Has there ever, in the history of bands, been a worse band name than Hoobastank? "Dude, yes, it's a stupid fucking name," readily admits Hoobastank guitarist Dan Estrin. "I cringe every time I say it or hear it."

But as brave trailblazers such as Limp Bizkit, Enuff Z'nuff and the String Cheese Incident have proved in the past, a truly shitty name is not necessarily a barrier to America's heart. With Hoobastank, success has come via the title track of their second album, The Reason, which has become this year's modern-rock power ballad to beat, sitting in the Top Ten for seven weeks and propelling the album to sales of 1.6 million.

Tonight, the band is at Cabaret, an ultrachic restaurant and nightclub near the Champs-Elysees in Paris. (For the record, hoobastank sounds better with a French accent, more like a brand of Belgian chocolate than the nickname of a guy who drinks beer through a funnel.) In the basement lounge, a DJ spins Jay-Z and a steady stream of models makes the scene -- though the men of Hoobastank are not, themselves, notorious scene-makers. "The label always suggests places like Nobu for business meetings," notes Hoobastank manager Bret Bair with a grin, referring to the trendy, expensive New York sushi restaurant, "but the guys always want to go to T.G.I. Friday's."

Sitting at a long table at Cabaret, the four members of Hoobastank look, in fact, like average Joes who have been queer-eyed for a makeover show. All of the bandmates recently bought houses in Southern California and often engage in lengthy discussions about interest rates vs. property values. Doug Robb has spiky black hair and is wearing a black Van Halen T-shirt, jeans and camouflage Converse sneakers. For a singer and lyricist, he seems remarkably affable and angst-free. He plays golf, has never tried drugs, rarely has more than two drinks and says his older brother, who has recently gotten into stunt-flying airplanes, has "thrill issues." Estrin, who wrote all of the music on The Reason, has a mullet-mohawk hybrid and is wearing a plaid snap-button cowboy shirt. He speaks in a very precise, crisp manner and seems like the most driven member of the band, the master planner and de facto leader. He records songs onto his voice mail if he's not near a studio; he checks in with their label, Island, about SoundScan numbers and units shipped; and he's already planning a future all-covers album, which ideally will include "Send Me an Angel," "Dust in the Wind" and the Bee Gees' "Tragedy." Bassist Markku Lappalainen (his parents are from Finland) is the quietest member of the band and has a full-on mohawk, dyed red. Drummer Chris Hesse is the blond one. He's lobbying for an Indonesian tour stop because he has heard that the surfing there is great. When he removes his Army-surplus jacket, he reveals a yellow T-shirt that reads IF IT SMELLS LIKE FISH, EAT IT.

Robb, 29, and Estin, 28, went to high school together in Agoura Hills, a comfortably middle-class suburb of Los Angeles. They weren't close friends, but when their bands split up around the same time, they began making music as a duo. Robb had been a bassist, but one day, Estrin recalls, "I heard him singing in the car and said, 'Wow, this guy can sing. He's not great, but for what I want to do he'll be good, and he'll probably get better.' "

A far cry from the sincerity of ?The Reason," the pair's earliest efforts tended toward the jokey and flat-out obnoxious. "We had one song called 'The Gray Mushroom,' " Estrin says. "It was about our friend and his dick. He was one of those guys in high school who'd always pull his dick out and show it to everybody. And it was gray. We were like, 'Dude, your dick is gray.' We had another song -- it was awesome -- called 'Springtime Breeze.' It was a beautiful, beautiful song, all acoustic, and the lyrics were all about girls taking shits and farting and having periods. We're still completely immature."

Eventually the guys decided -- at least musically -- to get serious. They formed Hoobastank in 1994, hooking up with Lappalainen and Hesse through ads in The Recycler, a classifieds paper, and spent the next five years building a strong following in L.A., though a dozen or so record labels turned them down. The band members all continued to hold day jobs: Robb and Estrin worked with kids at a YMCA after-school program, Hesse did landscaping work, and Lappalainen worked in the porn industry, building sets and working as a grip on classics such as San Fernando Jones and the Temple of Poon. "I felt like I was going to hell," he says.

When the four of them finally signed with Island, they were planning on changing their name -- they actually signed their contract as "the band formerly known as Hoobastank" -- but at what was to be the final Hoobastank show, the crowd began wildly chanting their name. An A&R rep from Island was in attendance. "Maybe," he suggested, "you guys should keep it. . . ."

A t Cabaret, Robb and Hesse are both trying to put the moves on a cute VJ from MTV France. One would assume advantage Robb -- the singer vs. the drummer?! Come on. But Hesse has a truly impressive amount of game. The thirty-year-old is recently single -- he claims that in the four years he dated his girlfriend, he didn't so much as hold another girl's hand on the road -- and since the breakup, the hand-holding ban has apparently been lifted.

