Dayve Hawk is a complex character. He never learned how to drive and doesn't care to; actually his crippling social anxiety doesn't allow it. While living in Philadelphia a few years ago with his girlfriend, he never left the apartment from Monday to Friday. Hawk would just wait the week out while she studied art at Moore College and he wrote some of the songs that he'd apply to Hail Social a few years later. But before that band could form and flesh out Hawk's songs with local producer Brian McTear, Hawk had to get out of the house and past what he calls "a wild, dark period."

"He lives a peculiarly isolated life," explains McTear. "I don't think too many people in the world will get the opportunity to have a few minutes with him and realize how incredibly real he is."

After living in the city for a year, Hawk moved back to his parents' house in the rural, wooded area of Shamong, N.J. He then made the first crucial step in transitioning from a tortured, bedroom-ridden solo artist to fronting a band that opened for Interpol. On his 21st birthday, Hawk finally got his first job, straightening shelves on the night crew of Whole Foods in Marlton, N.J., a half-hour outside of Philadelphia.

"It was pretty amazing the guy gave me a job," says Hawk, speaking from Shamong, where he still lives. "I was real different then — kind of a head case and introverted, just real hard to talk to."

The first person able to break through Hawk's frail, guarded exterior (with some patience and persistence) was Hail Social drummer Matt Maraldo. He worked in the produce section and became fascinated with Hawk from the moment he met him — even though, or maybe because, Hawk would walk by Maraldo, eyes focused forward, every time Maraldo said hi.

"He was the opposite of me: this ambitious drummer kid who went to school for music [at the University of the Arts] and wanted to be in a big band," says Hawk. "For some reason, he pursued me pretty bravely."

Hawk eventually shared his songwriting with Maraldo. He wouldn't sing at first, though; he'd just play song skeletons on his guitar. Once he got past some of the shyness, Hawk played fully recorded demos, but again became discouraged when Maraldo deemed the material "too weird for the public."

"It was an awkward beginning," explains Hawk. "At the time, I was writing R&B-ish music, like Curtis Mayfield mixed with the indie rock thing that is inevitably going to come from a white kid in the suburbs."

It was promising more than off-putting, though, so Maraldo insisted they start a band. Bassist Dan Henry was invited over to rehearse first, but Hawk chose to have a lesser-skilled friend play instead, in hopes of creating a comfort zone. But once that bassist moved, Henry was brought back in, along with touring guitarist Richie Roxas. In the beginning, Hawk would share the riffs and vocals of his songs as they developed, but again would be met with a "this is weird" reaction. After enough days of visible frustration, Hawk decided to demo everything at home, play rough mixes for the band, and rehearse them as a group. Finally, the situation worked, in part because of Hawk's focus on the rhythm section.

"Matt is a great drummer and Dan is a great bassist, so I'd start with a beat or bass line, and base the songs around that," says Hawk. "It's a weird combination, though — to have people who are technically good, but not have the ego thing of "I don't want to play the shit that you write.'"

Hawk refers to his bandmates as his "only friends, really," although he says it took a few years for him to become comfortable both with them and the idea of being in a band. And with that comfort came the drive to start sending out demos last spring. Two key people liked what they heard. One was Philadelphia native Brandon Schmidt, who just happens to be Interpol's manager. Hawk sent him a CD-R after playing a show with TV on the Radio and The Occasion, the latter of which struck Hawk as a "perfect fit." Some convincing was needed, however, because the introverted Hawk (he listens to Boards of Canada and Black Sabbath more than anything) had never even heard Interpol.

"It's really a romantic story of being in the right place at the right time," says Schmidt. "I don't know why I liked it, but it stayed in my CD player for two weeks, so there was obviously something special about it."

Schmidt invited Hail Social to open Interpol's tour with Secret Machines last fall. But before they could leave for the road, they set out to pull an actual record out of Hawk's head. Which brings us to McTear, the other key demo breakthrough for the band. Once again, Hawk and his mates were only vaguely aware of the producer's reputation (McTear has worked with Matt Pond PA, The Bigger Lovers and The Capitol Years).

"As I was listening to their demos online, I really felt like I shouldn't let them slip through," says McTear. "Then when Matt and Dayve came to the studio, I was really impressed by their friendship. It just seemed like something that would be nice to be part of. We did the whole thing in 11 days. They had waited over a year before that."

Though the songs had incubated for years, the sound they arrived at will be familiar to any fan of Franz Ferdinand or the numerous other supposed "dance rock" acts. Meaning critics will likely classify it as "groove-oriented" and "inspired by Gang of Four." However, songs such as "Get in the Car" and "Feeling Is Wrong" are too minimalist and dark to fit such a description. After speaking to Hawk and seeing Hail Social open a show at the Mercury Lounge in NYC, it's clear he honestly is wary of the frontman role. If it were up to him, he would ship his songs from his bedroom to the world. Conversely, bands like The Bravery, The Killers and Interpol are coolly detached to the point of appearing oddly assertive and hypersexual — think Morrissey (Mr. Abstinence) crossed with Ian Curtis (Mr. Depression/Damn Good Dancer).

"There is the antsiness of Matt on the drums, the starkness of Dayve in front, and Richie and Dan hanging in between," says McTear. "How they are on stage is exactly how they are all the time."

McTear also brings up their spacious sound, which is sparse to the point that you feel every bass line and, especially, the centralized drum beat. Tracking this to tape proved to be challenging, since there "can't be any weak spots." But it led to a lean, tightly woven whole, none of which sounds retro or premeditated.

"If Hail Social is in danger of one thing, it is being thrown out with the rest of the genre they play in, which is 99 percent bullshit," says McTear. "When I see or hear most of those bands, I picture the moment they were sitting in their practice space and someone said, "We should totally do a Gang of Four meets Joy Division thing — nobody's doing that.' Flash forward a few years and you realize how many people had the same idea at the same time."

"We're not chilling at home, thinking, "We gotta come off like Gang of Four,'" says Hawk. "We're more like, "We gotta be like Iron-fucking-Maiden!'"

"Hands Are Tied" and a few other songs do in fact have a subdued sense of metal riffs, and the album's skull artwork is quite Maiden-esque, but on the whole, Hail Social's debut is simply a quality listen with an unavoidable backbeat — the kind of catchy but sinister sound you want to hear when it's 1 in the morning, you're on hour nine of a long drive and falling asleep at the wheel is becoming a possibility. Don't expect the same aesthetic on the next record, though. Hawk already has half of it recorded and it features noisier guitars, less bass, the implementation of synths, and "spaced-out, slower songs, next to ones that are danceable like Michael Jackson." Whether or not their label, Polyvinyl Records (Of Montreal, Mates of State, current touring mates Rainer Maria), takes to the change is of no one's concern, though, as the band signed a one-record contract, something Hawk was adamant about. (Negotiations went on from last fall to this past spring partly because of that stipulation.)

"Hail Social might do good things in the way of redefining Polyvinyl's [indie pop] profile, but I can assure you that's not even remotely where Dayve's head is," says McTear.

"I'm totally aware that the music on this record is part of something that is going on right now, or going on a year ago," adds Hawk. "So if we can do it without coming off as fashionable or artificial, that's an upside. I don't feel like we're a part of that whole thing, but I also don't want to sit around trying to prove we aren't. I just want to make my music."

Hail Social plays Sun., Aug. 28, 7:30 p.m., $10, with Rainer Maria and Denison Witmer, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St., www.r5productions.com.