As the frontman and primary songwriter for the '80s startup Camper Van Beethoven [ tickets ], David Lowery may have penned the quintessential college-radio anthem, "Take the Skinheads Bowling." But this and other influential numbers from among the group's seven studio releases and a smattering of EPs and compilations may have actually paved the way for an entire genre of music pigeonholed by the broadcast and recording industries as "adult alternative."

This relatively new category--also dubbed AAA for Adult Album Alternative, and defined by Wikipedia as being "... on the fringe of mainstream popular music and rock music as well as many other music genres such as alternative rock, alternative country, jazz, folk music, world music and blues"--certainly encompasses a bulk of Lowery's output from his Camper days, as well as his succeeding group, Cracker [ tickets ].

Today, Lowery is straddling both projects. On any given night, you may see him plugging a handful of Camper Van Beethoven tunes into a Cracker set. And, while it is somewhat more rare, according to Lowery, once in awhile Camper will also crank out a version of one of Cracker's creations.

Both bands are comfortably coexisting these days on the road and on the racks, with Camper's 2004 reunion offering, "New Roman Times," still selling strong, and Cracker's recent release, "Greenland," getting some critical praise both domestically and around the globe. Both bands and some very special guests can also be seen and heard on the raw live DVD captured at Lowery's first annual Camp Out festival at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace in the high desert of California.

Lowery, a plain-speaking Texan who was transplanted to the left coast during his high school years, recently chatted with LiveDaily while he and the full Cracker compliment were preparing for a quick jaunt to Europe, followed by a summer run of US shows by both Cracker and Camper. As in years past, the summer will culminate with the third annual Camp Out, September 6-8.

LiveDaily: Your annual end-of-summer "Camp Out" has got to be one of the most unique aspects of this kind of musical family scene you have going on. I imagine this gig at Pappy and Harriet's has to be a first-class blast with all these friends and collaborators crossing around to different acts and doing their own thing all in the course of one super jam festival?

David Lowery: The Camp Out actually came about when Cracker and Camper's manager suggested we sell tickets to what we first conceived as a huge party because a bunch of us had birthdays all falling around that time at the end of August and in September. It was originally going to be a private party, but, when we opened it up, we got quite a few people there the first year, considering it's a remote, hard-to-find area and the production was minimal. The second year, we were approached by other people who either lived in or were passing through the neighborhood asking to be on it. This year, Frank Black asked about it, and we may very well have somebody else big joining us if we can get it together. We did the DVD for the fans, which is kind of a throwback with some really raw footage. There were two pro cameras there with a video production guy bringing in his studio in a camper, but it's mixed with fan footage, and some of the fans said it was some of the best audio they ever heard.

Speaking of good audio: there's a lot of really interesting material, both musically and lyrically, on Cracker's new release, "Greenland." How are audiences and the critics receiving it?

We've been pretty well-reviewed, considering "Greenland" hasn't been really well publicized in the United States. I guess now we qualify as "classic" or "heritage" in rock radio terms, but, ironically, except for a brief period in 1994, Cracker is played more on the radio now than they ever were--and, each month, it's going up a little bit.

How did you settle on the title?

A lot of the songs are set in an area north of San Francisco the locals call "the lost coast." It's very green and a lot of our songs are set there. Thomas Pynchon referred to that area as "Vineland" in his novel, so I decided to call the album "Greenland." A lot of the record is about loss, incorporating that Cracker sense of black humor. But it does recognize the somewhat serious issue of lost love. I also have a recollection of a poet describing love as the promise of a green land, and I think of [the island of] Greenland as a barren, icy, cold place. I like those references, and considered all of them when I was naming the record. It's not a concept album, but a lot of it is thematically tied together with a number of different competing voices. It incorporates a lot of literary references--I tried to make it feel like every track was written in a different voice by a different person.

Has the new material provided you and the band a chance to explore new musical directions?

I think there had always been a struggle within Cracker and within ourselves--Johnny (Hickman, guitar) and the guys we play with--about how much we want to reveal. But, once we started working on "Greenland," we decided we are going to do what we do and say what we say. We embraced that we are a modern-day, classic-rock band without any specific label or prefixes like "alternative," "roots" or "heritage" hanging out there in front of us.

You and Johnny just came in from an acoustic tour. Does that configuration provide more limitations than it does opportunities, either in terms of the way you play the songs or where you get to play them?

The duo thing gives us a chance to go to towns that we would never go to with the full band. And it's become a fan favorite when we drop into larger markets like Boston and even Hartford. They get to see a different interpretation of our songs. I think it's much harder to do the duo show. It scares the crap out of me and Johnny, especially in the first few nights of the acoustic tour. You have to be on because there's no band behind you. But, that means, invariably, when the full band hooks up with us, they say, "Wow, you guys are on fire!" The material also has to be reinterpreted a little bit. I mean, we don't do like what Eric Clapton did when he re-recorded "Layla"--that is the f---ing wrong way to do that. You have to make the hits more simplistic or brutal, not more quiet.

How do you deal with the shout-outs for Camper Van Beethoven material when you are working in one of the Cracker configurations?

We sometimes mix three or four Camper Van Beethoven songs, as well as some Johnny Hickman solo stuff in the duo format. We weave it all in and out during the set and then mention the reference after so we don't set up any expectations for people.

Have you discovered any new live favorites from among the songs on "Greenland" once you got them out on the road?

You know, I think the song "Where Have Those Days Gone" really changed once we did it live. The way we approached it really changed it for me, and it became a better song, in my mind. We play that one a lot because it naturally flows.

By the time this interview is published, you'll probably have taken the full Cracker band over to Europe, which is where Camper Van Beethoven actually hit big first. Do you find the audiences seem almost tolerant of the Cracker material so they can get to hear a few Camper numbers mixed in?

Well, Camper broke out big in England and Europe at first. We just missed the Top of the Pops with "Take the Skinheads Bowling" when it came out. Then, all the attention came back to the United States, where Camper was more obscure. But, like the Camp Out, it's all really related--we're all in the same circle listening to each other's records and helping each other out. It's an organic thing we have amongst ourselves. It's great that, when Cracker got popular, we were able to resurrect those CDs and a lot more people got turned on to Camper Van Beethoven from Cracker. And, in the very beginning, a lot of people who were fans of Camper came out to see those Johnny Hickman/David Lowery solo shows when we were just trying to get a record deal together for Cracker.