Robb strikes early, sitting beside the VJ at our dinner table. But then, inexplicably, he gets up to talk to some guy, and Hesse slides into his seat, where he will remain planted for the rest of dinner. Stuck on the other side of the table, Robb peevishly text-messages Estrin: "Chris is the ultimate cock block."

A couple of hours later, Hesse is making out with the VJ in a corner booth. Robb eyes a gargantuan model who is wearing a sheer tank top and a comically tall pair of thigh boots. "How do you even approach a model?" Robb asks me. People recently called to tell him he'd be included on this year's Fifty Most Beautiful People list, which he hopes will help with future prospects. But he adds, "I've still got no game. This girl is too tall for me. I would need supplemental oxygen. I'd need Sherpas, man."

In a rare celebratory move, Robb has had about five drinks tonight. Though his bandmates warned me that he'd be puking after three, he remains as genial and low-key as when he's sober. "I have almost an allergic reaction to alcohol," he says. "Usually it's two drinks and I'm out. I should announce my candidacy for president. I have a squeaky-clean background. And I got better grades than Bush. Not that that's saying much."

In general, Robb says, he feels like he's passed the age for experimenting with abusable substances. "And right now, it's really a special time for us, so we have to work as hard as we can," he continues. "People don't realize that as much a passion as this is for us, it's a job. And you wouldn't come to your job high." Estrin smoked pot once in the seventh grade and felt so guilty he immediately went home and told his mom. The first time he got drunk, he was twenty-three. The first time he got really wasted, the band had just signed its record deal and been invited to a party at the Playboy Mansion. George Lucas was giving a TV interview when a drunken Estrin wandered over and flashed some metal horns in his face. Security grabbed him and he was almost thrown out.

He takes a sip of expensive French wine and makes a face, explaining that he doesn't like the taste of any alcohol. "If getting punched in the arm could make me drunk, I'd do that rather than drink," he says. For the utilitarian purpose of simply getting fucked up, he prefers the quick and dirty Jagermeister shot. Inquiries are made (and weary Gallic sighs are surely suppressed), mais non, the Cabaret bar does not carry Jagermeister.

The next day, to purge the fancy restaurant from their systems, the boys insist on lunch at American Dream, the closest Parisian equivalent to a T.G.I. Friday's. There are nachos and burgers and chicken nuggets on the menu, and on the wall, presumably to signify America, a stuffed bison head, a collection of trumpets and a neon sign that says jazz! It is a working lunch. Bair shows up with a number of business propositions: $20,000 for a song on the Catwoman soundtrack? Yes! $75,000 to play a party the night before the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Houston? Ditto. $40,000 for the use of "The Reason" in commercials for another movie, The Notebook? Nah, too low; it'll cheapen the track.

Bair then floats the idea of shooting two videos for the band's next single, "Same Direction." Estrin had wanted to shoot a sequel to the video for "The Reason," an oddly serious clip involving the band pulling a jewelry heist.

"I just heard through the grapevine that LA wasn't thrilled with the last video," Bair says. He's referring to Island Def Jam Music Group president Antonio "LA" Reid. "You know he has more of a TRL pop sensibility. And don't worry, he's not trying to make you into Avril Lavigne. It's just, if we do one version that's your concept and one for LA, it'll make him feel like he's part of the team."

"Well, then, which one would we use?" Estrin asks.

"Whichever's better," Bair says.

"Because I don't want to make a fucking video for LA Reid," Estrin says.

No one else in the band seems particularly worked up, though, and the meeting is shortly adjourned.

At Cabaret, Bair speaks to me about the band's appeal. "Now, with alternative radio getting alternative again, all those new-metal bands are having a hard time," he points out, then smiles. "We're like vanilla. We just write good songs. I don't want to compare us to Creed, but it's like meat-and-potatoes music. Nobody will admit to being a Creed fan, but, dude, they sold 5 million records. Somebody likes Creed. Sometimes people just want to hear a melody and lyrics they can understand."

Estrin, who is sitting on the other side of the table, chimes in, "We're not a credible band. That's why we sell records."

"But I don't think you guys are hated," Bair argues.

"I disagree," Estrin says. "We have our fans, but the industry and the critics have never taken us seriously, because we didn't come out and reinvent the wheel. There's a lot of 'Oh, Hoobastank, a faceless band. How does it feel to be faceless? The most faceless band of 2004.' It's embarrassing how hard they're searching for something to save rock & roll. And then a band like Jet -- I mean, I didn't read their reviews, but I'm sure they were good. And they're not doing anything new.

"I'm not saying I'm bummed people don't take us credibly," he continues, then shrugs. "I mean, I would love for people to say, 'Oh, they're fucking killer.' But we've been completely honest from day one. We never said we were gonna save rock & roll."