Pop music and pottery are oh-so Sweet

Matthew Sweet fans who have surfed his website lately might have noticed that the power popster now sells his handmade pottery alongside his CDs. Sweet may have fallen in love with his kiln over the past few years, but his guitar hasn't been collecting dust.

The Nebraska native, who rose to prominence in the early '90s thanks to a clutch of infectious tunes on albums like "Girlfriend" and "100% Fun," is taking a break from creating vases to talk up his latest musical creation, "Sunshine Lies." His 10th studio release is his most rocking effort in years, full of brawny riffs and psychedelic flights of fancy.

This is a change of pace for Sweet. In 2003 he teamed with Shawn Mullins and Pete Droge for the mellow, Crosby, Stills & Nash-ish band the Thorns. The next year he released the mostly acoustic "Living Things," and in 2006, he paired up with former Bangle Susanna Hoffs for a delightful album of '60s folk-pop covers.

We recently caught up with Sweet, who plays at the Paradise on Monday, at his LA home.

Q. What was the inspiration to crank it back up?

A. Before we made the record with Sue, I recorded some of the earliest stuff for this record a good couple of years ago and it was all really rock. After the Thorns, it was kind of my reaction to only be rock.

Q. You're known as a pop craftsman, but there's a real seat-of-the-pants quality to the energy of the record.

A. That's a more fun way to do music, too, if you do it seat-of-the-pants (laughs). You just have to realize for most people it's just gotten entirely the opposite of that. It's about fixing everything. It sounds impressive and really "pro," quote unquote, but it loses a feeling of realness.

Q. "Let's Love" has a funny undercurrent where you seem to be expressing some exasperation that artists have been singing about peace and love since the '60s and why can't we just get on with it already.

A. I guess it's unusual for me in that it is a little more of an "all of us" anthem. What I liked about it when I looked back at it and had to write down the lyrics was that it is really sort of cynical but it's still saying let's love, which I think is cool.

Q. On the ballad "Back of My Mind," you talk about a new dream growing. Was that inspired by your newfound pottery habit?

A. (Laughs) No, but pottery's awesome and it did influence how my record feels because it helped me think of my music like the pottery. It's such a rarefied moment when you throw a piece of pottery and it goes some magical way. But it takes this almost complete Zen-ning out and letting go of everything to sort of have that moment happen, only you have an object later on instead of something in the air.