Great Big Sea would like to set the record straight: they're music is not all the same, they're not Pogues wannabes and the derogatory term "Newfie" is akin to a racial slur.

These stereotypes are particularly galling for a band that has achieved their fame the hard way -- touring constantly and remaining faithful to their adoring fans.

Yet as each album outsells the last, the backlash from critics grows exponentially. The most recurring criticism is that after seven albums, the band's sound has become too predictable.

"Predictable? What do you mean it's predictable? Predictable to me is like guitar, bass and drums, lead singer screaming his head off from start to finish," says Bob Hallett, one of the founding members along with Alan Doyle and Sean McCann. "It always surprises us, because we use a wide variety of instruments compared to a Blink-182 record. That's nothing like what we do and obviously there's a familiar refrain of themes that goes through our records, but every band has that."

For the most part Great Big Sea's upbeat songs stand in stark contrast to the desolate rock that spawned them, but that doesn't mean they're not deep.

"I think the fact that we have chosen to be more positive than negative in our songs, we're seen to be these naive fools, skipping down the road and throwing flowers in the air," laments Hallett, who is tired of reading the same reviews. "There's tons of really dark stuff in our records, but people look at it as 'more shallow crap from Great Big Sea.' You can look at the glass half empty or half full. We come from a place that has foul weather, a horrible economy and lots of problems and we chose to celebrate our culture rather than whine about it. If you don't like that, fine."

One person, who loved the band from the first time he laid eyes on them, was music legend Seymour Stein. The Sire Records founder, famous for discovering the Ramones, the Talking Heads and Madonna, was just as impressed with Great Big Sea when he first saw them perform before 20,000 at an outdoor venue in St. John's in the summer of 1997.

"He was vastly impressed," recounts McCann, still shaking his head at the thought. "He signed the Ramones and a lot of our favourite bands. We were sort of flattered by the deal."

However Stein, who was in his 70s at the time, was a bit out of touch with the current boy-band trend that had gripped North America and Great Big Sea was lost amid the frenzy created by the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync.

"It seems a bit daft now," admits McCann. "In the end he didn't make any bad musical decisions, but it was nowhere near where the market was. We were signed up with The Hip the same year and of course we all got dropped later on."

Their failure in The States humbled the band and forced them to re-examine their priorities. They decided to remain true to their fan base and began to introduce more of their own material on successive albums "Turn" and "Sea Of No Cares."

Their latest venture, "Something Beautiful," includes more original numbers than any of their previous albums and finds the group in a more mature frame of mind. More than a decade after their self-titled debut, the band is looking to achieve the kind of longevity that their idols the Chieftains obtained.

"If there was a model for long-term success it's them," says Hallett, who believes the key to the band's success is their non-stop touring. "Most Canadian tours are Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, maybe Montreal and maybe Halifax and we'll do 50 dates this fall in Canada and all of them will be 3,000 to 4,000 people. Who gives a f**k about the critics? The people who actually buy the records and buy the concert tickets have voted for this band."

But the touring has taken its toll. Last summer long-time bassist Darrell Power left the band to spend more time with his wife and kids.

"We have long-term relationships, but we don't have any children," says McCann, who depicts Power's departure as amicable. "He just got off the bus. He actually grew up and left the rest of us Peter Pans."

After a period of mourning, Great Big Sea replaced Power with an entire rhythm section in ex-Moxy Fruvous bassist Murray Foster and drummer Kris MacFarlane. The additions changed how the band recorded "Something Beautiful."

"It forced us for the first time in years to really listen to our arrangements and to think about a lot of stuff we were playing," confides Hallett. "We probably hadn't rehearsed since 1992. Bringing those guys in really rejuvenated the whole thing.

"In the past either myself and Sean, or Sean and Alan, or me and Alan had to play rhythm all the time, because without a drummer -- without that push -- something's got to carry it. With those two in the band we don't have to do that anymore and that's one of the reasons this record is more layered and complex and poppier."

Complex and poppy are not usually connected in the minds of music fans, but Great Big Sea has never been too analytical when it comes to their music. They also don't care who you think they sound like -- the Pogues, Spirit of the West, the Chieftains or the Irish Rovers -- as long as you buy their records.

The Pogues comparison is especially galling.

"It's just that people know one Celtic band and it's either them or the Chieftains," says Hallett, who wrote the Pogues-esque romp "Helmethead" on the new album. "The way they arrange songs is actually the same way everyone else does, it's just that they were more successful so it's become, 'Oh that's like a Pogues song.' We didn't think of it that way, because we came from the same model as bands like the Clancy Brothers and a lot of Newfoundland acts, like Figgy Duff and Wonderful Grand Bend that played songs the same way - that arranged folk material, but in a very rock 'n' roll way."

Fourteen years ago Great Big Sea was a great big risk, but Hallett always believed there was a wider market for traditional Newfoundland music.

"We didn't deliberately set ourselves up to do this," he says, while grudgingly acknowledging that Great Big Sea has paved the way for other Newfoundland folk acts. "If there's one thing that we did for Newfoundland (bands), apart from giving them support, loaning them gear and letting them use our studio and giving them advice, is that we just raised the expectations. Before us it wasn't possible, you couldn't do it, it wasn't going to happen, forget it and don't waste your time. Or move to Toronto and pretend you're not from Newfoundland.

"What we did was the opposite: we said no you can do it. So I don't know if we've opened the doors, but what we have done is raised the target to say this is possible."

They've also helped dispel the notion of Newfoundlanders as fishermen and drunks. The band have become crusaders against the use of the term "Newfie" and had a well-publicized spat with the CBC, when the band felt the network attempted to make a stereotype of them by having them appear in a dory, wearing silly hats for a 1997 Canada Day show.

"Our point is to reject the cliches, not to embrace them," states McCann, who hates the word "Newfie" and the jokes that use the term. "That's a derogatory term... like 'nigger.' The image is lazy and drunk and we're not."

Political or ideological posturing by bands are always dicey, as they can run the risk of the public perceiving them simply as uppity rock stars. However it has not hurt Great Big Sea's support.

Their last album, "Sea Of No Cares," debuted at No. 1 in Canada and went on to achieve platinum status. Earlier this month the band was denied their second-straight top debut, when "Something Beautiful" outsold "Sea Of No Cares" in its first week, but ran into some stiff competition in Norah Jones, Josh Groban and Evanescence and had to settle for fourth spot on the Canadian charts.

Despite their success, Great Big Sea receives scant radio play throughout much of Canada.

"It would be nice to have the radio hits, because we'd have a lot more money and life would be easier," says Hallett, who firmly believes their success has been achieved by their slavish devotion to playing smaller venues and slowly increasing their fans. "Fans who fall in love with the band that they experience in that environment tend to stick longer and it's a more secure base for a career."