When it debuted with 2001’s The Split EP! (a joint release with Anticon labelmates Odd Nosdam), Oakland’s Why? was a one-man show, with frontman Yoni Wolf playing the roles of songwriter, arranger, and producer. On 2005’s Elephant Eyelash, though, Wolf made a decisive turn, expanding what had been an insular laptop-rap project into a three-member indie-rock outfit by bringing his little brother Josiah (drums) and Doug McDiarmid (keyboards) into the fold.

When the Straight reaches the members of Why? on the road between Chicago and Milwaukee, the bandleader isn’t feeling up to talking, so he turns the phone over to Josiah. A graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, the younger Wolf adds an element of musicianship to the ramshackle sound of Why?, giving the band’s just-released album, Alopecia, a rhythmic variety that was missing from past efforts. Josiah, who points to the influence of postbop jazz legends Elvin Jones and Tony Williams, figures that Why? strikes a balance between his and McDiarmid’s disciplined approach and Yoni’s intuitive style.

“When we play live, the stakes are high for us,” Wolf says. “I’m definitely a stickler for rhythm, and there’s always a lot of arguing when it comes to figuring out how to take the songs on the road. We’re good musicians and we strive for a certain perfection, but also a certain amount of looseness when we play. What we’re after is a kind of tight sloppiness, if that makes any sense.”

The songs on Alopecia were recorded live with few overdubs, giving the album an airy ambiance to contrast Yoni’s death- and sex-obsessed lyrics. When the elder Wolf is sing-rapping about “sucking dick for drink tickets” at a Bat Mitzvah or “jerking off in an art museum john till my dick hurts” (just two of the cheery vignettes in Alopecia’s “Good Friday”), it’s hard not to recoil at the sleazy self-portrait he’s painting. The experience must be doubly weird for Josiah, a quiet type who doesn’t always see the point of his brother’s lurid confessions.

“I’m in a strange position for sure,” he admits. “There’s times when I might hear him say something and think, ‘Okay, that’s a little much. You didn’t have to be so dramatic in the way you wrote that.’ But that’s down to my personality. We’re brothers, but Yoni’s always been a bit more up-front about what he puts out there. Mostly I’m just really impressed by his abilities as a writer and the way he can get people to react to what he’s written.”

Since putting out a solo release in 2003, The Josiah EP, the drummer has spent most of his time supporting Yoni’s efforts, a sacrifice his older brother acknowledges at the end of “By Torpedo or Crohn’s”, a typically dark speculation on the likely cause of Yoni’s eventual death. When, near the end, he notes that “only those evil live to see their own likeness in stone,” he credits Josiah with the line, hinting that there’s more than one clever writer in the Wolf family.

Why? plays the Media Club on Wednesday (April 16).