Sweet Water play Neumo’s, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9467, www.neumos.com. $15. 8 p.m. Sat., Feb. 7.When I listen to your older music, I’m amazed it never reached the level of mass appeal of, say, Weezer or early Oasis. Do you guys feel like you were, maybe, a little ahead of the curve in terms of what became popular alternative music.Not sure if we feel like we were ahead of our time, but we remember when Oasis got so huge we were psyched for them and psyched that we were mining the same vein. We’ve always played the music we liked and that we wanted to, of course, that’s changed over the years, but the core rock/pop sounds you describe have always been near and dear. Likely they always will be. Maybe our side project album, Parc Boys, was ahead of its time. Quirky, new wave influenced tunes were not cool in 1996/97. But 6 or 8 years later that sound was all the rage all over the place. What’s weird is we were just playing what we liked and what made us happy. If the creative process is fun, and we like the music then we do it. That record (Two Weeks to Live, by Parc Boys) was us just getting free and really going balls out with our in-studio creative process.I saw the Sweet Water reunion shows at the Crocodile in, I believe, 2007. I was really amazed by the crowd, who were totally into it, but were not the type of people you see regularly attending shows. It was more “Eastside”, if you will. Would you say your audience is largely made up of the same folks who were seeing your band in the 90s? Or is it a totally different crowd?We’ve got a very diverse crowd..from our full on old skool Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia punk rock friends who are all grown up now to Microsoft nerds, alt-rock “hipster doofuses” and the “eastside” crowd you describe. Our audience consists of lots of twenty somethings who rocked us on the radio in the 90’s as teens and pre-teens, an older group of longtime superfans, and a good measure of new fans due to the better reach we have now through digital media. We love the seeing both the old and new faces…that energy is what we live for. We have so much damn fun on stage. One thing we’ve noted over the years…we still hold the record for largest single-night bar totals at several Seattle clubs. When people come to see us, they come to party and they come to rock hard.One thing that struck me about the audience was it was that they were hardcore Sweet Water fans. How did a band with such a brief tenure acquire such a rabid following? When we play we always try to make a deep, energetic connection with our audience. We never hold (or held) anything back. In the 90’s, everyone went to rock shows and we must have been good enough to burn memories into their brains. Massive amounts of substances on the part of both audience and band didn’t hurt. Our run in Seattle as Sweet Water before the (2000-2006 hiatus) was 9 or 10 years. In that time we played countless shows, got lots of airplay on college and commercial radio, sold some records – and we always worked very hard on being true to our vision of rocking as hard as we could all of time. We really did live our lives as if this band was all we had. Perhaps that dedication inspired our fans.Obviously, given the fact that Sweet Water was swept up in the great post-grunge wave of the Seattle 90s, many people dismiss SweetWater as not being as “genuine” as Mudhoney, or whatever. Would you say your timing has been a blessing or a curse? We never worried about timing in that way or what any “scene” thought of us. Take this for what it’s worth… People who go around proclaiming what is “genuine” or not in a music scene are usually not the musicians. This has been especially true in Seattle for the last 20 plus years. We were rocking punk rock shows at Graven Image, The Metropolis and Behind the Grey Door in Seattle before Sweet Water, in the early 80’s, as 12-14 year old kids. I used to sneak out of my house and take the bus downtown, bootleg a bottle of Thunderbird and have a hell of a time. We grew up with the bands and the people the hipsters would call “genuine” – these people are our peers. We played at the Caddyshack in Olympia for Nirvana’s first show. Our first records were all DIY. As we got older and became better musicians, we found we just wanted to play music like the music that we loved when we were 9 years old, playing air guitar to Kiss and Cheap Trick… maybe that made us less cool in the eyes of the “cool police” – but it sure made us happier to be true to ourselves. The only arbiter of “genuine” is really the artist and the creative process. As far as timing, the worst timing we had was all of the BS that came with being involved with the corporate music industry. Easy to get caught up in that, and easy to miss the mark when the New York/LA mega-corp has other priorities and investments to think about.You’ve got a new record out called Clear the Tarmac. I was spinning it the other day and it really amazed me how you guys still sound as fresh as what you did on Superfriends, albeit with maybe a little less of the snotty flare that comes with youthfulness. How is it different when you get together to play these days as opposed to ten years ago?When we started playing again, we sure didn’t want to just do some shows and be done. The point was to create something of value, not in a monetary way, but something that we could look back on and be proud of, something to mark this chapter of our lives with. The freshness you hear on Clear the Tarmac is because we were having just as much, if not more, fun making this record than any we’ve ever made. It was a hell of a good time. It is different now, because we get to play music knowing that we’re doing it because we love it. And we’re seasoned enough to know that doing this is an integral part of who we are as people. That’s the joy that we lost in mega-corp rock n’ roll identity heartbreak world. It’s fucking awesome to have it back. Also, it’s important to note that we were cryogenically frozen with a “stay-fresh seal” from 2000-2006 – when we emerged we were, by definition, fresh.When so many people are complaining about the state of the music industry, what would make four guys get back together and record an album in this current climate? What do you think your songs, specifically, have to offer to your fans these days? This band really is a life-support system for all of us. Playing loud-ass, snotty and cool Rock n’ Roll that we all like makes life worth living. What better reason? We don’t think about the biz too much. If we can make our next record, we’re happy. A chance to reconnect with a certain spirited feeling that comes with big drums, scorching guitars and soaring melodies. A chance to remember that with music all is possible.When I told a friend I was listening to your new record, she said “You mean that band they did that VH1 movie about?” How annoying is it to be mistaken for that band?

Pretty damn annoying. Especially because they’re hippies.