The Weakerthans may have a deal with influential punk label Epitaph Records -- but frontman John K. Samson doesn't think the band is necessarily headed for the big time.

"The way our band is constructed and the way our records are written, I think there are too many breaker switches in the line between superstardom and where we are now," he says with characteristic candour over a beer at an Osborne Village lounge.

"I think we've always taken the approach each situation is unique and you do the best you can. And I love that Ani DiFranco line -- 'My thing is already just the right size.' I'm pretty happy with the way things are right now and slightly bigger or slightly smaller I'd still be really happy with the way things are going."

He should be. After selling tens of thousands of copies of their first two independent releases -- Fallow and Left and Leaving -- the band was signed to the respected California label to a one-album-plus-option deal after sending them some rough demos. Their new album, Reconstruction Site, will be released Tuesday in North America by Epitaph and by Burning Heart Records in Europe.

"They sent us a contract without hearing the record so we were all really impressed by that. Either it was a great leap of faith or a horrible mistake on their part," Samson laughs.

While former indie bands such as The Offspring and Green Day have gone on to sell millions of albums and become staples of video music stations, Samson doesn't believe his band's look and songwriting style will go over with the mass record buying public, despite the critical acclaim it has received. Canada's video station, MuchMusic, won't even be putting the band's new video, Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault In Paris, 1961), into regular rotation.

"I'm kind of disappointed just because I think it's a good video and if they don't play that, then I have this idea that they're never going to play anything I'm involved with, which doesn't really depress me -- it just kind of confuses me," he says.

Not that The Weakerthans -- Samson, guitarist Stephen Carroll, bassist John Sutton and drummer Jason Tait -- are looking for video stardom. Or even mainstream success. They consider it more important to retain control over how their music is used and marketed.

"I think there's more expectation and a little more pressure, but I try not to think about it," says Samson. "There's no point in thinking about it really. People think of labels of kind of owning bands, the bands become part of a brand once they're on a particular label, which you know is obviously quite true sometimes.

"But the people we've always worked with throughout the industry have always understood the idea that this is a body of work, a living body of work. All our records are important to us and they all are relevant to what we do. And just because someone else is putting it out doesn't mean anything has drastically changed in any way, so I think Epitaph fits into that philosophy quite nicely."

Samson formed The Weakerthans seven years ago after leaving political speed-punk group Propagandhi. Since then they have toured Canada, Europe and the United States umpteen times; won two Prairie Music Awards for Independent Recording and Video of the Year; and have been nominated for a Juno.

Samson credits his time in Propagandhi with fostering his fierce independence, which extends to his songwriting. Unlike typical pop songcraft, Samson's tunes eschew the traditional verse-chorus-verse structure for a more organic, stream-of-conscious approach.

"I think the concept in (Propagandhi) is you have a certain amount of time to say something and you should use that time and not waste it, so that was a huge learning experience for me," he says.

Reconstruction Site was also a learning experience, he says. For the first time, the band recorded the entire album outside of Winnipeg -- in Toronto in February with producer Ian Blurton, who worked with the band on 2000's Left and Leaving.

Whereas the group's first two albums were very personal for Samson, the group's main songwriter, he wrote Reconstruction Site with the idea of putting himself in someone else's shoes.

"I wanted to write more first-person narratives from the point of view of people that couldn't be me, so on this record, for example, there's a senile retired explorer, there's an old man, there's a cat and there's a failed short story writer. That was a real conscious thing and I think that that might make it slightly more difficult for the listener to access emotionally, but maybe it's a bit more interesting for everyone involved, I hope," he says.

Many of the songs deal with the limitations of life and how to work within the framework of failure and weakness.

"I think of Reconstruction Site, in the end, as laughing at your own failures and there's a kind of a liberation of joy in that. I think it's kind of a record about moving forward somehow for me. I think trying to look honestly at the world is the first step towards that, I guess," he says, adding he believes it's the happiest album he's ever made.

"I don't think art is therapy, but I certainly need this. It's not something I can live without. I think art has to do more than something in the world than just complain."

Winnipeg has always been a reference point for Samson's songs, but on the new album he appears to take shots at his hometown in One Great City!, whose refrain is "I hate Winnipeg." Samson calls the song a willful misinterpretation and expects it to be misunderstood by many who hear it.

"For me it's about the dangers of boosterism and it is about low self-esteem. It's about how sometimes it seems to me the things that are great about this place are ignored and downplayed and the things that are horrible about it people just pretend they don't exist.

"It's the right and duty of people who stay here to point out the obvious drawbacks of this place, the obvious problems that exist and that we're responsible for. But I know it's going to be a difficult song because it does take some conversation for people to understand it."

One Great City! is the most blatant song about Samson's hometown, but even songs that seem like they are about other places are still filtered through Winnipeg and the people who live here, he says.

"I'm always going to be writing about this place, writing through this place. I've come to terms with that and I'm happy about that. I'll be writing about this place for the rest of my life and I'm grateful."