SANTA MONICA, California — Mike Doughty might just have the coolest boss ever.

"He lets me leave work early, lets me steal pens, casual Friday is very casual," Doughty explained. "Dave is a very good boss."

Dave would be Dave Matthews, head of ATO Records. How Doughty went from fronting '90s buzz band Soul Coughing ("Super Bon Bon," "Circles") to signing with Matthews as a solo artist is a long story, but one that interview-friendly Doughty has packaged nicely into a two-minute sound bite.

"The story is Soul Coughing was great, but I wanted to be a singer/songwriter, which was a complete 180 from what Soul Coughing was about," Doughty recalled. "Everyone thought I was out of my mind. I quit the band, got an acoustic guitar, put it in the trunk of a rental car and just hit the road for four years, selling CDs out of the back of a trunk. Nobody thought I could make it as a solo artist, so I just pounded the highway, driving myself, doing my own books, the business stuff. It was square one, going from Soul Coughing, which was buses and videos and on the radio, to complete underground. And I had a great time doing it. I felt cleansed. I was my own man on every level. I was a traveling troubadour."

After awhile, though, Doughty got the urge to get his music out to more people (see "Former Soul Coughing Singer Considers Selling His Soul"). ATO immediately came to mind. "It's where the indie rock, jam bands and singer/songwriters meet, and that's basically Mike Doughty country," he said.

Doughty knew Matthews from touring together years ago and decided to approach him backstage at Bonnaroo. He brought along an EP he self-released, but it turned out Matthews already had a copy and loved it. "He walked offstage after playing to 80,000 people and goes, 'You're a genius,' " Doughty marveled.

Not only did Matthews want to sign him, he wanted to do a duet. The result, "Tremendous Brunettes," is a highlight of Doughty's Haughty Melodic, released last month.

"The funny thing is, he's perceived as super mainstream guy, and I'm perceived as super avant-garde guy, and yet friends of mine heard the album and couldn't tell the two of us apart," Doughty said.

While Matthews makes an appearance, Doughty entrusted production duties for Haughty Melodic to the frontman of another '90s buzz band, Semisonic's Dan Wilson.

"He had a super, super gigantic hit single, and I had kind of a hit single-ish," Doughty joked of their differences. "And he's coming from a Beatles place, where he's about changing the chords and these different textures. And the music I grew up trying to emulate was hip-hop from the early '90s. There's one chord progression for five minutes, and I have no problem with that. But we just meshed and it was fascinating."

Together, the two created an infectiously rhythmic pop-rock sound to sharply contrast with Doughty's dark lyrics. Thematically, Haughty Melodic is about recovering from a drug addiction and a bad breakup.

"A girl is much harder than the drugs, because you can always bump into the girl in the street or call her," Doughty said. "The first line of the record is 'That Cuban girl that brought me low,' and that's basically what the album is about. And the last line on [final track] 'Your Misfortune' is 'Stand in the light' repeated over and over again. So it's about getting your life together."

The opening track, "Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well," is the first single and a favorite of influential L.A. radio station KCRW-FM. Other standouts include "I Hear the Bells," on which Doughty memorably sings, "You snooze, you loose/ I snossed and lost" ("I'm proud of that one — Lil' Kim could use it in a song just like she did 'Super Bon Bon' "), "White Lexus" ("Maybe it will end up in a Lexus commercial, but it's a song about a drug dealer or death, depending on who you ask, so maybe it's not in their demographic") and live favorite "Busting up a Starbucks."

"It's not an anti-Starbucks song," Doughty explained. "It comes from seeing a photo of the riots of Seattle in 1999 and this kid kicking through a Starbucks window wearing a Nike. And I'm like, 'You've got to be kidding me.' The song is about rage. People focus this rage against consumerist culture, and it isn't the worst idea in the world, but there's so much more creative, productive stuff you can do with that energy."

Now that Doughty has a record deal, he's touring with a van and even a sound guy, but he's still low-key and proud of it.

"Haughty Melodic debuted at #175, and it doesn't sound like a lot, but to me it's very, very hip," Doughty said with a smile. "For one thing, #176, the band we beat that week, was Creed. They may have sold 30 million more records than me, but that week I beat 'em."