Drummer Joe Propatier, left, bassist-singer Joyce Raskin and guitarist-singer Chick Graning of the band Scarce.

Mark Craig

Scarce was going to rule the world. The union of guitarist-singer Chick Graning, bassist-singer Joyce Raskin and drummer Joe Propatier came out of Rhode Island with some of the best rock of the ’90s — it had the emotional immediacy of that era without the usual angst, or the reflexive color-by-numbers sunniness, or any comforting retro touches. They hit hard but relied on melody and voices. They put out the Red Sessions EP, they signed to A&M Records, they recorded the killer album Deadsexy, and they couldn’t miss.

They missed.

They went through five drummers before finding Propatier, which set back their recording. Then there were legal problems with the label of Graning’s previous band, Anastasia Screamed. More delays.

And a week before Deadsexy came out, Graning suffered a brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him. He was in a coma for several weeks and in the hospital for longer. When he got out, the band struggled on for more than a year, but the stuffing had been taken out. The release of Deadsexy had been so star-crossed that the album flopped, and the group broke up in 1997.

They’ve been back together for a year now, their first reunion recording comes out next month, and Graning and Raskin both say that the reunited Scarce is in a better place than the old one.

The catalyst for the reunion was Raskin’s book about the whole experience, Aching to Be: A Girl’s True Rock and Roll Story, which came out last year.

Raskin, who lives in Braintree, Mass., with her husband and children and worked as a graphic designer, says she wrote the book because “I guess I couldn’t let go.” Not of the dreams of stardom that eluded Scarce, Raskin says, but the way things ended.

“Everything that happened with Chick, it was very difficult to make right decisions. I was really young — Chick was really young too, but I was really really young, and we had this record that had to come out, and all the decision-making was on me, and I guess I didn’t handle it too well.”

The popular story is that Graning had to learn to play guitar all over again; he says that’s not true. He had to look at the disc cover to remember his lyrics, but that was all. “I was only close to destroyed,” he says now; “I wasn’t totally destroyed.”

“He needed time to get his emotions back,” Raskin says. “It was amazing — his physical motor skills were all there, but he couldn’t feel anything. I guess that’s what the brain does to heal its body.”

Scarce was back on the road a month after Graning came out of the hospital. There was an album to promote, after all. It may have seemed courageous at the time, but Raskin sees it differently.

“I think it was courageous for Chick, but I think it was horrible. I know I treated him horribly, because I was angry and upset and confused. And he was confused. It was a mixture of things. But it just wasn’t right, and I knew it, but it took me about a year to act on it. In retrospect, I think I felt ill the whole time.”

Raskin describes her dilemma at the time: “ ‘If I walk away, am I destroying Chick’s dream? And if I stay, am I destroying where he is now?’ And it was tough, but in the end I wish I had said ‘Let’s just take a year off. Let Chick decide; it’s his decision.’ And it turns out, he needed more than a year — a couple of years really. Although he may tell you otherwise. But he’s so much the better for it, and I feel like I am, too.”

The band broke up in 1997 after Deadsexy didn’t light up the charts. “It barely came out,” Raskin says now.

“When I walked away, I realized that Chick needed time. And no one was giving it to him, including myself. And I think for a long time afterwards, it bothered me, the way I handled it. So the whole adventure of writing this book, I felt like I had to put it down to let it go. But it ended up taking me years.”

When she finished the manuscript, she called Graning. They hadn’t spoken for about five years.

“I called Chick and said, (in a tremulous voice) ‘I’m writing a book about us, and I want to make sure you’re OK with it.’ And I also said, ‘I wanted to call you and say that I’m sorry.’ I really wanted to say that to him, because, you know, he almost died. And nobody seemed to grasp that fact. And it was a miracle that he came back, but he couldn’t just jump back into that role that everyone was trying to put him in.

“I think there was a lot of hurt and anger there, but he was happy to talk.” She says he told her he would have made the same decisions. “There were a lot of factors,” she says, “and in the end I think I made the right decisions, but I think I could have handled it better and communicated better. “

It didn’t take long for Raskin and Graning to talk about getting back together. Graning, who lives in Allston and works in a metal shop, recalls thinking, “I never thought I’d get to play with this band again,” but says, “We both warmed to the idea of getting something together again.”

