Don’t be fooled by the name: The Maine actually hails from far away from Maine – Arizona, to be exact.

The Maine is currently on the road right now, touring in support of its latest album "American Candy," released just last month on March 31. Its current tour lands at The Rave on Wednesday, April 22. Before then, OnMilwaukee.com got a chance to chat with guitarist Jared Monaco about the new album, as well as his appreciation for The Rave and ... NSYNC.

OnMilwaukee.com: I read that when you guys started, while most of you had been in bands before, your singer John O’Callaghan was new to performing and music. What was that like with John pretty much a newbie to the music world?

Jared Monaco: It’s funny. There used to be a program called FruityLoops that was kind of before Logic or before any of these other beat-making programs. It was like the first really simple beat-making program, and me and John used to just goof around and make beats on this program and send them back and forth to each other in high school. So I had already kind of connected with him in a musical sense before this band.

But it was definitely kind of odd. I remember before I was even in the band, I went to go see the guys play, and it was pretty obvious that he was still finding his place on stage and getting comfortable. I remember seeing the band and being like, "Wow, these guys … there’s something great about this band, but they haven’t quite harnessed it yet." With anything, it takes doing it over and over again to get comfortable, and I feel like over the last eight years, I’ve watched him grow into this amazing front man. So it’s been fun to watch.

OMC: Who are some of your ultimate inspirations – overall and for your new album?

JM: I think overall, we’re really inspired by bands that did things the way they wanted to do it, so like Tom Petty or Wilco. A lot of older stuff I guess. Modern day stuff? I really love what Brand New has been able to do as a band.

And for the new record, it was mostly inspired by a bunch of ’90s stuff. We just kind of went back and asked what’s our favorite kind of pop music. Most of my favorite pop artists were like pop rock bands in the ’90s, like Oasis or Third Eye Blind or anything in that vein. I’d say that’s the biggest inspiration I’d say with the songwriting.

OMC: Is there anything from that ’90s era that you’re embarrassed to admit that you still like?

JM: Oh man. It’s funny; I’ll hear an NSYNC song – and I’m not embarrassed by any of this; at the time, I would’ve been because I had a younger sister who was way into the band – and I can appreciate the value and the production and how well thought out their songwriting was. I mean, obviously it probably wasn’t them writing the songs, but whoever was in the command center for that band wrote some incredible pop songs. You can’t deny it sometimes.

OMC: There’s this common idea that pop songs can’t be good. That tide seems like it’s turning a bit, but there’s still this idea that a pop song is still just a pop song.

JM: I agree, and I think it’s a matter of a great pop song is a no-brainer most times. I think for us, our goal has always been to write pop songs that we’re disguising as rock songs. Bury kind of the progression of the song – intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus – underneath these rock tones. That’s kind of how we operate in a pop sense.

OMC: For your new album, what was your goal going into this fifth album?

JM: This is one of the first times when we’ve sat down right before we started writing and said, "Guys, what do we want to do here?" We’re kind of at an interesting crossroads where we came from this really pop start, playing really really poppy rock music, and we transitioned out of that for a little bit for more of a darker, more complex side of our band. Once we got out of our record deal, we started to just kind of experiment in the studio and that lead to more of a darker, more raw version of our band.

We were at a point where we had gotten all of the demons out, and we felt very optimistic going forward. So we had this conversation and decided that we were going to go for an upbeat, up-tempo record, something that could feel happy. You don’t have to prepare yourself to go on a quest when you put on the record and feel happy. So that was kind of the goal from the start, which kind of dictated how we approached the writing process and how we recorded everything. It’s one of our most calculated efforts.

OMC: Did you like that more calculated approach to an album, or do you like the earlier processes?

JM: You have to look at it in two different ways. The way that we did "American Candy," all of the preparation and everything we did before going into the studio was, for me, the fun part. It was a challenge to write a great song, a great pop song, and we knew that once we got in the studio that we would have a chance to polish everything and make everything sound the best as we could. The studio was a bigger challenge than it would be to record it live just because you’re trying to make everything sound perfect when you’re doing it this way.

When we did "Forever Halloween," the last record, the whole idea was we’re just going to wing it; we’re going to go in and play live all together at the same time and see if we can actually capture something awesome.

We’ve done both, and I like both a lot; I just think I had more fun doing it the way we did this last one, just because it gives me so much more control in the studio. I can go back and, if I don’t like something, I can rethink it and do it the way I want. When you do something live, it’s hard to go back in and fix the mistakes. But that’s also what makes it have its own character.

OMC: Any particularly fun memories from your past trips through Milwaukee?

JM: Every time we go to The Rave, we always try to play into the haunted aspect of it, but we’ve never seen anything too crazy. It’s funny, because I think at this point we’ve played every level in that thing.

OMC: Do you have a particular preference on what level you like?

JM: You know, we were very lucky to be on a tour big enough to play upstairs, and that was really cool to be in the ballroom. But I really, really love playing on the middle floor. It’s rockin’; it’s awesome, and it has a great sound system in it. We played downstairs too, and that’s fun. It’s like an old bowling alley, so it’s like playing a basement show. I don’t really have a preference. I think that’s what’s awesome about that place; there’s a cool vibe in every single room.