NEW YORK — Getting a straight answer about anything music-related from the four scraggly space cowboys in Beachwood Sparks is as difficult as not spilling the bong water with a blindfold on. I’m sitting with the Los Angeles–based band backstage at the Beacon Theatre, a grand old hall that looks as if it had been on close speaking terms with each and every Allman Brother, a few hours before the Sparks are scheduled to warm up the capacity crowd that has gathered to dull its post–September 11 shock with the Black Crowes’ benign boogie. (The two bands will appear this Tuesday and Wednesday at the Orpheum.)

The Sparks, for their part, seem mainly interested in last night’s leftover Coronas, which are floating forlornly in a banged-up cooler in the middle of the cramped dressing room. I can’t say I didn’t expect a scene like this: Once We Were Trees (Sub Pop), the band’s fine new album, is a freewheeling conflation of cracked country lullabies and tripped-out psychedelic atmospheres. Most trainspotters connect the sound to ’60s West Coast trailblazer Gram Parsons, who, with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and his own solo recordings, was instrumental in creating a ’60s brand of roots rock he himself dubbed "Cosmic American Music." Although the Sparks are probably tired of the comparison, it’s an apt one. Like Parsons, they play country music the way a rock band would, using a standard guitar/bass/drums set-up (plus a generous helping of whining lap steel and creamy keys) while jettisoning traditional C&W’s clichés for a more personal, wounded-butterfly approach to lyric writing. The group even pull off an earnest if astrally projected cover of Sade’s "By Your Side," one of the more unexpected highlights on Trees, and one that sums up their maverick attitude toward Americana.

Something else the Sparks share with Parsons is a druggy undercurrent. On Trees, as on their well-received homonymous Sub Pop debut last year, even the most straightforward rootsy tunes are coated in a lysergic haze of reverb and vintage synth filigree that drapes over the wobbly harmonies and comfortable backbeats like one of those multicolored Indian ponchos Jerry Garcia used to wear. This might have something to do with a certain lack of focus that pervades the Sparks’ dressing room backstage at the Beacon, and the arrival of J Mascis, indie’s stoner-rock guitar hero of Dinosaur Jr fame, doesn’t help. Mascis’s presence isn’t a total surprise: Beachwood Sparks made the trek from LA to Northampton to record Trees at the graying guitar god’s home studio. He’s in the house to eke out a couple of typically blistering solos on stage with the Sparks tonight; the handful of old-school college rockers among the Crowes’ toked-up faithful squeal with delight when he bashfully plugs in.

While drummer Aaron Sperske and keyboardist Dave Scher, who’s actually wearing one of those multicolored ponchos, catch up with Mascis (and ultimately decide against last night’s Coronas), I ask singer Chris Gunst about making Trees. "It was really just fun," he drawls like one of the benevolent stoners in Dazed and Confused, "a really perfect environment. Super casual. With the first record, we were so concerned with just playing the songs right, just ’cause we were such a new band; us four hadn’t played that much together. This one we just had the whole thing worked out in our heads, and it came out like that." The group find their footing best on Southern California–sunbathed tunes like "Confusion Is Nothing New" and "Let It Run," which with their chiming guitar tones and loping, tumbling-tumbleweeds tempos give the album a drowsy space-rock sensibility — something along the lines of Spiritualized doing an Ennio Morricone score.

"I was surprised when the first record came out and people were saying we were a retro band," bassist Brent Rademaker claims when I suggest that Trees inches away from the cozy formalism of the band’s earlier material. "We felt we were living in a real world with our style of music and clothes and stuff."

"I think that we moved on in new directions as a group," Gunst continues. "We weren’t any retro revivalist-type thing. We didn’t really have that thought in mind or want to accomplish anything like that. But I don’t mind if people wanna say we sound like an old band; it’s better to say something like that than to say we sound like something we hate."

Beachwood Sparks open for the Black Crowes this Tuesday and Wednesday, October 30 and 31, at the Orpheum. Call (617) 423-NEXT.