Despite years of hard work by network executives and producers, the differences between reality TV and reality itself remain painfully obvious. Just ask the members of Rock Star Supernova. The self-designated “megagroup”, formed by occasional Mí¶tley Crí¼e drummer Tommy Lee, ex–Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke, and former Metallica bassist Jason New ­sted, generated a hit TV series last summer with its 11-episode, American Idol–style search for a lead singer.

Yet things have definitely gotten messier since those weeks of stage-managed adulation and hype, which culminated in the band picking Toronto native Lukas Rossi as its new frontman. Rock Star Supernova’s North American tour, which began in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve and is now heading to Vancouver, has run into more than a few rough patches, with too many concert reviewers lining up to deliver swift kicks and too few fans queuing for tickets. (A February 8 show in Minneapolis, for example, was downsized from a 5,800-seat auditorium to a nightclub.)

All the same, the 30-year-old Rossi is defiant, arguing that Rock Star Supernova has been stigmatized for having been born on TV.

“We’re getting a lot of flak, unfortunately, because we’re coming from a television show,” the affable singer explains to the Straight by phone from a tour stop in Des Moines, Iowa. “What people don’t realize is that this is a real band, man. Just because it was televised doesn’t make it any less credible.”¦We rehearse like any other group, and we write like anybody else. We don’t have teams of writers writing our shit for us. We’re starting from ground zero and building our way up.”

From the start, that building process has been problem-filled. Not long after the TV series ended, a legal dispute with another group that had already laid claim to the name Super ­nova forced the new outfit to tack the TV series title, Rock Star, to its moniker, thus handing ammunition to skeptical music critics. On top of this, sales of the debut album failed to crack the Top 100. Then, to add injury to insult, Newsted tore a bicep while handling an amp during rehearsal and had to be replaced by former Black Crowes bassist Johnny Colt.

Some of these setbacks come from poor planning or plain bad luck. But the idea that the band itself represents something wholly synthetic—and therefore inauthentic—is simply unfair, Rossi says, because it ignores the way music is promoted and distributed in a Web-wired age.

“Music has changed, man, and there’s hardly any more record stores,” he says. “Everything’s on the Internet now or on television. I think the people who are hatin’ are jealous. I’m sure they would’ve taken the opportunity I took. I’ve been in a bunch of bands in my life, and struggled and came close to grabbing record deals in America and so forth.”¦But this is the way I chose to do it, and the way we all chose to do it, and I’m happy as hell doing it.”

Still, Rossi admits that he once had his own doubts about the Rock Star series’s blend of audition process and mass entertainment.

“Being on the show, to be honest, was kind of Catch-22 for me,” he says. “I didn’t really want to be on a television show, and I just was kind of hesitant about it. I actually turned down the first audition”¦because I heard through the grapevine it was Van Halen looking for a singer. And I was like, ”˜Uh, no, I’m not into that.’ They’re a great band but just not my style. And then I heard a week later who it was, and my own band at the time was kind of going off in different directions. I thought it was a cool opportunity, and it was the best summer I’ve ever had in my life. And now I’m the singer in ?Supernova, so it’s pretty rad.”

There’s a hint of fatigue in the way Rossi delivers that last phrase. Maybe it’s weariness from the new-town-every-night tour schedule; maybe it’s the unexpected weight of public attention, both positive and negative. He says he believes that the past successes of his bandmates, each of whom has played with a multiplatinum act, are the result of “how humble and professional they are”. And it’s perhaps with this in mind that he takes his own stoic stance when summing up the turmoil Rock Star Supernova has weathered in recent months.

“There’s a lot of haters out there that can’t wait to hate. I saw that from the beginning, but, you know, I think the music and the message and my talent should shine through more than the TV show.”

Rock Star Supernova plays the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Monday (February 19).