``When you go through bad stuff, it builds character,'' says singer-guitarist Robert Price, half of the creative force behind the Miami-bred, Oakland, Calif.-based punk band Kreamy 'Lectric Santa.

Price, 44, knows of what he speaks. Ten years ago, KLS violinist-vocalist Priya Ray, 39, his partner in love and music, suffered a spinal-cord injury that left her in a wheelchair and still plagues her with pain that requires daily therapy. Four years later, KLS bassist-muse Andrew Ross Powell, fresh from rehab, died of a heroin overdose.

In the yeasty world of rock 'n' roll, bands can break up over a bad sound check, but Kreamy 'Lectric Santa, which performs Tuesday at Churchill's Hideaway, has come back with a vengeance. Released earlier this year, its second album, Operation Spacetime Cinderblock, eclipses the band's previous work by leaps and bounds.

Utilizing 22 musicians (including the late Powell) recorded over 11 years, the album bounces between three-chord punk skronk and sophisticated orchestration. It celebrates freedom (Everything?) masturbation (Holdin Yerself) and '80s teen sitcom stars (Mindy Cohn). There are enough pastiches, samples and mixed media sessions to fill 50 performance-art installations. The dizzying work is a sort of punk-rock Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band.

When Ray and Price met in 1990, the sarcastic-to-the-core, string-bean guitarist was with the Prom Sluts. After the band gave up the ghost in 1991, the couple set up shop in a Coconut Grove bungalow, where they grew the seeds of Kreamy 'Lectric Santa from living-room jam sessions with friends.

The house became the epicenter of the Miami punk rock scene. Bands including The Stun Guns, Los Canadians, Cavity, Trash Monkeys and Chickenhead hung out there, often playing together at Churchill's and at ``punk rock picnics,'' guerrilla concerts anywhere in the suburbs where they could throw down a generator for an hour or two before the cops showed up.

In 1995, KLS released its first album, Da Bronx Sity Chicken, on Miami-based Star Crunch Records and began touring. Three years later, Ray, Price and Powell moved to Atlanta with drummer Ricky Pollo and reformed KLS.

``We realized we had to get out of our social network,'' Price says. ``A lot of our friends got into heroin. Can you really sit them down and say, `Don't do this! This is going to ruin your life.' But moving to Atlanta, we saw a lot of the same thing there.''

Soon after commencing work on their second album in 1999, Price and Ray went to a show at the C-11 warehouse in Atlanta that would change their lives.

``I was drinking and passed out.'' Price recalls. ``From what we've gathered, Priya climbed up on a skateboard ramp to talk to a friend. It was poorly constructed. She put her foot on an insulation duct where the wall should be and she fell through.''

Ray fell on her backside, then hit her head, sustaining injuries that paralyzed her from the waist down.

``It was a true `Find out who your friends are' moment,'' Price says. ``Everyone moved out of our house. They just wanted to live in their fantasy world and keep partying, and I was emotionally distraught.''

After intensive in-patient therapy, Ray and Price moved in with Ray's parents in Harrisburg, Pa., where they stayed for nearly four years.

``Priya's dad is a biomedical engineer,'' Price says. ``I don't know what we would have done without him.''

Slowly, the pair rebuilt their lives, and in 2003 moved to California, first landing in Los Angeles. They were waiting for Powell to join them so they could restart the band when the bassist died.

``It was even more difficult than Priya's injury,'' Price says. ``It was like losing a brother. He was a natural musician. He could play anything. You could hand him a ukulele and he'd learn it overnight. He's irreplaceable.''

Price used three songs Powell played on from a 1999 session, a cassette recording of him joking with Ray and, throughout the new album, samples of his bass.

Operation Spacetime Cinderblock took three years to complete. With its release, the couple find themselves in the position of trying to promote an album and keep up Ray's daily therapy. ``It's kind of hard to crash on someone's floor and then ask them, `Hey can we use your bed for two hours for stretching and ultrasound therapy?'' Price says.

For now, they're content to play in the Bay Area, at festivals and on family visits to Miami, which brings KLS back to Churchill's.

``It was a really good breeding ground,'' Price says. ``I don't think KLS would have gelled if it wasn't for the geographical isolation and cheap beer.''