Before I met singer-songwriter Sam Roberts in person, I had a couple of theories about his much-discussed "shaggy" look of long, uncombed hair and full beard.

Given Roberts was clean-shaven and relatively short-haired on the cover of his six-song EP, The Inhuman Condition, and in the video for his breakthrough single, Brother Down, I thought the more successful he'd become over the past few years, the hairier he'd gotten, possibly as a disguise.

Or maybe the Habs-loving Montrealer with the winning pop-rock sound was simply avoiding the razor as a good-luck charm while he toured Canada and beyond -- the rock 'n' roll equivalent of never-ending hockey playoffs?

Turns out neither was the case.

"I was always like this, I was always a bum," jokes Roberts, 29, decked out in his usual T-shirt, jeans and runners on a late afternoon summer's day in Toronto recently.

"About two years ago, I had to shave my head and cut my beard and that's when we put the EP out. My friend Melissa Auf Der Maur got me a little part in a movie that she had been asked to be in. And I was like, 'Sure man, if I'm going to make a few bucks, I'll do it, no problem.' But I had to cut my hair off."

So will Roberts ever reveal his handsome mug again?

"I don't know man. It's been so long, I don't even know anymore. Am I just a guy with a beard now and hair? Maybe I am. Maybe I'm that guy."

In an exclusive chat with the Sun, leading up to his co-headlining slot with Sloan on Saturday's all-Canadian festival bill on Olympic Island, Roberts comes across as warm, articulate and funny -- not at all the man of few words portrayed by some in the media.

And the guy who sang "I would die for rock and roll" has emerged as a Canadian music success story, leading the way at both the Junos and the MuchMusic Video Awards with three trophies at each event.

His Juno haul included a surprising, but well-deserved best-album win for his 2003 full-length debut, We Were Born In A Flame, which has sold 125,000 copies in Canada and spawned hits like Brother Down, Don't Walk Away Eileen, Where Have All The Good People Gone? and Hard Road.

"It was a big surprise, it was a huge surprise," Roberts says of his triple Juno victory. "It doesn't seem like the forum in which a band like ours usually flourishes, to put it in as diplomatic a way as possible. We're always just like, 'Man, I can't believe we got invited to this gig. ' "

Still, Roberts thinks his success bodes well for other Canadian bands of his ilk.

"I think if bands live for it, like really live for it, then it can really come together for just about anyone," he says. "But doing that, that's easier said than done, I suppose -- to commit yourself to doing it through tough years. I was 27 before anybody even paid attention to our band. So, yeah, it took a long time and there were a lot of really lean years, and I think that that's where you get the fodder for the really great material anyway, through that struggle."

Roberts clearly has Canadian pride when it comes to the homegrown music scene.

He is psyched about sharing the Olympic Island stage with fellow newcomers such as Broken Social Scene, The Stills, and Constantines.

"I think it's going to be just a really great day of music and one that reflects the now incredibly multi-faceted Canadian music scene," Roberts says. "And here's a chance for us to celebrate that among ourselves, for the first time. I have the utmost admiration for everybody on this bill. That almost sounds too dry. I mean I love their music. We have a good community. There's not a whole lot of ego involved and everybody's usually -- usually -- genuinely pleased with everybody else's success, 'cause it can only help them in some way."

At a recent news conference on Olympic Island, Roberts even claimed to be more nervous about Saturday's event than his opening performance at SARS-Stock last summer in front of 490,000 people at Downsview Park.

"No, I was crapping myself for that one," he says now of kicking off the massive show headlined by the Rolling Stones. "I was so nervous at the show. And, again, I think it's pretty natural to want to measure up well against bands that you like. If you're playing with a sh-tty band, you don't care."

Prior to Olympic Island, Roberts and his bandmates -- guitarist Dave Nugent, bassist James Hall, drummer Corey Zadorozny and guitarist-keyboardist Eric Fares -- were kept busy touring the U.K. in support of We Were Born In A Flame, which was only released there on July 19. (Australia and Sweden will get the record on Aug. 30.)

"We went over there in March and did a sort of preliminary run and basically just tried to get things going by playing live, trying to build a fan base and a bit of a following" Roberts says. "And I think at that point, that's when people really started paying attention to what we were doing. We don't necessarily put priority on one place or the other -- (but) you can't tour Canada forever. We've tried."

Case in point, after England, Roberts was flying to Edmonton to begin another string of Canadian dates that will eventually bring him to Saturday's gig in Toronto.

"It will basically be the culmination of the past two years for us in Canada," he says. "That'll be it until the next record comes out -- aside from one show that we have left in Montreal in September."

