A sure bet to make some livers quiver and initiate some restless leg syndrome, Automatic Hotel will play its propulsive brand of rock Saturday night at Sans Souci in Ventura.

Named for a surreal adventure once upon a time in France, the band has survived the downside of Rock Star 101 as well as the dive bar tour in Ventura (so far) and is back for more.

Fronted by Michael Henry, the band has a pair of albums. "Firefly," the first one, includes a great cover of "Brown Eyed Girl"; "When Your Door Stands Open" came out in 2006 and has the band's download hit, "You Can Be a Rainbow."

Well, no, you can't, but despite that, the band plays on. The current lineup ably assisting Henry includes Jeffrey Barber on drums, Brian McCallion on guitar and Dee2 on tambourine and backing vocals. Henry discussed his favorite band recently.

What's the latest in your band world?

Well, we're getting ready to make our next album. We're very excited because the songs seem to be better than anything we've ever written. We hope to have the third one out by fall.

How did all this get started?

We started the band in 2001 in France.

Wow, that's before we officially hated the French; there's got to be a story in there somewhere.

Jeff and I were backpacking across Europe and we'd been talking about starting a band. We came up with the name after getting lost somewhere in France, trying to find a village with a hotel. It took us like 18 hours to find a place, and when we did, it was locked but there was a machine outside the building that looked like it took credit cards. We swiped the card and some choices came up in French, and this key opened up the main door of the hotel. We went up this narrow, dark hallway and found our floor and our room because the room number was on the key. We never saw a soul; it was really weird — no staff, no lobby. I said, "Dude, we're staying in an automatic hotel, and wouldn't that be a great name for the band?"

And after crossing the ocean ?

We opened for the Black Eyed Peas at the House of Blues — we had a big fan base and were doing really well, making a lot of money. We got signed right after "Firefly" came out. But drug abuse kind of destroyed everything, so I've made several attempts to make a comeback and we think this is finally it.

How does a band get signed in L.A. after one album? Everyone wants to know that.

We decided to go with SDS Records, a small, indie label, but the band broke up because of all the drugs and drama. The label said they signed me for my music and voice, so we hired a band and I did the vocals. I think it was a good album but would've been stronger if I had my band. The next album will be everyone that's in the band now, and that's why it's going to be really powerful.

Any Sans Souci stories that we can repeat in a family newspaper?

We have this one song that's kind of like a ballad, but not really a ballad — like Coldplay but more mellow — and the crowd was really into it. We had the whole place packed. Then a girl fight started in the center of the room, and the boyfriends decided to get involved and it became this huge brawl. So I stopped playing and we started to call for security. By the time peace was restored, something like 12 people had been kicked out of the club.

What does your musical Hotel sound like?

I think we're melodic rock with a punk edge. We're a little bit like the Foo Fighters, but nobody really has a comparison — everyone thinks we're very original sounding. Sometimes we like to put a little '80s rock feel into it, but just enough to be cool and not enough to be considered a throwback.

As part of the dream or plan, do you have to play in L.A.?

We have fans in Los Angeles because we started out in L.A. and that's where we played a lot of big shows — House of Blues, the El Rey and Key Club. We were doing well, packing all of our shows, but then we all moved to Ventura. I'm from L.A. but I've been living in Ventura for over two years now. Now we don't feel like driving to L.A. except once maybe every few months.

And the plan is?

The immediate goal is the new album, and we've had a couple of movie producers contact us about using our music in their films. We do a cover of "Brown Eyed Girl;" it's really popular and sells like crazy. Every month we get a check from CD Baby from the sales of that song. It's not big money because you're selling these things for nickels and dimes, but it's something, and I heard it's getting played in a couple of Irish pubs. You know, I don't care about the big giant dream — the big, huge "whatever" — I just want to be able to live and pay my bills and have some security.

On the Net:

http://www.automatichotel.com