Pop punk may be an antiquated notion by the time you read this. Problem is, it always seemed more of a dichotomy than a blend, purveyed by bands that wanted the best of both worlds: pop's hooks and fan base, punk's street cred and balls. But instead of really working it out beyond taking Cheap Trick, speeding it up, and throwing in a couple of F-bombs, most bands moved on. Others leaned to one side or the other. Atlanta's Cartel favored pop, but rock, too. Wise choice.

Arriving on the scene in 2005, Cartel blasted away with crisp pop full of hooks and fresh-faced good looks. Constant touring, especially in the college market, as well as being featured on MTV's "Band In A Bubble," catapulted the group to stardom. Now front man Will Pugh contemplates the state of pop punk, and where Cartel fits in. He called for advice. Here's what we said.

CITY: I recently read where you said pop punk today isn't going anywhere.

Will Pugh: Yeah, when we were growing up it seemed to be a genre with bands that were doing different styles. Bands like New Found Glory, Blink 182, and Green Day. New Found Glory was the first band that I think really brought in different sounds with pop punk, like the hardcore element, which was wildly popular at the time. I guess since then I haven't really heard a lot of bands be a pop punk-only band.

So nobody's doing it anymore?

I think Fall Out Boy did a pretty good job with their last record. They at least tried to be different. And they got a lot of shit for it. It's nice to see a band actually spearhead the pop punk movement and take some risks.

What risks is Cartel taking?

I think our last record is pretty indicative of the risks we take. We definitely got away from the pop punk thing. We still had elements of it, but we've never pigeonholed ourselves into the whole pop punk thing. We've always said we're pop rock.

What's the difference?

We kind of aspire to be like the bands we grew up listening to, bands our parents would play when we were kids before we bought our first records. Like Joseph (Pepper)'s parents are total classic rock fans, their record collection is pretty crazy. My mom always listened to soft rock, which at the time was like Genesis and Journey and stuff like that. Not that it was classic, timeless stuff, but the songs were great. I was always into the songs and Joseph was more into the guitars. The 60's and 70's, the guitars were it. Late 70's early 80's it was more song-based, less riffage.

What about the influences of your generation?

We kinda caught the 90's in a weird place. My first record was Smashing Pumpkins' "Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness."  From there it was within three or four years listening to New Found Glory. It was kind of a weird time to be picking up music.

You guys seem to hit a lot of colleges on your tours. Is this your target audience?

The Rochester/Buffalo area seems to love us for college shows now. Truthfully, we've played more college shows than club shows in the area. I think demographically the college market is better for us. It seems that bands like us that tiptoe the line between radio pop punk and the classic throwback element are going the way of the buffalo in the club market.

Besides the bigger budgets, why are colleges better for you than clubs?

It's nice playing the colleges because a lot of kids, by this point in time, have started listening to The Beatles; they kinda get a few of the things we're trying to do.

And there's plenty of collegiate chicas. Just looking at your MySpace page, I have to wonder: do you have any male fans?

If there are, they're not admitting it. Earlier on it was primarily guys, but as soon the stuff with MTV and the radio success happened, the more popular we got with the younger girls.

Does college radio help? Does it even exist anymore?

Oh yeah. A lot of the time it's reserved for bands like Radiohead and stuff like that. But we seem to get a good bit of love from there. It's definitely not nationwide, but the places we've come and played, it's definitely helped us a lot.

This show's line-up is particularly eclectic. How do the bands all fit, style wise?

We're trying to find some common thread in this whole thing. Yung Joc is from Atlanta and we are too. MC Lars was on our old label's sister label. That's it. That's the only commonality between all of us.

So had this been your tour, you probably wouldn't put this line-up together.

No, probably not

But the variety ought to result in a good show.

Absolutely. I've noticed kids get bored when shows are all the same - the same music over and over again. Since we've started headlining, we try to diversify the line-up. If you don't like it at least it's something different. We obviously didn't choose this line-up, but I think it'll add a lot to the show.

Where do you think pop music will be in 10 years?

Truthfully - and this isn't a bad thing - I really see it going more electronic, like that band Metro Station. Music is becoming more electronic and prompting more people to do music, because you don't have to be good to do it.

Where will Cartel fit in?