Quite often, a band’s live show will be nothing more than a carbon copy of its recordings:rhythms, choruses and leads performed exactly the same gig after gig, town after town.

Indianapolis’ Fancy Lizards do not subscribe to this philosophy.

Guitarist Albert William said the Lizards’ music, constructed in traditional rock form, leaves a lot of room open for jazz-influenced improvisation.

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A lot of our songs have a jam-type feel to them, he said. We have a lot of places where we do improvisational leads. There are places for our bass player to jam, too.

In addition to the traditional twin guitars, bass and drums, the Fancy Lizards include George Handlon on harmonica and vocals and Lenen Nicola on percussion.

With all the instruments going on, there’s a lot of room for improvisation and we play off of each other quite a bit, he said.

The improvisation has led to a lot of comparisons with a San Francisco band initialed G.D. (no, not Green Day), along with the Allman Brothers and Santana, William said.

We have the spirituality of the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers in the way we jam and look at song structures as being negotiable, he said.

William said all the players collaborate in the writing process to produce the songs, which sometimes take a while to germinate from the seed of a riff or vocal to the flower of a final product.

A lot of times, I’ll sit down with the singer, he said. He’ll come to me with lyrics or an idea for a song, or he’ll work off a progression I already have. We’ll take it to the band and work on it. Sometimes, it works real quick and sometimes, it takes three or four months to get a song ready for the crowd.

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Although the band members are continuing to work their professional jobs and training (drummer Ed Simcox is currently in law school), William said the 3 1/2-year-old band has built a large following in Indianapolis, slowly but surely decreasing the need for the day jobs since the Lizards play around the Midwest three times a week.

The Fancy Lizards plays its first Carbondale show at 9:45 tonight at Hangar 9, 511 S. Illinois Ave. Cover is $2.