The anonymous fame of Ohio’s Relient K

ANONYMITY is a state that most rockers aspire to abandon, but not Relient K.

Despite having scored three gold albums, lead singer and group co-founder Matt Thiessen finds it “kind of really cute” that most fans couldn’t pick the band members out of a lineup. “Not that we don’t want to work hard and try to be successful, [but] as far as our personalities go, we don’t really care if we’re famous; we probably prefer not to be,” he says, noting that he went unrecognized during a recent trip to the mall. “If I’m [Fall Out Boy’s] Pete Wentz or [All-American Rejects’] Tyson Ritter, that wouldn’t happen.”

Such comforting obscurity may disappear with “Five Score and Seven Years Ago,” so named because it is the band’s fifth album in seven years. The title also plays off the opening line of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. (The album’s one-minute opener, “Plead the Fifth” is sung from the vantage point of someone who claims John Wilkes Booth took the fall for his actions.)

Each Relient K album has sold successively more, and in March “Five Score” debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, a career high for the band. The CD remains at the top of Billboard’s Christian album charts.

Did we mention that Relient K is a Christian band? It’s not something the group makes a big deal about, and Thiessen understands why other acts, such as Evanescence, play it down. “The media puts such a negative stereotype on Christian music as a genre,” Thiessen says. “People will blow it off without ever listening to it. That happens to us all the time. Fortunately, bands like Switchfoot, P.O.D. and Sixpence None the Richer paved the way to break that ignorance. Christian band doesn’t mean subpar anymore.”

The band’s music is perhaps more notable for its smart blend of punk pop and power pop, weaving together influences as diverse as the Beach Boys, Blink-182 and Fountains of Wayne. And few of Relient K’s lyrics are religious, even if, according to Thiessen, “singing a song about my faith resounds deeper than singing about other subject matter.” On “Five Score,” most of the lyrics are vague enough to be open to interpretation. The exception is the 11-minute closing opus “Deathbed,” a stirring narrative from the perspective of a 74-year-old man dying of lung cancer, whom Jesus comes to take to heaven.

THIESSEN, guitarist Matt Hoopes, drummer Dave Douglas and since departed bassist Brian Pittman were high school students in Canton, Ohio, when they formed Relient K -- named after Hoopes’ car. All of them (including guitarist Jon Schneck) have since moved across several states, making it a little lonely for Thiessen when it comes time to write the songs. “They would definitely have more feedback if they lived in the same town as me,” he says of his band mates. “It’s not a cut on them; it’s a matter of practicality.”

The new album is the group’s first to be recorded under a new deal with Capitol Records (it picked up Relient K after “Five Score” was completed), which promotes the band’s music to the mainstream while original label, Gotee, continues to distribute the group within the Christian market. One foot in the Christian world and the other in the secular has led to some strange experiences, such as two years ago when Relient K played the Warped tour. “Not only do we come from a Christian music background,” Thiessen says, “we have a piano and a banjo! But it went over pretty well.”

Relient K is doing a lot better than anyone in the band ever dreamed it would.

“When we got signed to a developmental deal to Gotee, they wanted to watch us develop and write songs and maybe, just maybe, they’d make a record. That lasted for two or three years,” Thiessen recalls. “The first record sold 850 copies the first week, so it wasn’t like we started with a bang, but it grew and grew and started us down the path. And we haven’t looked back.”

weekend@latimes.com

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Relient K

Where: Avalon Hollywood, 1735 Vine St., Hollywood

When: 7 p.m. Friday

Price: $17

Info: (323) 462-8900; www.avalonhollywood.com