It seems as if things are just starting to take off with the record. What are you guys up to right now?

It's been really good. The record came out back in March, but we've kind of been taking a little bit to get our booking thing together. The D.C. show with Washington Social Club (5/21 at the Black Cat) will be the first show before we go on tour with the Thermals for about a week after that.

Are you looking into doing a headlining tour sometime after?

Yeah. It's hard to say when but it might be fall before we do a headline tour. We are gonna do some Midwest dates in April, so it all should be good, and we'll see from there.

Tell me a little about the album. It sounds like you guys avoided a lot of studio takes and went for a real straight-forward approach to recording it.

That was really the concept. I kind of feel like we're coming out of an era where say, two or three years ago, every record had loops and tons of over-dubs, but we did our record in six or eight days. We just wanted to capture us playing, and the idea was to get really good performances. We did everything in first or second take and as much of it live as we could.

Like you mentioned, in years before a lot of albums that came out seemed to be heavily layered and have a lot of production value. Now it looks as if the rock is back. What's your take on the ?Return of the Rock??

Yeah, these things go in waves, and people just start piling on the bandwagon. Take the Rapture for instance. The Rapture's a really good band, but there are people just starting to get interested in bands that sound like the Rapture. Now, if you have a band that kind of sounds like you're the Rapture and you sign a record deal right now, it's gonna take months before you record it and the label gets their thing together. By the time it gets out, no one is gonna want to hear that anymore because it seems like when it rains it pours.
  There is a lot of that happening right now. I wonder how long the hype will be able to support it.

Yeah, and maybe the straight rock thing is going to experience that same thing. However, for us, it was just ? whatever. This is just the music we grew up with. It's not a gimmick but rather just what comes natural to us.

I think what sets the band apart is that while musically you can see where you guys are coming from, lyrically and in delivery you have a very unique style. Those two elements combined have an odd and very interesting effect. There always seems to be a story.

I always like a linear narrative of some sort. I've been into lyricists who write specific lyrics so you know what they're talking about. People like Bruce Springsteen or Blake (Schwarzenbach) from Jawbreaker and Jets to Brazil , who are specific lyricists, I find them to be much more interesting than whatever you would consider the opposite of that to be, I guess.

So you don't necessarily want to be singing about girls and Trans Ams.

(laughing) Yeah, I think that a lot of the rock that's come back celebrates, sort of, stupidity. What we wanted to do was a smart rock band.

I've read a few reviews that have described your lyrics as confessional. Do you think that's a fair assessment?

No, they're definitely a story. I don't think they're confessional. That's an interesting point because songs, for some people, are always expected to be very personal. No one ever thinks that Quentin Tarantino is a violent person who lives out every movie he makes. But the second you write a song someone says, ?Oh man, he did that.?

Your songs seem to share this common theme about what it is when you're young and you listen to music and you're out there doing whatever it is that hipsters do.

It's definitely that?chasing something that's not real or tangible. I want to touch on that feeling of just going out and looking for whatever it is that gets you out the door.

I didn't read a lot of irony into your stories. They seem pretty realistic.

What I like reading about our music is that people do find a sense of humor to it. The lyrics do take pot shots at things, but I don't think it's bitter or angry.

There are some pretty funny moments, like the Neal Schon reference in ?The Swish.? If you mention Journey to me, I'll probably snicker, but on the other hand, ?Don't Stop Believin'? is still a pretty great song.

Oh, yeah! I'm 32, and when I was in sixth grade Journey was the biggest band in the world. The older brothers and sisters of all the kids I was friends with ? that was cranking out of every car in the neighborhood. To me, some of the things I'm trying to celebrate about music in general are in that era.

Maybe one of the great things about the ?Return of the Rock? is that in the past we had to be embarrassed about the things we used to listen to as a kid in order to protect our indie cred. I guess that's not the case anymore, and I kind of get that vibe from your music.

Definitely. Although having grown up with that and now going out and you see these ?80s dance nights with a playlist from when I was in seventh grade, it's still kind of an embarrassing time. Maybe those are going away though.

Now that things are getting rolling for you guys, what do you look at as ?success? for a small band on an independent label? What's a real ideal level of achievement for you?

I think there are a couple levels. When you start playing in a band, they start to adjust. With my old band, Lifter Puller , I used to think, ?If we could play at this club, 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis, that would be cool.? And then we played there. Then it was like, ?If we could put out a seven-inch, that would be amazing.? Eventually your idea of success keeps bumping up. One of the things that I feel that I've been successful with in playing music is that there is a huge jump playing in indie rock from when you start to play and your friends come out to when you have actual fans. I think that's a real level of success. And just breaking even is ?success? in the indie sense. That's where we're at now, but I think that there are many levels.

I always thought that if people were listening to your music on its own merit, not because it was their friend's or their brother's band, then that would be a pretty cool accomplishment.

I think that's exactly it. There are a lot of people out there who will tell you it doesn't matter -- ?I just do it for me.? But I don't think that's necessarily true. Why would they even bother? Amps are heavy, why not just stay in your basement?