Ska bands could be considered the Rodney Dangerfields of the music industry. They get no respect. When they're considered at all, they generally have to endure the stereotype of a nudge-nudge-wink-wink novelty act, and are rarely ever taken seriously as commercial or artistic entities.

Less Than Jake can certainly relate to that idea, having seen life on both sides of the corporate musical structure. The skameisters have worked with indies Dill/Asian Man, Fat Wreck Chords, Fueled by Ramen - the label that LTJ drummer Vinnie Fiorello started a dozen years ago with pal John Janick - and a smattering of even smaller labels, and signed major label deals with Capitol and Sire. The band was ultimately dismayed by the amount of input the labels interjected into the creative process and generally underwhelmed by the subsequent amount of label support it received when the albums were done.

"We always kind of did what we wanted but they put you in a corner sometimes and say, "You do this or you're not gonna get this,'" says LTJ saxophonist JR via phone prior to the band's recent Ft. Lauderdale show. "It's hard to take your ball and go home."

As a result, after much debate and speculation, LTJ opted out of its Sire contract last year and began the process of constructing its own indie label, Sleep It Off Records (named for a track on its 2004 B Is For B-Sides album). Since then, LTJ has been mind-bogglingly busy, releasing a series of soundboard MP3s of its live shows, reissuing a trio of its early albums - Goodbye Blue and White, Pezcore, Losers, Kings and Things We Don't Understand, all with additional DVD content - as well as its 2005 DVD, The People's History of Less Than Jake, and writing and recording its new album, GNV FLA. When you throw in the band's normally hectic touring schedule, it's amazing that the Jakes have time for meals and REM sleep.

"It's still overwhelming today," says JR with a laugh. "There's just a lot of work to do on a day-to-day basis. And then you have to play a show. And the show's why we're here and it doesn't seem like work because you're having fun, but as everything else happens during the day, you're like, "Man, I'm getting tired.' There's so much to do and it just seems like there's not enough hours in the day. But it's really satisfying work because it's all toward the common good, which is us. It's kind of crazy and a little overwhelming, but whatever. We live for challenges."

Before the band was ready to unveil GNV FLA (the original designation for the airport in their home base of Gainesville, Florida), it decided to bow with the reissues. Given the fact that this would be the third iteration of some of the titles, the Jakes felt the need to offer something extra.

"We felt like we had to establish the label a little bit before we released the new full- length," says JR. "We figured, "Let's re-release these things and this'll be the last time because it's on our label,' so we added DVDs to each one and had the artwork redone. You've got to give some love to your fans to make it worth it. Why the hell would I want to buy this record that I already bought twice before? We're lucky that we have fans that are diehard and they love to buy the stuff we put out, so we try to make it creative and different. And a lot of that is Vinnie. He's a very smarmy guy, and appreciates packaging and artwork, and it's kind of a lost art because to a lot of kids, music has become just a file on your hard drive, and that's kind of sad."

The initial reissue choices were easy as these were the albums that the Jakes still owned. They continue to negotiate for ownership of the titles that came out on Fat Wreck, Capitol and Sire, and those talks could drag on well into the foreseeable future. Leaving that business to the lawyers, the Jakes are anxious to hit the road in support of GNV FLA, their ninth new album and label debut, an album that has found them largely returning to their pop-punk roots.

"The approach was, "Let's do what we do,'" says JR. "The last couple of records we tried different approaches and had co-writers and had producers and A&R guys dipping their noses and hands in everything and making suggestions and taking the suggestions back. "Horns up, horns down, no horns, vocals....' Whatever. Roger [Manganelli] had some songs and Chris [Demakes] had some songs, Roger worked them up on the Pro Tools rig and Vinnie had great lyrics, so I think the approach was, let's make the best record we can. The end result was we were all happy with it."

The band felt like its work was cut out for it, given the lukewarm fan reaction to In with the Out Crowd, LTJ's last Sire album in 2006. Rejuvenated by its newly independent status and ready to get back to its old ways of working, LTJ cranked out a set of songs that hearkens back to its earliest output.

"The best horn lines we've written as a band," says JR of his personal point of pride on GNV FLA. "We put a lot of time into it. We expanded and tried different things. There's more thought put into it in the overall, but not as much thought put into it, if that makes sense. I don't think we thought about it until it didn't make sense, it just all fell into place. We went back to our old methods and stood by those methods."

With the Jakes moving back to their procedural and musical roots (the band started 16 years ago as a power-pop trio but morphed into a third-wave ska outfit), resulting in a soundtrack that crackles with pop-punk intensity and soars with horn-fueled ska joy, it only makes sense that the lyrical content of GNV FLA deals with the problems and potential of living in Gainesville.

"On a lot of our earlier records, Vinnie would speak lyrically about growing up in New Jersey, and now he's lived in Gainesville for 15 years, so it's about living in Gainesville and what effect it's had on him," says JR. "It's also kind of a full circle. We started out as a small band in the early '90s and 16 years later, we're still together and we're still in Gainesville and we're still doing our own thing. We're doing it ourselves - again. We're not screen-printing pizza boxes in our apartment, but for all intents and purposes, we are screen-printing pizza boxes in our apartment, you know? We're back where we started, except we're older, wiser, definitely uglier - but feeling good."

Although there are downcast subjects and downtrodden characters on GNV FLA, there's still a hopeful quality to the album in general. And even though Less Than Jake has constructed a somewhat conceptual album built around a potentially heavy theme, it's also managed to retain a sense of perspective within that scope.

"I think at this point, the question for us is "Are we still relevant?'" says JR. "That's the drive that keeps us striving to push forward and do more and try to make something exciting and fun, and sound fresh. The music industry these days is really stagnant and a lot of bands really suck, and I could sit here and list them off but that's unfair. Who am I to say? I'm just some shitty sax player in a shittier punk-rock band."

JR says it's not easy to get a record deal these days and the ones who do get signed aren't necessarily the best bands out there.

"I saw a band the other day that looked just like A Flock of Seagulls," he says. "I can't sit here and just be an angry, jaded old man, but we've never been given huge radio or MTV success and people ask me, "Would you have wanted it?' Maybe, but probably not. It's part of the reason we have a strong work ethic. Chris always says, "We're not a one-hit wonder, we're a 15-year failure.' It's funny but it's true in a cynical way. I'd rather be a "failure' for 15 years than somebody who has one radio hit and then nobody gives a shit. Remember Alien Ant Farm? I don't and neither does anybody else."

Less Than Jake, Goldfinger, Big D and the Kids Table, Suburban Legends: 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 8 at House of Blues, 308 Euclid Ave., 216.241.5555. Tickets: $23 adv, $25 dos.