Two years ago, the synth-pop band Hellogoodbye [ tickets ] was playing the occasional gig around its hometown of Huntington Beach, CA. That was a dream come true.

Fast forward to 2007 and the band, best known for its hit "Here (In Your Arms)," is playing 2,000-person capacity theaters.

"It's completely beyond anything we could comprehend," singer Forrest Kline said in an interview with LiveDaily. "Two years ago, it was beyond anything we would have thought. We would just play shows at the local venue like once a month. That was the big time, beyond what was expected.

"We're not winning Grammys or anything, but we're still flying everywhere doing this crazy crap. Just in the last few days, we flew to Orange County to Vegas to Atlanta to New York and back in like three days. Now we're leaving for tour."

Hellogoodbye [ tickets ] will return to the road Oct. 16 when it begins the MySpace Music Tour, co-headlining with Say Anything [ tickets ]. Hellogoodbye is pushing its 2006 debut album "Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!," a collection that includes songs from demos and previously released EPs. Kline generally writes songs alone on his computer or a myriad of instruments that he owns.

"I have to be in a room by myself at night with a studio and a computer and stuff," he said. "I typically can't pick up an acoustic guitar and, like, write a song. I gotta have all kinds of crap available to me. If I don't have every instrument in the world available, I feel like I can't be productive. If I just have a guitar, I say, 'I can't do anything with this.' I have to have 19 things."

Kline admitted he's not one who can easily collaborate with others..

"Mostly, I'm embarrassed," he said. "If you have something cool, you already know it's cool when you're trying out stuff with other people. Then you can say, 'Check this out.' If you don't know what you're doing, I feel stupid trying stuff. Ninety-nine percent of the stuff I would try would be really lame. I'm glad nobody heard that."

One person for whom he made an exception is former Self frontman Matt Mahaffey, one of Kline's musical heroes. Hellogoodbye--which also includes keyboardist Jesse Kurvink, bassist Marcus Cole and drummer Chris Profeta--settled into Mahaffey's home studio and started deciding which songs would make the final cut.

"A lot of people don't know about him," Kline said of Mahaffey, currently a member of Wired All Wrong. "It was a dream come true to work with him. He was completely an idol of mine. Usually, I'm by myself. It was the first time I worked with other people that way and had a producer. If I went back in time, I would do it again for sure with him. He had a lot of cool ideas.

"He's good with adding a lot of different sounds and vibes. Self songs have all kinds of layers and stuff to them. He was good with adding things here and there. That's the funnest part--all the little details. That's what it's all about. Coming up with a song is like coming up with the plot for the movie. That's not really the fun part. But doing the details--that's the important part."