When the five long-maned and leather-jacketed musicians in NE Rocks break into the opening strains of "Fox on the Run" at Amesbury High tomorrow night, few are likely to take the rock hit as a love song.

But to the five rockers on stage, it is a love song of sorts -an odd requiem to a young man who once aspired to make music like theirs.

The young man was in a car crash in early 1978, a week before his 16th birthday. "Fox on the Run" by the rock group "The Sweet" was playing in the tape deck when the car in which he was riding crashed into a tree in southern New Hampshire. He and another young passenger were killed.

His name was Terry Chappell, and his kid brother, Ted, now 21, is the drummer for NE Rocks. Tomorrow, the band begins a series of "Arrive Alive" benefit concerts at area high schools to promote awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving. Proceeds will go to Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD).

"We're hoping we're actually going to get a message across, and that people will hear it," says Ted. "I'd rather hear it from somebody who has actually been there than from a teacher or a cop."

The concert, produced by Ron Bellanti of Lawrence, is co-sponsored by WCGY radio and Rockreport Magazine, and will include brief talks by lead singer Jay Hajj and by a spokesman for the National Head Injury Association. Ted, who has taken the stage name "Terry Terror," was eight when his brother was killed.

"He used to play drums, too," says the Londonderry, NH musician. "He was always like my idol, the greatest guy that ever lived. Whatever he was doing, he'd drop it just to fix my bike. Everyone used to call me 'the terror' when I was a kid. I ended up using that, and his name, in his honor. I started playing drums because of him."

Ted still remembers the rainy night when his parents, Ted Sr. and Emily, rushed home from the accident scene, where they had been called, and took him and his sister, Tammy, then 12, to the hospital. Terry died within an hour.

"You don't think about death when you're 8 years old," says Ted, "especially to someone in your family. I always thought of him as my older brother. To think he was only 15."

Ted says he and his fellow band members have always been concerned about drunken driving. One of them doesn't drink at all. The rest drink at parties, he adds, "but there's always someone who doesn't drink... If you kill somebody, who wants to live with that for the rest of your life?"

Their "Arrive Alive" concerts -including 10 original songs and "Fox on the Run" -feature what Ted calls "intricate but commercial heavy metal." The tour is expected to take them to 30 high schools in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire before spring. Ted says he is aware that many young people "laugh at stuff like this" (anti-drunken driving benefits). "But," he adds, "we like to think maybe it will save a life."