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Josh: We feel like we're lucky. We don't feel like we deserve anything.

Justin: We were talking about the fact that we're lucky we've gotten far enough to be putting out our third record.

Josh: Our goals for the longest time were just to be able to pay our bills and headline First Avenue. Now, it's like, "Wouldn't it be great to have a gold record," and it seems ridiculous that could even be a goal. But every record we've released has doubled the sales. So double of our last one would be gold [500,000 copies sold].

Jesse: Every record has doubled. All two of them.

Sharp exchanges like this, whatever the topic, let you know that the members of Motion City Soundtrack have been around each other as much as any married couple over the past five years.

In that time, the loud and melodic pop/punk quintet has quietly become the Twin Cities' biggest rock band -- thanks in large part to how often its members crammed together into a tour van, then a bus, and more recently a plane (they're in England this very week).

All signs point to MCS getting even bigger now with its third album, "Even If It Kills Me," which came out last Tuesday on Epitaph Records.

The disc was co-produced by a trio of respected bandleaders-turned-producers: the Cars' Ric Ocasek, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger and Girls Against Boys' Eli Janney.

The first video from the album, for the weepy rocker "Broken Heart," premiered on MTV's teenybopper tastemaking show "Total Request Live" last month despite a low-budget quality. The next video, for the Weezer-ish "This Is for Real," should do even better since its director filmed hit clips by the Plain White T's and Death Cab for Cutie.

On the day "Broken Heart" broke onto "TRL," though, the guys in the band (ages 28 to 31) seemed happily removed from the fanfare.

They spent the afternoon practicing at the Profile Music Center in Minneapolis, in a room that -- no kidding -- doubles as a reception space for Somali weddings. With ornate canopies and gold fixtures, it was a sizable leap up from the grimy hovel of a rehearsal space where the band did its first Star Tribune interview in 2003.

It's still the same five guys: Singer/guitarist Justin Pierre and guitarist Josh Cain, the Twin Cities natives who formed the band around 2000; keyboardist Jesse Johnson, whom they recruited while working at Pizza Lucé; plus Matt Taylor and Tony Thaxton, the bassist and drummer who moved from Richmond, Va., to join the band just weeks before the recording of its Epitaph debut, "I Am the Movie."

Seated on plush couches intended for wedding guests, the band members coolly recalled the successes and challenges in their own marriage.

Jesse: There are bands that have been signed for one week and blow up.

Josh: Do you mean Panic! at the Disco? It happens, that's a fact. We just weren't one of those amazing instances, so we hit the pavement instead.

Jesse: Which was fine. We were willing to literally go broke trying to do this. A lot of other bands get to that scare point and break down and get a job. We were at that point in December [2002] right before we got signed. We were like, "Is this it?" We couldn't pay our bills. I'd sold all my other musical instruments.

Josh: There were even many months after we signed to Epitaph when we struggled. We were all living on like a $500 a month stipend. Which is tough when your rent is $700.

Motion City's members are clearly doing better. This year, a few of them became homeowners. Josh even got married two weekends ago, fitting it in between random summer gigs such as Lollapalooza and an ambitious fall headlining tour.