When Great Big Sea decided to title their latest album The Hard and the Easy, they didn't know how right they were.

After all, for the veteran roots-pop outfit, making an album of traditional Newfoundland folk songs was easy. But convincing some other people in their circle that it was a good idea -- well, that was easier said than done.

"The term 'career suicide' was batted around a few times," laughs multi-instrumentalist Sean McCann down the line from his St. John's home. "I think some people at the label thought we'd really lost it."

"And, really, you can't blame them. We put out a record knowing that there'd be no singles. None. We thought about that long and hard."

Of course, it was thinking that got them into this predicament in the first place. For years, Great Big Sea -- McCann, Alan Doyle and Bob Hallett -- had made albums that balanced their traditional folk leanings with contemporary pop. With 2004's Something Beautiful, however, the band thought it was time for a change. Time to split the two halves of their musical personality.

"We came up with a two-album plan," explains McCann. "Instead of giving the folk songs a pop influence and the pop songs a folk influence, we decided just to split them up. We decided to make a pop album first and then a traditional album. It just seemed easier to us."

But not to some people at the band's record label, he claims.

"They didn't think it would sell. I think they thought, 'Oh, they'll get a good fright and then they'll stop this nonsense.' "In the end, says McCann, the veteran East Coast pop-rock outfit did pretty much what they always do -- which is to do pretty much what they want to do. The result: We have The Hard and the Easy, a raucous acoustic collection of Newfie kitchen party oldies like The Mermaid, Old Polina, The River Driver and Cod Liver Oil. And

Great Big Sea have perhaps the most pleasant surprise of their decade-plus career.

"This is the fastest-selling album we've ever had," says McCann, clearly as amazed as anyone. "It's sold 80,000 units or whatever. This is throwing everyone for a loop. It certainly flies in the face of logic.

"Who'd have thought that Newfoundland folk songs would have this kind of wide audience? We had no idea that anybody else would get it."

Guess he hasn't been paying attention. After all, Great Big Sea's jubilant Celtic-flavoured sound has already won them fans from coast to coast -- but perhaps nowhere more so (and nowhere more unlikely) than right here smack-dab in the middle of the country.

"We love Winnipeg, and they seem to love us," says McCann. "It makes no sense. We keep getting asked back to do these big things -- the Pan Am Games, that street party at Portage and Main.

"But you know, really, when you get down to it, Winnipeg and St. John's have a lot in common. The isolation, the harsh weather. We're not all that different."

Maybe that explains why the band's latest visit -- a stop at Pantages Playhouse Theatre on Saturday night -- has been sold out for some time. In keeping with the band's new approach, fans will get two shows in one, says McCann.

"We're doing to sets a night -- first an acoustic folk set and then we plug in and do a greatest-hits set. Basically, we're trying to treat this album as the unique thing it is."

What could be easier than that?