TULSA — When you describe your music as "red dirt but dirtier," you know you have to name the band something like Badwater.

The Tahlequah-area band has made a name for itself by playing Muskogee and Tahlequah, but it's branching out now to Arkansas, Texas and Missouri.

"In Tahlequah, pople have grown to kind of know our originals, so we could probably get away with playing all originals," Bobby Wayne, the band's lead guitarist and vocalist, said. "But if we travel around, we have to work in the crowd favorites."

Badwater's success can be laid directly at the feet of the fans, he said.

"The main thing we concentrate on is we just try to make sure everybody has a good time, we try to get crowd participation, we try to get people involved and people on stage," Wayne said.

The band's drummer, Micahel Fitch, agreed.

"We respond more to the crowd's response," he said. "We mostly feed off the crowd's energy and when we don't get the energy, we do our best to bring it out."

When the band started out about three years ago, Wayne had a goal to play the Cain's Ballroom.

"We played there a couple of times," he said. "We just go through recently opening up for a couple of major acts. We opened up for Aaron Tippins and we opened up for Bad Company."

That experience has spurred the band on and encouraged it to work on its original music.

Meeting and performing with artists who had "made it," helps the band develop its own style. Performing with local legend Randy Crouch hasn't hurt either.

"It's good to see someone like that on stage. He brings a vibe that's really good," Fitch said. "I guess you have to be a musician to understand that."

The band's newest CD, "Straight From The Tap," is scheduled to be out early next year. The band's first CD, "Southern Purified" can be purchased at their shows.

It doesn't matter to the band how many people attend a show as long as the audience is enjoying it.

"Everytime we come out to a different place, even if there's 10 or 500 people there, we try to put on the same show because those people paid their hard money to come out and watch a band and we're gonna give them what they came for," Wayne said. "The loyal fans that see show after show after show, if you don't give them something new, they're going to say, 'Hey, I've already seen that show.'"