The band will release its major-label debut, "New Wave," produced by Butch Vig (Nirvana), this summer.

Drew Goren / Courtesy of Fat wRecK CHords

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Against Me! has to be one of the most incendiary punk acts to be signed to a major label in a while.

And it's not just the band's music that gets people fired up.

Since 2001, the punk-folk four-piece from Gainesville, Fla., has spent much of its time battling out of the clingy underground punk scene, where you can be labeled a sellout for sneezing.

"The one thing over the years I've noticed is that maybe I don't necessarily want to be limited to just being a punk band," said Tom Gabel, the band's 26-year-old singer, guitarist and lyricist. "Maybe people get upset about that — I don't know."

Against Me! has had its tires slashed, its van graffitied and has received letters wishing its members would perish in a plane crash.

Like the punk cliché, the band label-hopped as it became more popular (No Idea Records, Fat Wreck Chords) and landed on a major (Sire, owned by Warner Bros.).

As many times as this scenario has played in the punk community (Green Day, AFI), you would think its inhabitants would learn to let go. Still, punk-rock message boards online are filled with angry postings.

In a gruff voice on "Don't Lose Touch," Gabel asks, "Is there something wrong with these songs?/Maybe there's something wrong with the audience."

About that line, Gabel said the endless accessibility of MP3s is helping turn music into more of a product that is being consumed and less of an art to be appreciated by fans.

"It's just kind of mindless," he said.

Gabel's singing voice sounds like a more fired-up Shane MacGowan of the Pogues fronting a harder version of the Clash. The material ranges from anti-war ("White People For Peace") to searing critiques of the music industry ("Unprotected Sex With Multiple Partners") to the disrespectful behavior of his fellow citizens ("Americans Abroad").

Not that Gabel, who describes himself as an anarchist, isn't quick to turn the magnifying glass back on the group.

"Maybe us being a band and traveling around is just as much cultural imperialism as, say, a McDonald's being put in in the middle of Rome," he said.

Against Me! is shaping up to have a big 2007. The band will release its major-label debut, "New Wave" — a "nonstop brutal assault," Gabel said — produced by the famed Butch Vig (Nirvana), this summer.

It also will take another step away from its punk underground roots by playing the Coachella music festival alongside other outspoken acts, including Rage Against the Machine.

Judging from the band's past, it's safe to say you can expect unpredictability from Against Me!

Not that Gabel is taking stock of anyone else's hopes but his own.

"Making music is about following your muse and doing what it tells you. However off the wall or misunderstood by other people, you just have to follow what your gut tells you," he said.