UNIVERSAL CITY, CA--Universal Studios attracts people from all over the world who want to see the backdrops for their favorite movies. Just down the street from the theme park, the four members of Fuel [ tickets ] are in a warehouse on Bob Marley Drive, doing the unglamorous work of shooting a video for its song "Innocence" from the band's recently released second album, "Something Like Human."

On this evening, Fuel is shooting two scenes with director Nigel Dick. The first features guitarist Carl Bell swaying back and forth as he plays guitar along with a pre-recorded version of the track. A crane-sized camera arm swoops high and low, capturing his guitar play, while the rest of the band and members of the technical crew look on.

On one side of Bell is a silver wall lined with 50 hanging lamps extending towards him, on another is several carts stocked with electric guitars. Bell stays cool as a make-up artist swabs his sweaty, shaved head between takes. His patience is possibly increased due to the fact that wardrobe set him up with the brown leather boots that Dennis Hopper wore in the movie "Easy Rider."

On a break, Bell explained the concept behind the video for "Innocence." "It's basically a shot of the band performing," Bell said. "We wanted to keep it about the band this time instead of trying to convolute everything with a story line. I think the last video we shot was a little hard to follow sometimes, so we wanted this one to be more about the band.

"I wrote ['Innocence'] for a movie--at least that's where the inspiration came from. I went and saw a screening for 'Cruel Intentions.' At the point I saw the movie, I wasn�t very interested in the movie at all. Maybe if I was a 15-year-old girl it might have helped, but it just didn�t appeal to me. But I just thought the song was too good for the movie, so I held the song back."

Like most of the songs on "Something Like Human," "Innocence" was written by Bell during the tour supporting the band�s first album, "Sunburn."

"I wrote 30 [to] 40 songs for this record," said Bell. "Once the last record started hitting, I was on the back of the bus writing. I had my little 16-track portable studio that I would lug from the hotel room to the back of the bus, and I ended up doing a lot of writing like that."

Greatly relieved to have beaten the sophomore slump, Bell said producer Ben Grosse encouraged members the Pennsylvania quartet to trust their own judgment as they recorded the new album.

"On the first record, we lost our drummer right out of the gate, and it blew the whole vibe of the record. From then on, we were working from a deficit. ... [On] this one, we wanted to take more control. We listened to a lot of people on the last record, with a lot of platinum records on their walls, telling us what they thought. We kind of went with some of their decisions, and lived to regret them."

The second scene stars singer-guitarist Brett Scallions. Decked out in brown leather pants and a tiger-patterned shirt, Scallions pretends to sing into a microphone dangling from the ceiling. Scallions begins each take on his knees with his hands in his hair. He ends each take on his back in a pose of pure rock star angst.

Rushing over to watch the playbacks, Scallions worriedly asks, "Was that dorky?"

He seems reassured at the reply from his bandmates: "Far from dorky, man."