"We figure we'll just get away with as much as possible until the point where they go 'Dude, you can't get away with that anymore,' " LTJ's drummer, Vinny, says. " Then we'll go 'OK. We're out of here.'" If we don't sell any records on Capitol, they'll kick our ass off the label so fast, " says Chris, singer and guitar twanger. "One year, " bass player Roger offers. "If we don't make them money, we're gone, and we know that."

They do know that, and seem confident their attitude is correct. After Craig Aaronson, the Capitol scout, heard about LTJ from a California fanzine last year, he contacted them in Gainesville and scheduled a date to watch them play at the Hardback Cafe. He liked what he saw and followed them around on tour last summer before inviting them to California to carve out a deal with the bigwigs. They trucked down there and, sitting in a room across from Capitol executives, told them what they wanted: the freedom to release vinyl and other records on independent labels and to have songs on compilation tracks. A virtually unheard-of deal with such a label, and they got it.

"I saw the guys live in Gainesville and then chased them around the country," says Aaronson from his Los Angeles office. "I wasn't going to stop until they signed. It took six months, and it was worth every second of it."

Now Aaronson is gauging sales on LTJ's most current CD release "Pezcore" on Dill records, and Capitol begins promoting the band on college radio stations around the country the first week in February. Aaronson says, depending on the increased fan-base LTJ generates with radio exposure and "Pezcore" sales, their September release of mostly new songs ("We can crank out songs no problem," says Roger.) on Capitol could run anywhere from 15,000 to 50,000 copies.

"They have such a strong following we'd be stupid not to take advantage of what they've got," Aaronson says. "Hopefully we can springboard off their solid fan base." And, in line with all indications, that base is multiplying. In Rolling Stone's Feb. 8 issue, the magazine ranks "Pezcore" as its No. 1 Alternative Album based on sales at Miami's Yesterday and Today Records.

Chris Lelugas, owner of Y&T said his store has consistently sold 10 copies of "Pezcore" each week since it was first released, compared to the usual 4 to 5 copies per week of most "hot sellers." Tower records in Chicago, where LTJ recently played, has sold out of the CD. And Badger, the office manager for The Metro (a big club in Chicago), remembered LTJ packing the joint during their tour.

When questioned about signing with Capitol or their apparently escalating fame, the band gets pretty defensive. In an interview at their warehouse out by the old Gainesville Livestock Market, three of the members tell it as they see it.

"In a nutshell, they (Capitol) basically distribute and promote our CD. Meaning they'll run us through the channels they go through and whatever, but we are allowed to do independent releases," says Vinny, with long black hair and oversized green shorts.

"They touch no touring, they touch no merchandise, they touch nothing. So basically we're independently on a major label."

Chris, the tall, short-haired one, adds, "We get the significance of good distribution and promotion, but I don't like all that -- and neither does the band -- that goes with it. All the hype and all that stuff like that is not for me. That's what we don't want, stupid interviews and stuff like that where they're going 'Well, it'd be in your best interest to go to station XYZ cause they're the leading college radio station and they really want to meet you guys.' "

Inside their small warehouse, housing Peavy amps, two drum kits, two mini-fridges and a black motorcycle that must be wheeled out before playing, Vinny, Chris and Roger meet three times a week to work on new songs. Then, twice a week Buddy, Jessica and Erin, who play the horns, adding the ska edge to Chris' bouncy guitar tweaks, come out to practice with them. Leaning against the brown carpet-covered wall is a stack of 2,000 pizza boxes to ship their next 7-inch called "Rock-and-Roll Pizzeria" on Gainesville-based No Idea records, and, supplementing the green light bulb in the ceiling is a presumably stolen yellow traffic light.

The band is also working on a 7-inch of cover songs called "Crash Course in Being an Asshole" on a Milwaukee label, 2,000 copies of a split 7-inch with Gainesville punk band Pung also on No Idea to be distributed for free at record stores and sent to their mailing list. And already in stores is a compilation of all their previous seven-inches on one CD called "Losers, Kings and Things We Don't Understand."

All this fame has got much of Gainesville --where the band started out and still lives -- referring to them as the band that's finally going to put Gainesville's robust music scene on the map. Yet others, mostly those in bands that started out with Less Than Jake, feel like the band is a sellout for signing to a big label and for playing the grand opening of Spec's in Gainesville .

"A lot of bands in town say crap about us," Chris says. "Call us sellouts, that won't work. I mean, they're sitting on their couch all day taking bong hits. They don't wake up in the morning and think about the band, they don't have the drive, they don't contact the people and try to work out what they have."

"When we wake up in the morning, the first thing we think about is what can we do that's band-related that's going to be good for today," Roger says.

"Like For Squirrels (another Gainesville band who happened to be No. 2 under LTJ in the Rolling Stone charts)," Chris says. "They busted their ass, people were saying shit about them like they're a frat-party band. Who cares? Are you up there, are you going to class every day for a degree, working a job on the side, being in a band promoting yourself, getting a record deal? What those guys did in two years was amazing."

That "sellout" talk probably is just internal band politics, because in Gainesville ,LTJ is always in the top three sellers at Schoolkids records, and, at Hyde and Zeke records, "Pezcore" has sold over 500 copies, says Ivan Osorio, assistant manager of Hyde and Zeke. He remembers when they peddled their first tape through the store about three years ago, and it sold well even then.

"For some reason, they're hugely popular," Osorio says. "They're not doing anything different than when they first started."

At the Covered Dish, LTJ has joined the ranks of those few local bands that can sell out the 550 person club with its peppy ska-punk.

Much of the band's audience consists of younger high-school age kids, indicating LTJ is riding the wave of ska popularity cropping up with the younger set across the country. And signs of their growing popularity are evident in the shine on those black Peavy amps around their warehouse and the van they rented, instead of driving their own, on their recent tour across the country, their first time on the West Coast.

And their fame is trickling down into the Gainesville music scene. By requesting the local owner of No Idea records create the art for their Capitol release (to be paid by Capitol reportedly for $1,500) and putting out multiple albums on his label, LTJ is supplying No Idea with the funds to further promote other area bands.

Chris Campisi, who originally played bass for LTJ until one day he was replaced without notice because of his involvement in other bands, now plays with Ash County Sluggers, is preparing a release on No Idea. Campisi openly admits his dislike for Less Than Jake's sound ("We weren't ska at all when we started," he says.) but is glad they're getting somewhere because of the attention and money it will bring other bands.

"That money they're making is going to pay for our album to be released," he says.

But for Less Than Jake, who accept their potential fame reluctantly --though it obviously doesn't hurt them too badly -- get their most favorable recognition when fans out of state recognize them. "We don't get recognized in the sense I'm walking down the street and someone goes 'Hey, there's a guy in Less Than Jake,'" Vinny says. "But more like when we're playing people go 'Play Mike Sincovich' or 'Play Jen Doesn't Like Me Anymore,' and they sing the words or something like that. Believe me, that's more than enough when you're on stage and 3,000 miles from where you live. It's the raddest feeling you can probably ever have."