Anyone who gives RADISH a fair listen will be justly rewarded. Tunes like "Little Pink Stars" and "Failing and Leaving" ring with a musical maturity that exceeds that of many songwriters twice Kweller's age. And the fact that Kweller is enthusiastic and unjaded about the music business gives his songs extra energy and zeal.

"I just love what I'm doing," beams Kweller. "I don't want a big platinum record on the first go round. I'd be happy if we just made a gold record or even smaller. I don't want to have fans who really just like us for one song. I want to appeal to people that are really into RADISH and that can't wait for the next RADISH record to come out."

Judging by the foot-stomping beats and confectionery melodies on their debut, RADISH seem likely to appeal to a wide variety of music fans, from pop purists to heavy metal aficionados. From song to song, engaging melodies and fetching vocal harmonies weave through a dynamic web of crashing rhythms and hook-filled guitar licks. The album's opening cut "Little Pink Stars" mutates from a melancholy verse to an anthemic chorus bursting with buzzing guitars and howling vocals. "Simple Sincerity," a punchy guitar-based track, crackles and snaps with soaring melodic vocals, and "My Guitar" opens with a simple, catchy guitar lick before evolving into yet another bristling pop song.

"We call the stuff we play sugar metal," says Kweller. "We like heavy guitars, but we also like nice, simple pop songs that people can sing along to. I love loud guitars, but I was raised on stuff like the Beatles and the Beach Boys, so the melody thing has always been with me. My biggest songwriting idol is Rivers Cuomo from Weezer. He gets dissed so much, but I really see the sincerity in his music. That's the kind of stuff I try to shoot for because you can just sing along with every one of those songs."

The songs on RADISH may bob like a sailboat on a choppy ocean, but many are fueled by concerns and anxieties that dig deeper than most rock ditties. "Little Pink Stars" is about unrequited love, "Apparition of Purity" is a parable about a lonely man who is only happy when he's visited at night by a beautiful ghost, and "Dear Aunt Artica" was written after two churches were burned down in Kweller's town of Greenville, Texas. "That had a big impact on the community, and it also affected me because I'm Jewish and living in Texas, and I've had to deal with prejudice before as well. So I understand how it does kind of suck when people hate other people."

But the most confessional RADISH song is unquestionably "The You In Me," a chronicle of alienation and misanthropy that begins with the line, "I like to play D&D/and watch the Spanish channel on TV." "I've always been kind of an outcast," admits Kweller. "I love playing Dungeons and Dragons. Everyone in the band plays it whenever we travel. I've always felt different from my other friends. I was never good at sports at all. I just always wanted to sit up in my room and play guitar and write songs, and none of my friends were into that. I was into the latest Sonic Youth record and they were into the latest computer game. And now I'm a big computer nerd, and that's really dorky too."

Instead of wallowing away in isolation as many misanthropic artists have done, Kweller takes full advantage of his time alone, cherishing it as an opportunity to play and write. "I've always been totally happy with what I was doing," he says. "I wasn't really supposed to be some popular second baseman that was really great with girls. I could never hang out with people my own age really. Most of my friends are much older than me, and a lot of them are guys in bands, and that's completely fine with me."

Kweller may be young for a major label artist, but he's not the first in his family with musical aspiration. His father used to jam in a band with Bruce Springsteen guitarist Nils Lofgren before giving up his music dreams to become a doctor. "When I was born, Nils was just starting the Born In The USA tour, so I used to dance around the living room banging on pots and pans while listening to Bruce Springsteen records. I remember loving it and thinking it was totally cool to be a rock star."

When he was five, Kweller started playing piano and two years later, he was writing his own songs. He learned guitar and drums, and by the time he was nine he had ten songs written. Encouraged by his parents, he made a tape and sent it to a Billboard songwriting contest, and won an honorable mention. Kweller played in the groups GREEN EGGS & HAM and MIRAGE with neighborhood friends, and in 1993, he formed RADISH with a different lineup than he has today. He met current drummer John Kent, 17, in 1994 after his first drummer quit. "John's a few years older than me, so I gave him a call and he must have figured I was just this little kid, so he blew me off for the longest time," explains Kweller. "Finally his dad convinced him to come over, and I started playing, and from then on, he took me seriously. Now we're like brothers."

Kweller cemented the RADISH lineup with bassist Bryan Blur, 29, whose fluid playing and immaculate timing lends the band's rhythm section a rock-solid foundation, especially when Kweller plays solos. And unlike many trios, RADISH has enough stage presence to create a galvanic atmosphere live. "One time we were playing at a place in Dallas called Club Dada, and there was this big fat guy dancing in front of the stage, and he was totally wasted," remembers Kweller. "Little by little, he took off more and more clothes until he was dancing in his underwear and everyone was freaking out. I thought that was the coolest thing. My parents hated it and all the grown-ups thought it was terrible, but I thought it was cool -- not that I want every guy that comes to a RADISH concert to take off all their clothes. Girls, that's another story. They can do whatever they want."