Chapel Rock : The Whereabouts, well-known to audiences at Charlie’s, get their act together amid pews and stained glass windows.

Garage bands? There are garage bands by the ton, wailing away in there between the lawn mower, the chain saw and the old Chrysler, scaring the cat and angering all the neighbors within a two-block radius.

But here’s a rarity: a chapel band. And it’s not a choir.

The Whereabouts, this week’s happening Ventura rock band, practices in a basement chapel, in a mansion high in the hills overlooking the Poinsettia City.

We’re talking several rows of pews, an organ in the back, stained glass windows, flickering wall sconces, a portrait of the Virgin Mary on the back wall, everything but Elmer Gantry’s smile. For a purely surreal touch, this scene is right up there with Freddie Mercury and Liberace doing “People Are Strange� at a Kings’ game.

Anyway, as the Whereabouts wail away, Jesus, on a stained glass window, overlooks the scene flanked by a pair of padres, one holding a bunny.

“They used to hold services here because the lady that used to own this place was very religious,� said Roger Phillips, whose parents are the current owners. “A Mrs. Hoffman used to have a Catholic priest come here every Sunday to say Mass for her and her friends. He’d come over after the services at the mission. This room used to be a rec room, but she took out the pool tables and boarded up the fireplace. I think she died about 30 years ago. Anyway, this is a cool place to practice and no one ever complains because we always practice in the daytime and we’re always done by 5.�

None of the four guys in the band is from Ventura High School, for a change. Which makes this basically a dog band--three Buena High School Bulldogs and Phillips, the guitarist, from St. Bonaventure High School. Mark Ellis is the bassist, Brook Dalton the drummer and Steve Zielsdorf the singer.

Although the practice session early on included a thrashy rendition of the ever awful “Margaritaville,� there were some preliminary good tidings: Half of the band members are hard-core Dodger fans. Dalton and Ellis showed up for practice wearing real Dodger caps, not black ones but blue ones, and not those one-size-fits-all impostors.

The Whereabouts have been holding down the Wednesday night gig at the considerably more secular Charlie’s in Ventura for the past few months, and doing quite well too. Not only are they attracting a respectable crowd but they are also performing a valuable service to their musical peers. They’ve been inviting other young bands to open for them, such as the Graceful Punks, Jamb Figures and As He Likes It.

“We always try to invite some band no one’s ever heard of,� said Phillips. “We just sort of fell into Wednesdays at Charlie’s. The Mudheads broke up. The I-Rails broke up. Something For Nothing quit playing. Durango 95, too.�

There may be little by way of competition, but there are also very few venues for a local band to play in.

“There’s the Insomniac, too, but other than that, there’s not much in Ventura besides Charlie’s,� said Dalton.

The Whereabouts have been around for almost a year, with no tapes, no T-shirts and no name on the drums--and then again, no pretensions either. They just play and practice when they can. Somewhere between the “let’s-start-a-band� stage and one of those Seattle bands, the Whereabouts reside.

“Mark and I started playing together, then we found Brook,� said Phillips. “We played for a few months without a singer, then we grabbed Steve. We’re just out to have fun. We don’t take any of this very seriously.�

“We all have to learn to play our instruments first,� said Ellis. “I mean, we play more than we practice. This is the first band any of us have ever been in. So far, we’ve got four songs recorded, but we’re going to wait until we have four more before we put out a tape.�

And how do they describe their music?

“We sound just like Soul Asylum, or at least that’s what I want to sound like when I grow up,� said Dalton. “We’re all into different kinds of music. Steve likes reggae, Mark is a country fan and Roger likes metal. I like a lot of Replacements.�

The band members all have day jobs, plus they’re all full-time students. Phillips works in a bank and Dalton and Zielsdorf work for Pizza Chief between classes at Ventura College. Ellis is employed in a liquor store in Montalvo and is working on his master’s degree in history at Cal State Northridge.

The Whereabouts will be at Charlie’s on Wednesday, opening with the usual surprise band. And it’s all for two bucks.