said Chris Plante.

When the band is on stage, they are in their element. The four instantly morph into seasoned musicians. With the nodding of a head and the raising of a hand, the band throws their music into overdrive, leaving the crowd to pick up the pieces, which is usually done in dancing fashion to the intricate rhythm of the music.

“Joe brings the energy with his wacky antics, Chris is the glue, Dave gives a unique look at our music and I