Raskin says she isn’t surprised that they clicked back together. “The band ended really because of his brain hemorrhage, not because we didn’t have more to do.”

They played their first reunion show last October at TT the Bear’s, in Allston, and their first new recording since Deadsexy comes out digitally next month. The five-song EP Heaven, Tattoos and Parades (parts of which can be heard online at www.myspace.com/ scarcetheband) doesn’t exactly pick up where Scarce left off — it’s more like what they’d be doing now if they had never stopped.

The voices entwine as they always did, and there’s a renewed emphasis on melody and structure. Graning says that the new songs were written on acoustic guitars rather than in full-on electric mode, and they sound like it.

In between editions of Scarce, Graning says, his gigs included a weekly acoustic show in the French Quarter of New Orleans when he lived there, and “I kind of got into it. The fewer things you’ve got going on, the better the singing is.”

Raskin says, “We have this freedom that we probably wouldn’t have had if Deadsexy had done well, or even really come out at all. I feel like I was so insecure, I would have been like, ‘We have to keep it the same!,’ and everyone was like, ‘You have to do it exactly this way!’ Now we can experiment and we’re taking it in different directions. . . . It’s nice to not feel so desperate. I think we felt very desperate at times.”

While the massive tours are a thing of the past, Raskin adds that “we enjoy playing. And it’s definitely nice that it’s not our day job anymore.”

“It’s been neat,” Raskin says, “how this book has healed a lot of things. I’ve had a lot of people call me and say, ‘I didn’t know you were feeling that way.’ ”

As for whether the legendary onstage energy of Scarce’s live shows is still there, Graning says, “I don’t know; it’s about the same. I don’t even remember what I’ve done when I’m up there, so I couldn’t tell you really.”

That energy didn’t come from anger or repressed fear; it came from having fun. And Raskin and Graning say that that’s truer now than ever.

“It feels like it did in the beginning to me,” Raskin says, “which is why I wanted to do it and why I missed it. It’s fun, and we missed that toward the end.”

And they’re reclaiming the band for themselves.

“You have to,” Graning says. “Because it was a valuable thing to us all. And you have to find the things that are valuable to you and get them.”

Tomorrow night, Joyce Raskin reads from Aching to Be and Scarce plays an acoustic show at Books on the Square, 471 Angell St., Providence, at 7 p.m. Call (401) 331-9097. Then the band heads to The Blackstone, 1005 Main St., Pawtucket, for a show that begins at 10:30; call (401) 726-2181.

Sarah Potenza started out in Providence and headed to Chicago to start Sarah and the Tall Boys, where they hit the good old country-rock, with an emphasis on country and on Potenza’s outsized, pin-you-to-the-wall vocal chops. They’re coming back to Rhode Island to celebrate Potenza’s wedding (which will be Saturday), and they play tonight at the Green Room, 145 Clifford St., Providence, at 8. Admission is $5; call (401) 351-7665.

Johnny Maestro and Brooklyn Bridge bring the ’60s vocal pop (think they’ll do “The Worst That Could Happen”? I think so) to the Stadium Theatre, Monument Square, Main Street, Woonsocket. Kings Row opens, and they know how to purvey that lovely pre-psychedelic pop as well. Tickets range from $30 to $40; call (401) 762-4545 or go to www.stadiumtheatre.com.

Nas’s Untitled is a strong contender for hip-hop record of the year, loaded with soulful samples and an uncompromising political and humanistic lyrical viewpoint. If you don’t believe my ears, or even yours, see the man for yourself tomorrow night at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, 79 Washington St., Providence, at 9:30. Tickets are $40 in advance, $45 the day of the show or $47.50 for reserved seating. Call (401) 331-5876. “From pyramids to cotton fields to Wrigley Fields . . .”

White Lies is entering a national contest in which bands post live video on the Internet for a chance to open for Motley Crue, and they’re filming at Mardi Gras, 1500 Oaklawn Ave., tomorrow night at 8 p.m. Show up and shout!

rmassimo@projo.com