Tim Bluhm has a good life. The singer/songwriter spends most of his days cruisin' the California coastline, weaving on and off of blue highways in search of sunshine and a good wave. He stops when he feels it's time. Free of apartment leases, free of romantic commitment, Bluhm is married to his surfboard, his camper and his band. And within the western half of the States, his group, The Mother Hips, has a reputation as a solid, long-winded road band (sometimes touring 200 days out of the year) with a sweet sense of melody just twangy enough at times to pick up the unfortunate moniker of an alt-country group. But they play rock by the book, and for a guy who spent most of his prep school years rock-climbing and most of his college years playing guitar, things have turned out rather well for Bluhm.

"I have a little camper and I just drive around," the singer says via a fuzzy cell phone while driving along I-5 near Mammoth Mountain (where his family keeps a cabin). "I go to the mountains if it's snowing and I go to the beach if it's sunny, and visit friends all over the state and other states." And in a way, on warm songs like "Channel Island Girl," you can start to relate to Bluhm's California bum lifestyle, and become envious of both his freedom and his ability to write songs about it.

While none of its members have had to work petty dishwashing jobs to cover gas money in the last nine years, The Mother Hips are, in many ways, a very working-class band. Most bands tour to promote albums after they've been released; The Mother Hips tour for money because they need it. Lack of funding was the primary reason that the band's fifth album, Green Hills of Earth, has been held back for nearly three years.

"It just sort of got larger than we thought it would be," Bluhm explains of the record's budget. "We kept having to go back in [to the studios] to do stuff, so when it started to sound kind of good, we realized that if we put a little more time into it, it would sound really good. We decided that ultimately, a timeline isn't that important when you're talking about a record that will hopefully be around for a really long time."

The clarity in production that shines through the 14 tracks on Green Hills makes up for the wait. And as it turns out, the timing couldn't have been better. While The Mother Hips have been making music since Bluhm converged with singer/guitarist Greg Loicono and bassist Isaac Parsons at Chico State back in 1991, you might say that the new album is the first big commercial break they've been handed. When San Francisco alt-rock station KFOG picked up a track from Green Hills a few months back, Bluhm couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"We had basically given up years ago on commercial success," he explains. "And then all of a sudden, right when the record was coming out, KFOG picked up a song and started playing it, just unsolicited, which is totally unheard of. And that's, like, one of the top five most influential radio stations in the country. I couldn't believe the song that they chose, 'Singing Seems to Ease Me,' because to me it doesn't sound anything like anything on the radio even remotely. And they love it."

Shortly thereafter, the band was invited down to KFOG to do an on-air performance, and was asked to play at the station's massive annual fireworks festival KaBoom (which takes place downtown San Francisco in May) sharing a bill with Blues Traveler and the Old 97's. All of the attention these days has got Bluhm a bit flustered, but they're hardly on the brink of selling out. "I don't even know how to sell out," Bluhm says. "We don't even have a lawyer.

"When you're the underdog," he continues, "it's very safe, and any little victories that you make are really unexpected, and we've been really fortunate. But then as soon as you get that buzz and people start looking at you and people start saying, 'You're really good and this record is really promising,' then you have to live up to that. And if you don't live up to it, then it's like you've failed."