Mike Collins was just done.

He'd been playing follow-the-leader for years -- for more than a decade, actually. He'd been playing in other people's bands since he was 15. He was basically Portland, Oregon's de facto drummer, the guy who'd at one time or another sat in with damn near everyone in town. Or it least it felt that way to him. Because none of the projects -- the rock stuff, the funk stuff, the whatever stuff -- felt like his. He didn't write the songs. He didn't make the decisions. He just kept the beat.

"I was riding other people's coat tails," he says matter-of-factly. "I was following their vision. I wanted to follow my own."

So he decided to start writing songs. It wasn't exactly easy -- at least at first. And he had help. Longtime friend and guitar player Jimi Evans opted to give Collins a hand. The two had played together in previous bands, had a shared interest in the kind of skyscraper-sized pop that made Cheap Trick legendary and Butch Walker a cult idol.

"We have a shameless love for that stuff," Collins admits. They started dissecting the classic pop formula: the two-ton melodies, the instantly familiar hooks, the ohs and las and all the handclap trappings. They began to cobble together tracks that felt both sparkling and sun-kissed and somehow decidedly snarling -- basically what Portland would be if it moved one state south but still kept its current number of goths per capita.

"This is the stuff that connects with people on a cellular level," Collins says. "I'm a sucker for a clean hook. Most people are. Pop music is just what feels natural."

And it shows. The group's two EPs, Four Play and Eight Tracks, are so easy and enduring it feels like cheating. Everything is laid out perfectly: the swelling, harmony-laden choruses, the cleverly constructed bridges, the stories about love gone right and then gone wrong. It's OK Go sans the gimmicky treadmills, Spoon with an extra dose of distortion -- real rock done the way it should be, with plenty of loud guitars and songs about pretty girls.

Which, these days, is honestly a hard sell -- and Collins knows it. Music has been so chopped and sequestered that a straight pop band has a hard time getting noticed -- with or without clever fitness equipment dance sequences.

"It's hard to figure out exactly where we fit in," Collins confesses. Though after a month-long radio blitz that included mailing out a hundred CDs and hiring a publicist, it doesn't seem to matter. The unsigned band pulled off a coup, scoring serious airplay around the country -- including regular spins on L.A.'s KROQ-FM 106.7.

"Honestly, we're surprised," Collins says. "Without the marketing machine of a major record label it's hard to get on the radio. You have to bug them constantly, which we have. The fact we got through is great."

And it's a testament to Collins' and Evans' songs. "We'd been in my studio for so long that, when we finally played out first show last year, we just felt like we had to get this stuff out. Music is life for me, and I'm always looking for another adventure, and so far this is definitely a great one."