Hunger headquarters is located off I-45 near Hobby Airport, just a few exits beyond the southernmost curve of 610. On a weeknight after rush hour, getting there makes for an eerie, soulless excursion into the city's nether regions. Once off the highway, you pass a hyper-illuminated go-cart track, the weirdly antiseptic Southeast Church of Christ and an ominous string of darkened, half-empty rental car lots. You also should see the Drury Inn, temporary home to Beau Hill, producer of Cinematic Superthug, the Hunger's upcoming major-label release. On it, the band plays surprisingly affable techno-metal; think Metallica with a beat box and a weakness for sunny pop choruses.

Though the full album is due in stores on March 24, Superthug's first single, the catchy anti-booze diatribe "Moderation," was shipped to radio last week. Already it has been picked up by more than 25 stations nationwide.

It's a good omen for an outfit that learned early to work for everything and expect nothing. Certainly, the Hunger -- whose members all grew up in and around Houston -- have held firmly to that philosophy when it comes to their hometown. Their connection to the local music scene has always been, well, tenuous.

"We did things a little differently," says the Hunger's Jeff Wilson. "A lot of the Inner Loop bands just despised us."

Wilson founded the Hunger in 1989 with his older brother Thomas and childhood pal Brian Albritton. The band was strictly an electronic ensemble, with the two siblings on keyboards and vocals and Albritton on bass. Since then, the group has evolved into a more organic, riff-reliant heavy-rock act, with dwindling high-tech trappings. Last year's Devil Thumbs a Ride, the Hunger's debut on Universal/MCA, offered the first incontrovertible proof that the group wasn't merely an animated, longhaired version of Front 242 with a live drummer. That album's minor hit, "Vanishing Cream," had many listeners confusing the group with Alice in Chains, and much of the remainder of the release confirmed the Hunger's excursion into guitar-driven territory.

During that transformation, the Hunger gained two members -- producer/guitarist Stephen Bogle and drummer Max Schuldberg -- and lost not a one. Such consistency goes against the grain of the Houston scene, where groups seem to lose members, break up or reconfigure overnight. But then, the Hunger was never really welcome in that clique to begin with.

"This kind of sums up the situation: We played Milwaukee seven times one year; we played Houston twice in the same year," Thomas Wilson explains. "We just took another route."

Adds Schuldberg, "We've always thought large-scale. If Houston doesn't like us, fuck it. We've got ten other cities, and we move on."

The Hunger's tidy home office on the city's outskirts is as indicative of the band's detachment from the Houston scene as it is symbolic of their tenacity and work ethic. The cramped but well-organized sanctuary is a constant reminder of the day in 1992 when the Hunger decided it was time to get off their duffs and get serious. The front area serves as the band's business office, and it's stocked with all the necessities: a telephone, phone books, music industry directories, a computer, a fax machine. The elder Wilson recalls a day when his brother Jeff practically "dated that fax machine."

"We got rejection letters from a lot of labels back then," Thomas remembers. "We weren't ready to be signed."

Just beyond that first room is a larger practice space, which is jammed with equipment. When all that hardware is put to use, the volume generated easily drowns out the jets overhead making their descent into Hobby.

The Hunger's universe is remarkably controlled and self-contained. Even the trailer that carries the group's equipment when they're on the road is parked just outside, and they continue to crisscross the country in a van. Despite the success of Devil Thumbs a Ride -- which was due, in large part, to the group's incessant touring -- there are no chartered Trailways buses in their immediate future.

It's in the front office that the members of the Hunger assemble for this, their first major interview with the Press. The dearth of local media attention afforded the band over the years should come as a shock, considering the band is Houston's lone modern-rock success story. As if to underscore that point, three large plaques the group received as repeat winners in the Press Music Awards hang on the wall above a couch where three Hunger members sit. Obviously, someone is listening.