In the case of Fort Wayne’s own Northern Kind, all of the above are true. Even the Prince thing is valid on an additional level, as the Summit City-based power trio knows a thing or two or three about funk-infused rock n’roll. This would seem like a good time to offer a more in-depth description of the band’s sound, but according to the list of questions complied by Toaster, 32, and his bandmates Vince Stringfield, 22, and Bill Mramer, 23, on this late-summer afternoon, we’ve got a few other items to attend to first here in Toaster’s living room.

“First question: What do you do in the band?” Toaster says before answering himself. “Our response is Vince is the singer, songwriter and guitarist; Bill is bass and seeker. He’s always just looking.”

“He always provides the fun and the love, if you know what I mean,” Stringfield says.

“I’m in charge of drums and promotions,” says Toaster, a one-time break dancer who can still pop, spin and perform the Centipede on request.

The short-time Jackie Fly drummer admits that band promotion can be as complex as a hip-hop dance routine task. Northern Kind’s simple, grass-roots promotional efforts should prove as effective as its stripped-down, high-energy sound. Besides plastering the town with enough flyers to keep the local neighborhood Kinko’s cranking for a month, Toaster feels that personal contact should connect potential fans to the Northern Kind of original music.

“I get out and about a lot and hopefully we’ll all get out and about and see a lot of bands on a regular basis throughout the week and personally let people know what we’re up to,” Toaster says.

“A lot of it is word of mouth,” Stringfield confirms.

“This town’s original music scene is still growing, so word of mouth does a lot,” Mramer says. “Maybe in five years it won’t be like that. It might be like a pay-to-play thing.”

Anybody looking to join as a fourth member of Northern Kind would probably have to pay for the opportunity to play in the band. The three musicians imply that fate may have drawn them together while a particularly sticky karmic glue holds them in place. Thinking that a second guitarist would fill out their sound, the guys were disappointed with the results when they explored that option.

“It totally screwed up the dynamics,” Mramer says.

“It’s not that he wasn’t capable of doing it,” Toaster says. “He was playing everything well. It was just that we got together and found that as a three-piece — just the three of us — it is much more dynamic. It seems like that second guitar was doing a little more to muddy things up than it was enhancing. It was taking more away.”

“When it’s the three of us doing it, we all do our job the best,” Stringfield says. “That’s what Northern Kind is pretty much all about. With the fourth person, we were limiting his capabilities to what he does and he was pretty much just a robot for the band.”

“The way we come up with our songs, it didn’t leave him free to just come up with something,” Toaster says. “The robot comment means that Russ had to play a certain thing and wasn’t able to, didn’t have the freedom to just come up with his own thing.”

“I’d say that this is a tribute to Vince’s guitar style,” Mramer says. “When he writes a song, he writes it complete. He plays lead and rhythm at the same time.”

So basically he’s Eddie Van Halen, I casually observe.

“No way,” Stringfield says with a big laugh. “Not to that extent. I can play and sing. That’s about it.”

Stringfield and the guys later deliver the goods live for this journalist during an impromptu basement jam. When Northern Kind promises a stripped-down, “real” sound, they’re not just flapping their gums in the northern wind. Between Stringfield’s guitar set-up and Mramer’s bass rig, there was not a single effects box to be found. Add in Toaster’s drums done up in Looney Tunes wallpaper and you can’t get any more real — which gets us to the point on the list when we can describe the band’s musical sound.

“We phrased it as ‘energetic, emotional, original funk rock,’ “ Toaster says, going on to say that some have likened their sound to “Black Crowes-Chili Peppers.”

It’s funk rock but they’re not forgetting the rock.

“Not at all. Not at all,” Stringfield says. “Rock’s the main part of it.”

But sometimes funk rock bands have a tendency to forget the rock a little bit, I warn the guys.

“Yeah. And they end up not sounding as good as they could be,” Mramer says defiantly.

“It’s the funk in your face,” Stringfield says. “That’s the rock part. It’s just bam! We’re a three piece, this is what we do.”

The current life of Northern Kind is actually the second coming of the band. Having reactivated about six months ago, the band originally formed some 18 months back, with Mramer and Stringfield at the core of a four-piece unit before hooking up with Toaster. The first union with Toaster was short-lived though, resulting in the drummer leaving Northern Kind before joining up with Jackie Fly. Toaster doesn’t regret the moves he made.

“What made me leave these guys was that the timing wasn’t right,” Toaster says. “I think everything in life that seems right happens due to timing, the right time. And it just wasn’t the right time for me to be with these guys. It was a good time for me to meet them, though.”

“We had to grow up a lot,” Mramer says.”

“We all had to grow a little bit,” Toaster says. “As we were parting ways, that’s when the opportunity for Jackie Fly came up for me so I took it. I think that time — the time we had apart and the time I spent with Jackie Fly and these guys together with another drummer — made all three of us grow tremendously. I learned a lot of things from Jackie Fly, and I think these guys learned a lot of things trying to play with another drummer and another guitarist. So we all just kind of grew up a little bit in that time period.”

All grown up and ready to jam, Northern Kind has rocked the houses at Legends and Columbia Street West since the reformation. The band has also recently crafted a three-song demo at Soundmill Recording Studios. The material should be included in a planned full-length Northern Kind CD, Toaster says. Until that comes together, the band plans to play out as much as possible, throughout the midwest and beyond as well as around town. The three kind buds will also spend some time at the links.

“I suck,” Stringfield says. “I’m a hacker. I just started playing.”

“Just like everybody else, once you pick up a club and get out there on that green and you hear the birds chirping and stuff. It’s addictive,” Toaster muses.

“I’m not allowed to not wear my hat when I go golfing with Bill at the Pine Valley Country Club,” Stringfield admits. “I’m not allowed to be seen with my hair like this.”

“We golf for free there, so it’s cool,” Mramer says. “I work there.”

So it’s kind of like Caddyshack, I say, stating the obvious.