You’re always lumped with bands like Weezer and Superdrag as purveyors of crunchy power pop. What’s your take on those comparisons?
I don’t let it bother me, but I do find it frustrating. I don’t really understand it. I feel like we were compared to Weezer because I used to wear glasses more often, and we had the same producer on our first record, and we had a funny video just like they did. I really can’t go much further than that. Is it just because there are some melodies? Everyone’s got melodies. The Weezer thing I just don’t get. With Superdrag, we toured together, and we were on the same label. But I don’t really feel much in common with anybody, which isn’t meant to say that we’re unique—it’s just that I don’t really feel it.

The comparison may come from some sort of misinterpretation of our name, which is my fault. It sounds so Californian. I was working this night job at a bank, from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. The only thing I really enjoyed was playing, so I was constantly listening to as far-removing music as I could. I’m a really big Echo & The Bunnymen fan and of anything that sounds like it’s coming from its own little country. I once listened to “Cortez The Killer” for four hours straight at work because there were these bankers hovering around me while I was trying to finish their presentations. It kept me calm. In general, I feel like a real space cadet, so it’s just this silly name that made sense to me, like you’re floating around in space—“nada” being the big nothing and surfing being what sounds like when you’re just floating around, though you’re trying to have some sort of direction.

On Let Go, I hear what sounds like resignation or the accepting of things and moving on. I was wondering if you that was accurate, or am I off base?
I don’t know, I see the record as trying to find a new a way to live. Maybe having New Year’s resolutions and trying to be reborn and seeing what it is about yourself that isn’t going to change and to work around it. I sound silly talking about it because I sound like a self-help book. But it’s like writing your own self-help book in a way. That’s interesting that you hear resignation. Maybe. But I’m happier than I was a few years ago, so that’s a good thing. Certainly the title is about that.

And there’s the line from “Blizzard Of 77”: “On the plane ride, the more it shakes, the more I have to let go.”
Right. I’m quite happy on planes because no matter what happens, it’s not my fault. Isn’t that pathetic? That’s so pathetic, but I really enjoy loss of control. If I’m in control, that means I have to live up to it. And I want to do that and live up to my potential, I really do, but it’s nice to get a break from it. But who am I to say that what you hear isn’t accurate? Friends will see patterns that you won’t. I find that a lot. Like if you really want to help a friend of yours with a specific problem, and it turns out you have the same one. I really like cleaning up other people’s apartments. I’m fond of cleaning them and rearranging them. Making them, not feng shui; I wouldn’t subject anyone to that-but just getting rid of stuff and cleaning up. Let Go feels like a neighborhood record to me. This is the first time I’ve lived in a neighborhood in New York City where people really know each other.

Where do you live?
In Williamsburg, in Brooklyn. I moved there about seven years ago, and it’s the first time that I really had a neighborhood life, in part because our career had gone kind of belly up for a while. I couldn’t go get a real job and be busy because we still had shows once in a while, so I worked in a record store. I had the kind of life that most people have in their early 20s, only I was having it in my early 30s. When I was in my early 20s, I was temping because I was really serious about being in a band and I was busy all the time, and now I was just sort of hanging around, which is what a lot of the country seems to do and was something that I had never really done that much.

When you were working at the record store, did you get recognized?
Once in a while. It was always funny because the people that recognized me would be like, “What’s he doing here?” Everyone thinks you’re rich. On The Proximity Effect, the photo in the middle of the booklet is of this studio that friends of ours have in California. It’s a lovely place, and it just seemed like a fun picture. I said to the other guys, “We should put the name of the studio on that photo because someone somewhere is going to think it belongs to us.” They said, “You’re crazy,” and I said, “No, it’s true.” The “Popular” video got played so much, so a lot of people we would meet would go [adopts French accent], “Oh, I love your rehearsal studio, it’s so cool.” And I’m like, “You should see my apartment.”

Six, seven years down the road from “Popular,” what’s your perspective on people possibly only knowing you from that song?
There’s nothing we can really do about it. The video was so much bigger than the song was, and the song was bigger than the album was in stores. It would be one thing if everybody who liked the song had the record, but that’s certainly not the case. It’s not like I wish we had a different name so that we could separate ourselves from that song, but it would be nice for people to have the option of knowing the other stuff. I still think it’s a very funny song.

What did you think of the video at the time?
I thought it was hilarious. If we knew that that would be the only single on that record, we might’ve been a little more worried and been like, “Wow, we’re a cartoon.” We couldn’t have a lot of perspective on it at the time because we never had a video before, and it was so entertaining. I don’t think I’m a smart enough person to have the kind of perspective to say, “Wow, we’re a funny, jokey, cartoony band, and we may never recover from it.”

Do you still play “Popular” live?
If it’s crowded, we’ll play it because it’s fun to see people freak out over it in a purely pop moment kind of way. But in a room full of my peers in a local bar playing an acoustic show, I won’t be pulling that song out anytime soon, I can tell you that.

Ever get a disappointing crowd reaction for not playing it?
Once in a while, but because the record spread as a sort of word-of-mouth thing, it went mostly to kids who would really like everything on that record and who maybe weren’t so into a song that they could hear everywhere. You know how you have friends who don’t like things they can get too easily? I’m not always the same way because I didn’t grow up listening to college radio. I just had commercial radio and records that I would find on my own. For instance, I still like some Shania Twain singles, and I’m not ashamed to say it. Although that new one (“I’m Gonna Getcha Good!”), the sentiment behind it is terrifying. It’s basically saying, “I’m going to get you if it takes all night,” but it’s saying, “I don’t want you just for the night, I don’t want you just for the week, I want you forever,” and it makes the comparison between getting a partner and getting real estate, getting some land. It’s terrifying. I’m sorry, I’m rambling nonsensically. I was at a birthday party, so I had a couple of drinks.

Oh, great, you’ve been drunk the whole time.
No, no, no. But I’m walking outside and it’s really cold, so I can’t keep track of what I’m saying. Except to say that, a lot of kids would come up to us after a show and thank us for not playing “Popular.” Isn’t that funny? So we actually disappointed people by playing it sometimes. You can’t win.