When one of the frontline staffers in the Georgia Straight’s reception area hears that local rocker Daniel Wesley will be popping by the office that afternoon for an interview, she immediately pipes up: “Oh, I like him. Is he a big stoner or something?”

The question isn’t totally unexpected, and has likely been on a few folks’ minds ever since Wesley’s “Ooo Ohh” became the most requested song on CFOX last year. The popularity of the reggae-tinged pop ditty—which sports an infectious chorus that includes a line about catching a wave and smoking a little “ganja”—has propelled his band into the big leagues of Vancouver rock acts. Though it was virtually unknown outside of the ’burbs a year ago, the group managed to sell out its upcoming Commodore show immediately, prompting the addition of a second performance.

Joining Langley-bred singer, songwriter, and guitarist Wesley in the trio that bears his name is bassist Mark Luongo and drummer Alex Glassford. When all three show up in the Straight lobby, we reconvene a few doors down at a licensed joint called Moxie’s Classic Grill, which seems like a suitable place to chat, considering the last four digits of Wesley’s cellphone number spell out BEER. (He tried registering the numbers for WEED, but they were already taken.)

Following a cue from my curious coworker—and another from the Doobie Brothers wailing in the background—I ask Wesley if he was high when he wrote the pot-friendly gem that has captivated so many CFOX disciples. “Yeah, I was actually out of it,” he recalls, clutching a frosty Heineken. “We were having some pints at the Hog Rock Café in Langley, and my friend picked me up, so we went out to smoke some weed and drive around. He’s an MC kinda hip-hop guy, and whenever we hook up we usually sing or scat together. He put a beat on in the background, and I started singing that ‘ooo ohh’ part, then it just kinda elevated from there.”

Wesley recently moved up from the Fraser Valley to join his bandmates in a house near the PNE, a pad that is currently the site of some serious guitar-bass-drums action. Fortunately for the non-rocking residents within earshot, the basement has been effectively soundproofed by Glassford. “It’s really nice to have that musical freedom,” notes the sinewy drummer, brandishing a Stella. “To just go, ‘Okay, I want to play drums as fast as I fucking can,’ then wander downstairs and do it.”

“I’ll hear him and join in,” injects Wesley, “and then all of a sudden Mark’ll be like, ‘Well, fuck, what am I gonna do?’ ”

That easy access to instantaneous jamming has served the group well; its radarlike connection is particularly evident on tunes like the propulsive “Radio”, the forthcoming single off Sing + Dance, the follow-up to its 2006 debut, Outlaw. The nucleus of that rollicking, riff-driven number—which provides a ballsy counterpoint to the seriously laid-back, Jack Johnson–type vibe of “So Fine”—was formed while Wesley was still living under his parents’ roof in Langley.

“I was sitting in the rec room and just kinda picked up that guitar line,” he remembers. “Then Alex came in and started playing this really fast punk-rock beat, and Mark joined in. It’s one of those songs that’s short and sweet, and gets to the point.”

Last year saw Daniel Wesley make some serious strides toward commercial success, including getting to the finals of the CFOX Seeds competition and signing a distribution deal with Toronto’s Fontana North label. Wesley and his cohorts—all between the ages of 24 and 28—are psyched for the challenge of taking their good-time sound to the masses. “We’re at the age now that we’re really grateful and feel blessed,” he relates, “but we’re definitely wanting to move on to the next level. Right now what we have is my 2005 Jimmy with a trailer behind it, and we don’t mind driving across Canada in that because that’s where we’re at. But we can’t wait till we move up to a bigger van or maybe, eventually, a tour bus.”

Fuelling that hope is the knowledge that today is the first day of Sing + Dance’s Canada-wide release so, beers quaffed, the band scoots across Broadway to Future Shop to survey the CD in all its retail glory. When the colourful disc is spotted in the stacks—with “fourth member” Erin Allen’s artwork depicting the guys being embraced by octopus tentacles—Luongo takes exception to the fact that the latest Céline Dion album is displayed right next to it. Within seconds, he’s covered the Quebec diva’s heavily airbrushed visage with that of the way cooler Alicia Keys, but the action doesn’t go undetected by the sales rep filing DVDs nearby, who offers an irritated “Don’t fiddle with the discs” glance.

I guess there’s at least one person in town who’s not crazy about Daniel Wesley.

Daniel Wesley plays the Commodore Ballroom on Thursday and Friday (February 28 and 29).

In + out

Daniel Wesley sounds off on the things that enquiring minds want to know.

On the band’s obvious Sublime influence: “We love Sublime, but it’s not a conscious decision [to sound like them]. It’s like anything—friendships, love interests—they all somehow work their way into your life and become who you are.”

On the musical training he received in B.C. public schools: “For elementary school, choir/ukulele was the thing that was accessible to me, and then going into high school, we all did the concert-band thing. It was just another avenue, like ‘Yeah, I can do this for a period of school, rather than take accelerated math.’ ”

On the support they’ve gotten from CFOX: “All the DJs have been backing us from day one, and you can’t ask for anything better than that—just getting on the radio is hard enough. If you take the initiative to utilize that forum that they’ve given you, they’re behind you 100 percent.”

On what brought the band together in the first place: “We just really enjoy this type of music, which is basically any kind of influence you can think of. We’re kinda rocky, kinda poppy, kinda reggae, kinda—not country, but we’ve got a southern, Johnny Cash kinda feeling to us.”