When I spoke with Westin Glass, drummer for the Thermals, he was wandering somewhere in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the background, I could hear some mysterious trilling bird - wild turkey? angry peacock? roadrunner? - and the effect was that Glass sounded a million miles away. The trilling began as we were talking about Arizona - but more on that later. First, some back story.

Indie pop-punk heroes the Thermals began in 2002, with Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster who, after several lineup changes, have remained the band's only constants. The Thermals built a following through their high-energy performances, both live and on record, and their emotionally charged and frankly political lyrics. Even when the subject matter gets almost overwhelmingly angry and heavy (as it most notably did on their third album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine), the bright levity of the music never allows an album to get bogged down in bitterness. Hutch Harris may sometimes sound like a punk-rock preacher, but the Thermals never quite sound preachy, if you get my drift.

Glass, formerly of Seattle's Say Hi, joined the Thermals just after the release of their fourth record, Now We Can See, and collaborated with them closely in the recording of their most recent effort, Personal Life. As the name might suggest, Personal Life largely shifts focus from global matters to matters of the heart - broken or swelling as it may be, day to day. Accordingly, Personal Life carries a more mellow tone than one is used to hearing from the Thermals. Oh, it's still punk rock, but it doesn't seethe and spit with as much intensity as they have in the past.

"We never said, ‘Let's make this a mellow record,' or anything like that," says Glass. "Those were the songs that just came out. We went with what felt good when we were writing, and that just ended up being the deal with that record."

Back to the trilling bird. Glass and I spoke about Arizona over a month ago, before the recent tragedy, when its biggest controversy was the law that had just been passed that would allow police officers to pull over anyone they suspected to be an illegal immigrant. At the time, many bands were boycotting the state, saying that they refused to play there in the wake of the law being passed. Glass had just posted a statement on the Thermal's website saying that they would not be boycotting Arizona, noting that it would be akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

"I grew up in Albuquerque," Glass said over the phone. "I know all too well what it's like to live in this weird, isolated place that people kind of forget about. There are a lot of really backwards, greedy people. ... I mean, to grow up in a place like this or Arizona and to have progressive opinions and to be into music is very lonely.

"When bands would come through Albuquerque that I had heard of, that I liked, it was really cool because it's pretty out of the way," Glass continued. "People would come out and go to shows all the time, and it helps to foster a sense of community among all the people who think that same way. The fewer bands that are coming there, the less and less there is that sense of community, the less those people go out and see each other, the more you start to feel like it's helpless.

"So, I think it's dumb to boycott Arizona," said Glass. "I really don't think that Governor Jan Brewer, or whoever the people are that are trying to do all this racist stuff, are really going to be like, ‘Oh no! The Thermals aren't coming to Arizona! Drat!' If anything, if they had heard of our band and heard that we weren't coming to Arizona, they'd be psyched."

Any city would be unbearable without music, even Olympia. Escape your seasonal affective disorder for a moment and catch the Thermals as they tear Northern down.

The Thermals

with Broken Water, White Fan
Sunday, Jan. 23, 8 p.m., $8
Northern, 321 Fourth Ave., Olympia
northernolympia.org