It sounds cliche to describe Modoc’s sound with crunchy guitars, sweet melodies and driving rhythms, but that’s what their particularly primal type of rock & roll delivers, packaged neatly by the master of the punchy rock song, producer Brendan Benson.

On the Nashville trio’s second full-length, Automatic + Voluntary, Clint Culberson (singer/rhythm guitars), Kyle Addison (lead guitars), and John Carlson (drums) took their sound to another level.

"Brendan encouraged us to experiment and get weird," proclaims Carlson. "He helped us break the songs apart to get the best out of them." Lush harmonies, synths, intricate guitar work are all epitomized in their lead single, “Black Eyed Lover,” thats video premieres today on Myspace (watch above). Actress Kat Scott plays Mal, a mysterious and disturbed vixen who is the reason for lead singer Clint Culberson's misery. Carlson talks about the new album, the making of the video and Myspace bots.

Hometown: Muncie, IN

Homebase: Nashville, TN

Why are you called Modoc?

The band is named after the tiny town that our singer, Clint, lived in during his coming-of-age years.

How did the three of you meet and form Modoc?

We all met playing as hired gun musicians for the same guy. We found that our interests in music were the same and decided to start something together.

Describe your music to someone who's never heard you before.

Always a difficult question. I would say we are a very pop-song oriented rock & roll band with an affinity for synthesizers and harmonies.

What does your album title Automatic + Voluntary mean?

The title Automatic + Voluntary is a reference to breathing (hence the floral lungs). Breathing is something you do automatically but you can also volunteer not to, despite death in doing so. Although I promise we don't sit around like tools, declaring the heaviness of our need to be musicians, it is inferred that doing what we do could be considered Automatic & Voluntary. All the artwork was conceived around that notion and executed beautifully by the very talented Alysse Gafkjen.

I love "Black Eyed Lover." What is that song about and how did you conceive of the video?

"Black Eyed Lover" is about struggle and getting through it at all costs. In this business, we often find ourselves having to slip into a mode where we would kill ourselves trying before we let any one particular thing stand in our way. As far as the video goes, we have been friends with the talented Owen Thomas (director) for a long time and wanted to give him full reign over creative direction. You could say we exercised our total creative control by giving up all of it to see what happened and we think that turned out to be a great idea. It was fun to actually see how the song inspired someone as talented as he is.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

A lot of our influences are bands from our parent's generation. Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Springsteen, Paul Simon, T. Rex. We also get an enormous amount of inspiration from music being made now. We LOVE the bands Zeus, War On Drugs, Tame Impala, etc... Bands like that remind us to try new things without abandoning the basics that make a song good.

Did moving from Muncie to live in Nashville influence your music?

Honestly, creativity can be found anywhere but living in a city like Nashville, where there are thousands of bands that are pretty much all incredible, forces you to get better at everything.

What was it like working with Brendan Benson? Everything he's produced is punchy as hell.

Brendan is an incredible guy to work with. He took us to school while we were there and really made us think about each and every note and chord. Also, he digs weird shit, same as us, so we complimented each other well.

Who else would you love to collaborate with?

I think we'd love to work with Matt Mahaffey (sELF) sometime. Really dig just about everything he does.

If you were a hashtag, what would you be?

#ineedavacation

Do you have an awesome Myspace-related story as a musician?

YES! Back in the day we had a really killer Myspace page with LOTS of friends because we were using a friend bot to get them : ) Eventually we were kicked off and after that we started a new page and vowed to behave ourselves. #sorryboutdat.