Speaking of which, Roberts and his band also have scheduled U.S. dates in September, October and November (to coincide with Flame's re-release stateside Aug. 31 on Lost Highway), along with more European stops.

"And then we have to make a record," Roberts says emphatically. "Just a little matter of making a record. So, yeah, we really need to get started on it. And if we don't stop touring, then we won't make a record. I don't write songs on the road, at all. I know there's some people who can, I'm just not one of them. I need to be in a completely different frame of mind."

Just to be clear, Roberts and his bandmates did spend 10 days at The Tragically Hip's Bathhouse Studios recently and recorded about a half-dozen songs from demos that Roberts made on his own.

But he plays down their significance at this point, even though they're in the running for inclusion on that all-important sophomore album.

"The bulk of my ideas, aside from my useless daydreaming every day, are musical ideas," Roberts says. "So they're there and they're kind of swirling around but they don't necessarily make any sense to you, or to me for that matter. And you take them and you try to glue them together eventually. And it's the gluing process that I need peace of mind for. The distraction, the sort of non-stop pace, everything, that fuels a lot of ideas, but there's no time to actually put them together."

Roberts does know he doesn't want to record his next album in Montreal and his short list of his dream producers includes Jim O' Rourke (Wilco, Sonic Youth) and John Leckie (Stone Roses, The Verve, Radiohead).

"It's going to be in the winter so I'd like to go somewhere else and travel somewhere, I really don't know where yet," says Roberts, who currently gets home to Montreal about once a month for a couple of days at a time. "But I'd like to be off, again, just from everything that goes on here, and make a record that will sort of capture that experience in some way."

Contrary to his preference that he be photographed alongside his bandmates for this article, he will be the sole songwriter once again.

"The writing's kind of just been my thing," Roberts says. "But (the band will be included) far more in the performance this time. I think we'd be misguided or foolish not to try to capture the live intensity or energy on the (next) recording."

Still, there's always the scenario that Roberts might explode in the U.S. Then what?

"We've really been working hard over the last year and a half to try to build something and it's just starting to sort of catch on, and if we have to make the decision to keep playing to make sure that that doesn't slip away from us, then we'll have to do it."

Roberts said the band had been playing U.S. clubs that hold anywhere from 200 to 500 people.

"I think the first record label we were with wasn't really interested in having us develop. It was just more a case of, 'Here they are! Let's go!' And I just don't know if it works that well. That's not what our band's all about at all. And we've been given an opportunity with Lost Highway Records to really go and be more of who'd we like to be. I can only see it getting better, really."

In fact, it almost seems that his lack of "overnight success" in the U.S. and the U.K. is what has kept Roberts' feet firmly on the ground.

"It's so easy to start taking things for granted, you know," he says. "You become accustomed to the life and this and that. Playing in nice venues. Like it happens in a few weeks. This is your God-given right all of a sudden, you know? But it just doesn't work like that. If that's your attitude, then you're probably going to be on the fast track to sh-tsville."

No such path for Roberts, it seems.

The kid turned out all right

Sam Roberts says his South African parents, Alan and Annette Roberts -- who immigrated to Montreal in 1974 just three weeks before his birth -- are tickled he's managed to make something of himself.

After high school, he got a B.A. in English from McGill University and then formed the Brit-pop influenced Northstar, which broke up in 1998.

"I think they enjoy it. I think my parents probably breathed a sigh of relief, (considering) the path that I was originally going into," he says with a smile.

Which was?

"I don't know. Oblivion? It was definitely riddled with uncertainty," he says. "I had my own place but I was struggling financially to make ends meet. Montreal's a good place to do that, really, if you're going to do that anywhere.

"It's affordable to live there and (money is) never the priority, as long as you make ends meet and you make your rent and manage to eat. People live for different things out there, I find. They live for enjoying themselves. That's why on a Tuesday night, the bars are as packed as they are on a Friday night.There's a lot of other places where that's just not the case. So, for me, that just goes hand in hand with how I like to live my life."

Roberts, who began taking violin lessons at age four before discovering his true rock 'n' roll calling, is the eldest of four brothers including Dan, three years his junior, who is a model.

"I was the teetering role model," he remembers. "That's why there were times where I'm like,'Geez, I'm a little skint,' to my brother, who's 14 years old at the time. 'That piggy bank's looking pretty tempting over there.' "

Roberts says when he goes home now -- he shares a place with his longtime girlfriend Jen Stornello -- he does get recognized but that just comes with the territory.

"I was always kind of shy," he says of being approached by fans. "Not in a painfully shy way. I wasn't the kid at family parties who would corner people with an acoustic guitar and say, 'Listen to my new tune!' I was never really a performer like that. I just really liked playing in a rock and roll band."

It shows.