But in the music business, popularity begets expectations of profitability. And when Elektra Records execs didn't feel they had a "Popular"-style hit on Nada Surf's sophomore album, The Proximity Effect, the band and label parted ways. Then the follow-up, when it was released in 1999, didn't sell as well as High/Low had.

But nine years later, Nada Surf's 40-something musicians are again finding themselves popular with a youthful set, thanks in part to the critically acclaimed 2005 album The Weight Is a Gift and also to getting their music heard on TV shows like The O.C. and One Tree Hill and in films like Disturbia. "Our career arc has been a strange one," Caws says as the release date for Nada Surf's latest album, Lucky, nears. "We got it all backward. But in the end, we're where we want to be."

Part of your recent career resurgence has come from getting your music into TV shows, movies, and even ads. How do those kinds of opportunities come about? With us, we've been around long enough that people who kind of grew up with our music now have the kinds of jobs where they can choose bands for their TV show or movie or whatever. In the case of The O.C., the show's creator [Josh Schwartz] was a fan and called with an idea for us to cover OMD's "If You Leave." That's something that really came straight from his vision.

But it's not always that romantic. We work with a company called Bank Robber Music. They're song placers. That's their specialty - finding licensing opportunities for bands. They put these things together, and then we're asked to accept them or turn them down based on whether we're cool with the idea for a film, or with a product, that our music will be used to advertise.

People used to think of those kinds of opportunities as selling out. But doesn't it seem that in the past few years, the stigma associated with bands' allowing their music to be used in ads has faded? That's become kind of a moot point ever since the Shins did a McDonald's commercial. The moral concerns just evaporated immediately. No, seriously, there's a growing awareness that it's really hard to make a living playing music, and if doing the occasional ad allows us to keep making records, then it's okay. For us, it really has meant a lot. The Weight Is a Gift was largely financed with the proceeds from a cell-phone commercial in Belgium, of all things.

The thing about being on a small label is that you do everything yourself. We don't get any tour support; we don't get any money to make our records. We love the label we're working with, but we really have to front our own expenses and pay our own way, and those licensing opportunities let you do that.

It seems like there was a different kind of career motivation behind each of your records. How does Lucky compare with the others? After the first album, it seemed to so many people that we were a fluke. So we were dying to prove ourselves, which I think is a common second-album concern. By the third album, we were really liberated, because no one was paying attention anymore and we didn't have a record company. With the fourth album, it was like we had something to prove all over again, because we'd had a little comeback success and didn't have the element of surprise anymore. By now, we've come to terms with all of that. There's never any clear intent with our records; we're all over the shop every time. There's rock music and quiet songs, some sunny melodies, some dark melodies, and everything in between.

Since you have both a long-term fan base and more recent exposure on some youth-oriented TV shows, do you see that mix reflected in your audience now? Absolutely. Our live audience has really grown by a surprising degree. It's pretty widespread now. It is funny to look out and see really young girls who were probably introduced to our music from, like, One Tree Hill and then [see] a whole section of older fans - record fanatics, guys with beards who are into anything that has vaguely '60s melodies. But, hey, I love those guys too. I am one of those guys. Just without the beard, of course.