Everclear [ tickets ] is a band that enjoys a good musical competition.

The Portland, Ore., pop-rock group rarely opens for other acts. But when it does, according to drummer Greg Eklund, it provides some pretty stiff competition.

"We sort of rise to the challenge to play to another band's audience. I have to say we're a pretty kick-ass opening band. Whenever we've opened, we get the crowd going," Eklund said with a laugh.

Beginning on Tuesday (2/27), Everclear, along with Lifehouse, will support matchbox twenty. The tour marks the third time in Everclear's career that it has opened for another band on tour--when its album "Sparkle and Fade" was released in 1995, it supported the Detroit rock band Sponge, and it opened later that year for Filter.

Everclear is touring in support of "Songs from an American Movie: Vol. 1 - Learning How to Smile" and "Songs from an American Movie: Vol. 2 - Good Time for a Bad Attitude" (Capitol), both of which were released last year.

"Learning How to Smile" was originally intended to be singer Art Alexakis' debut solo record, but when the single "Father of Mine" from Everclear's 1997's "So Much for the Afterglow" took off, Everclear returned to the road. That, along with Alexakis' unexpected post-tour throat surgery, delayed his record and Everclear's follow-up.

"A year later when he came back to finish his solo record, he was like, 'This sounds like an Everclear record,'" Eklund explained.

"Art sent us the roughs that he had. I liked the songs. It seemed perfectly natural. But then there was the question of what would we do about the songs we had been writing for the next Everclear record. We just put them together on the second record. It feels really organic the way that it came about, but it is a little bit revolutionary. I will say that we will never do it again. Too much work."

The two records are musically bipolar. "Learning How to Smile" is straight pop, with songs such as the hit "Wonderful" and the sweet cover of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl." Meanwhile, "Good Time for a Bad Attitude" is angry and acerbic. The opposing personalities of the records allow for two singles to be concurrently released in both pop and rock radio formats.

Eklund explained that releasing two drastically different records is "natural" to Everclear, though he admitted that it may have caused a bit of confusion among fans.

"At the time, with the first record coming out first, people were like, 'Wow this is really different for you guys.' And we were like, 'Don't worry. There's another rock record coming down the line.'"

A common theme for both records, however, is Alexakis' love of pop culture. MTV's "The Real World" and rock stars are victims of Alexakis' humorous digs. That sense of humor carries over into the band's tour bus.

"Humor is one thing that keeps us all sane on tour," Eklund said. "Especially when we were first coming up, we were branded as a 'dark band' because of Art's subject matter. Everyone was like, 'God, it must be really depressing to do these songs every night.' It's never been like that. ...

"When you start to take things so seriously, you get so wrapped up into it and that's when you start believing the hype and all the bull---- that goes along with it. So we just keep ourselves happy by laughing a lot."