The Drunk Stuntmen are taking it easier these days: They’re only playing between 100 and 150 gigs a year, says lead singer Steve Sanderson, whereas in 2002 they hit the stage 200 times.

More muscular Southern-rock than a jam band and more country-rock than The Allman Brothers, the Massachusetts-based Stuntmen seem like they inhabit a natural intersection of forms — “All those genres just need a band to tie them together,” Sanderson says — but don’t fall into an easy niche. As such, they have almost as little use for the record-label hustle as it has for them. They’ve been together for 15 years and put out four albums on their own, and Sanderson says that for that track record to change, something in the dynamic would have to change. And it won’t be them.

“Not since right around 2000 had I really bothered with them, because the music industry is in such upheaval that who knows where it’s going to land? Not to mention that no one I knew was getting a good deal . . . unless they had put in 10 years and had three or four decent albums of a back catalog already. So I figured we’d just wait, and keep putting out good records and keep touring.”

The latest Stuntmen record, Trailer Life, mixes the elements of Southern rock, jam-band music and Americana with such rockers as the crunching “Clear Channel” and the loping “Get to the Wine,” as well as sweet ballads such as “Made of Wood” and “Bus Back to Birmingham.”

The live show is the centerpiece of the Stuntmen’s grand plan, and as such they go where the work is, mainly in the Southeast, although there are pockets of fandom in western and eastern Massachusetts, the San Francisco area and Holland.

“We eliminated gigs that weren’t really cutting it,” Sanderson says. “We got a lot better gigs, we decided to make the show a little more special per gig, and decided to stick to a few different regions that we were really strong in and just work those hard.”

If you’re going where the work is, why not live where the work is?

There are “some negotiations going on about our next record,” Sanderson says, and that might lead to the band relocating to North Carolina, at least for the winter months. But he’s got no illusions.

“If it doesn’t fit into a package, [they say] ‘I don’t want to mess with that; that’s too much work. I don’t know how to promote it; I don’t know how to market it.’ But if you do all the work for them, then the negotiations will possibly become easier, after putting 10 or 15 years into it,” he says with a laugh.

“. . . We’re going to demo [the new record] in two weeks. There are a couple of people waiting for it — I’m going to give them a couple of weeks, and then I’m going to make the record myself.”

So the Stuntmen soldier on, building a live audience and a record-buying market one show at a time and filling in the touring gaps with side jobs — “nothing serious, nothing we can’t leave. . . .

“You go out there and you just start with a $50 gig if you’re lucky. And you connect with . . . people who still like original music and will still take a chance on a band they don’t know. And you just grow from there. And they start talking, they tell their friends.”

It’s an old-fashioned way of doing it, as the nightclub business takes more and more hits all the time. “It can still work,” Sanderson says, “but it seems to get harder every year. . . . What are we going to do? I guess we’ll busk if all the clubs go away.”

Theirs is not the easiest way to make a living. Original Stuntmen Sanderson, bassist Scott Brandon and guitarist Alex Johnson are still in the group, and drummer Dave Durst and keyboardist Scott Hall have been in for a few years, but original member Terry Flood left recently, Sanderson says.

“I’m worn out myself,” he admits. “Every time we make a little money, we have to invest it back into comforts these days. I used to be able to just sleep on a floor or a porch or in somebody’s backyard. And now I need a hotel room. I just can’t do it.”

At 37, Sanderson says, “I’m not so dumb that I’m not going to say there won’t be an end to it, but they’ll probably have to take the pick out of my cold, dead hands. . . .

“You’ve got to be stubborn. You’ve got to be a little dumb, you’ve got to be really tough.”

The Drunk Stuntmen play at the Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St., Fall River, tomorrow night. Admission is $12 in advance, $14 the day of the show. Call (508) 324-1926.

The Celebrity Club was a hotspot for jazz and blues in Rhode Island, particularly in the ‘50s, and plenty of local and national stars played there. The glory days of the club will be recounted in a documentary being produced by Norman Grant and Tom Shaker, and clips from that film will be shown as part of a celebration on Sunday at the Hi-Hat, 3 Davol Square, Providence, at 3:30 p.m. In addition to the film footage, there will be a performance by Celebrity Club all-stars such as Randy Ashe, Duke Belaire, Art Hazard, Red MacDonald, Bob Petteruti and Al Wilson; a slide show of rare photos from the era and a panel discussion on “The Celebrity Club’s Role in Jazz History” led by Steve Kass. Admission is free, and there’ll be a lot to learn about the classic era of Rhode Island jazz.

rmassimo@projo.com