“I’m shoo shoo shakin’, sh-shakin’, I’m shoo shoo shakin’, sh-shakin’,” Robert Schwartzman sings, flicking his brown bangs while he leans into the microphone. He and his bandmates rock out in a packed L.A. club, upstaging the soap opera they were hired to soundtrack with their super-catchy single “I’m Shakin’” and model-quality looks. Krimp-haired Mischa Barton and a clearly-older-than-a-freshman-in-high-school-but-hey-it’s-Hollywood Benjamin McKenzie make out, and then there’s some sort of argument, but only the most diehard O.C. fans pay attention to the soap opera unfolding.

Rooney was the first band to appear on the WB nighttime soap The O.C., setting the stage for other bands including the Killers, all of whom saw a huge increase in sales after appearing on the show. Sales of Rooney’s debut record, Rooney, shot up 200 percent after the episode aired. It affected music in television in general, beginning the trend of shows putting out mixtapes and seeking strong indie talent to share with their fanbase. Rolling Stone actually commented that the soundtrack was the reason people kept watching the show.

Since 2004, power pop band Rooney has released Calling the World in 2007, the four-track EP Wild One in 2009, and Eureka in 2010, and it plays Republic Monday night. The band devoted three years of work to Calling the World and created several albums worth of music that was mostly scrapped. This was frustrating for the bandmembers, especially because the material was thrown out due to the label constantly shuffling Rooney’s producers, each of which had their own idea of what Rooney’s next hit should sound like. In the relentless quest for a hit, the band’s morale dipped. Geffen/Interscope got an international hit single, the spunky “Where Did Your Heart Go Missing”, but lost the band.

“As far as our independence goes, that’s a huge part of our story,” says drummer Ned Brower. “But for me, I don’t think it affects it all that much. The thing that’s interesting is that you have to really get out there and work for yourself because nobody’s going to do it for you. But we’ve always kind of had that mentality, certainly with making the albums.”

Lead singer and guitarist Robert Schwartzman, keyboard player/vocalist Louie Stephens, guitarist/vocalist Taylor Locke, and Brower have been together since high school. They built a strong fanbase in L.A., self-producing a number of EPs, before Rooney. Schwartzman briefly attended NYU in 2001, but returned after just one semester to rejoin Rooney, and they’ve played for the past 9 years.

Rooney was, and remains, a pop band. Eureka exemplifies their commitment to making strong pop songs while exploring different harmonies, chords and rhythms. Rooney’s songs don’t all sound the same, but they haven’t strayed from the traditional pop format of verse-chorus-verse-chorus. Brower points out, “All our songs are fairly concise. Even when they have different components and parts, they’re three to four minutes.” For your ADD-riddled writer, brevity is a major reason why I like Rooney: I never have to press “next” halfway through a Rooney song.

Another impressive thing about Eureka is the different inspirations the band draws from. They listen to everyone from Nirvana to Tom Petty to the Beatles like most people who enjoy good music, no matter what genre a record company labels it. “I think part of the fun of being in Rooney is that we have really good musicians with eclectic tastes,” says Brower. “There are bands where every song sounds the same, and we’re definitely not that kind of band.”

Even the bands they have toured with are wide-ranging. They often headline, but they’ve also opened for the Jonas Brothers, Kelly Clarkson, Weezer, The Strokes, Tally Hall, The All-American Rejects, and The Academy Is…, and will tour with Hanson later this summer.

What is unusual is that Eureka reflects everything from ’50s pop (“The Hunch” begins like something out of Grease) to Tom Petty (“You’re What I’m Looking For,” scribbled after Schwartzman watched the Petty documentary Running Down a Dream). One of the best tracks on the record and arguably on any Rooney record is “Not in My House”, a dark, funky song with a heavy rhythm, guitar riffs, and rocking vocals that is unmistakably the same band that sang that catchy, superhappy “I’m Shakin’”. That’s where the occasional Beatles reference comes in—like the Beatles, Rooney reminds you how exciting pop music can be.

On Monday, July 5, Rooney will be at Republic with Young Veins and Black Gold opening.