Phoenix made Americans sit up and listen on "SNL."

Every Phoenix album has offered at least one, and usually two, perfect pop confections, starting with "If I Ever Feel Better" and "Too Young" from 2000's United. But America had not paid much attention until a Saturday Night Live appearance in the spring kick-started Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the French quartet's fourth album. Now they're playing sold-out theaters across the States.

"Before this record we still felt like we were a secret society or something," says vocalist Thomas Mars from a tour bus somewhere between Salt Lake City and Omaha. "Sometimes it's out of control now. When we played in San Francisco, I saw people stage-dive off the balcony. It was really dangerous; it was out of hand."

Phoenix's sultry blue-eyed soul and bright, breezy pop do not seem likely catalysts for stage-diving. Melding percolating rhythms with staccato, crystalline guitars, Mars' sexy, soulful vocals, and effortlessly tuneful melodies that owe something to '70s AM pop, Phoenix is that rare bird: a successful (both artistically and commercially) French rock band, legitimate rivals to their electronic-oriented compatriots in Daft Punk and Air.

"It's funny, because we made this record thinking it was almost commercial suicide in a way. Growing up in Versailles, we learned early that we were different and that if you want to please everyone, you're dead," Mars says.

Instead, they wrote a celebration of the Hungarian classical composer Franz Liszt ("Lisztomania") and a song that alludes to a turn-of-the-century Paris exhibition ("1901"), each irresistibly catchy although lyrically cryptic.

"We were thinking that only hard-core Phoenix fans will like this because it's very obscure and very hermetic," Mars says. "And then something happened: We got exposure. It seems like people like it when you take risks, and they like this kamikaze situation in a way."

They also like sunny, youthful, cheery tunes. Let's skip any kamikaze stage-diving Monday at the Electric Factory, though.